Hello, my dears. Welcome back to my blog. My post yesterday was my first post in nine months. I haven’t posted on this blog regularly for over a year now. Did you miss me? Perhaps not… But I’ve missed you. Or at least I’ve missed writing being a regular thing in my life. It’s a bit embarrassing to tell people that blogging is your favourite hobby when you haven’t as much as logged into WordPress in months. And it’s a bit dismal to think of oneself as a writer knowing that your writing abilities are probably deteriorating from months of non-use.
The reasons for my absence are varied. First of all, I’m lazy. Just lazy. Let’s say “lethargic”. Lack of motivation and energy is always something I’ve struggled with, as the veritable trail of abandoned projects I’ve left behind is testament. For a long time I just haven’t felt like putting fingers to keys and typing out blog posts on the regular. So I didn’t. But it’s not all bad — I may not be very good at starting things when I don’t feel like doing them, but when I do start things, even things I really don’t want to do (like tedious assignments), I absorb myself in the work and become highly focussed until I’ve completed the project to a standard I’m happy with (and I have fairly high standards for myself). It’s just getting started in the first place that’s the problem — and I’m working on the laziness thing.
Secondly, for the first six months of this year I was actually studying abroad in London. I was undertaking an exchange semester at City, University of London, and managed to fit in a lot of sightseeing and travelling over those six months. It was an absolutely unforgettable experience, and I’ve no hesitation in saying it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s changed me in ways I never expected. One might have thought that it was the perfect opportunity to get back into blogging — to write about my experiences and my travels! I agree, which is why I rather regret not even keeping a journal to record my memories and experiences for my older self to reminisce over (I have plenty of photos, though). But I slid into a very different lifestyle and routine to what I was used to at home, and it was difficult, at the time, to see how blogging consistently could fit into my new life. Oh well.
Thirdly, this is, at least nominally, a Doctor Who blog, and I haven’t really been all that interested in what’s been happening in the Doctor Who world since Jodie Whittaker was announced as the Thirteenth Doctor. I didn’t hide the fact that I was disappointed by the casting of a female actress as the Doctor (not to make any aspersions about Jodie herself, who is wonderful), and as a result I just haven’t been very excited about Series 11. I haven’t been paying rapt attention to the Series 11 news like I have in the lead-up to previous new seasons, although this was partly due to my attention being distracted while I was living abroad from the things it’s normally directed at. Of course I’m going to watch Series 11 with interest — I want Series 11 to be good — but at this point I’m still trying to make peace with the fact that the Doctor is now a Time Lady.
On the subject of Doctor Who, my return to this blog will come with a smaller volume of Doctor Who content than in the past. This blog has never been an exclusively Doctor Who themed blog, but Doctor Who has always been the focus of this blog. I was finding it difficult to think of new ideas for Who-related posts all the time, which is why I posted significantly less last year than the year before. This blog will remain a blog that blogs about Doctor Who, but it will be a blog that blogs about a lot of other things in addition. Because there’s a lot more than Doctor Who that I want to write about. Other fandoms, other topics in the world of culture, other things I’m interested in that I think others might be interested in…
I conceive the regenerated gallifreyan ramblings (we’ve gone lower case aesthetic now) as a broad culture and interest blog with a special interest in Doctor Who and fandoms, if that makes any sense. My last post might give you an idea of the kind of content you might expect on this blog in the future. Maybe I’ll even finally be confident enough to start sharing more of my life and write more personal posts. But I’m hesitant to set out a full, detailed prospectus for this blog at this stage. I just want to experiment to see what works and what I like doing.
So Doctor Who will still be a special interest of this blog. I’m still going to review Series 11, engage in speculation, keep up with the news, ridicule fan theories and have a stab at figuring out characters’ MBTI types. I’m even thinking about rewatching the classic series from the beginning and reviewing Classic Who story by story, as I did with New Who (probably more slowly than the marathon of New Who reviews I churned out nearly every day over four months in 2016, which nearly destroyed me and made me never want to write another review again).
Other than Who, though, there’s lots I want to write about, because there’s lots of things I’m interested in. I’m a member of a multitude of different fandoms, and I’m always watching new shows and films. I even read a book occasionally. I like music, psychology, linguistics, travel, history, law, journalism, philosophy, religion, social sciences, technology, sport, fashion, photography. In addition, one of my biggest interests is politics and current affairs, but, to keep things clean, there will be no politics on this blog. I want to start another blog for all of that, actually, which I will link to once I’ve got it up and running — if anyone’s interested.
So that’s that. I think I will end by, finally, introducing myself properly. I think it’s about time, and it seems an appropriate place to do it. My name is Nick — my initials aren’t actually PJ, I just use them as a pseudonym because I like the way “PJ” sounds. Feel free to keep calling me PJ if you want, though. I’m 23 years old and I’m a student in my final year of my Law and Journalism degrees at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Like many people my age, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life yet, but I’m going to finish my degree and hope for the best. My interests include blogging, watching Doctor Who, and blogging about Doctor Who. My favourite film is Inception, my favourite book is the Harry Potter series (specifically Prisoner of Azkaban), and my favourite TV show is, you guessed it, Doctor Who. My taste in music changes every six months, but at the moment I’m really into indie pop artists like Clairo and Cuco. I follow the Australian cricket team devotedly. I’m a Hufflepuff and an INTP. The most important things in the world to me are love, fulfilment and happiness.
And here’s a picture of yours truly, edited on Instagram I’m afraid, from my second last day in my favourite city in the world (hint: it’s not New York City):
gallifreyan ramblings 