One Year Blog Anniversary :)

Exactly one year ago today, I signed up for this Squarespace blog and bought my domain name: Calc is Life!

The timing of this was no accident - the AP Calculus exam last year was on Monday, May 8. So on Friday, May 5, after my students had gone home, I found myself with some newfound free time to explore different options to host my blog. Blogging about my life as a math teacher was something I had been considering for about a year, but I just never had a chance to get started. My typical day up until that point involved at least an hour of grading along with another hour of planning, prep, and curriculum creation, along with replying to emails. It really is an amazing feeling when you get to the AP exam and finally have some time to pursue other interests in your life that have to take the backburner during the intense parts of the school year.

When I was perusing blog options, I remember debating for a while over whether I should choose WordPress, Blogger, or Squarespace. I knew from my time spent reading other teachers’ blogs that a large percentage of teachers used Blogger or WordPress. I wanted something easy to use but also with options built-in for personalization. I needed a site that looked aesthetically pleasing and somewhat professional, because having a beautiful site was important to me. When I finally decided on Squarespace, the whole idea of needing a domain name and paid hosting was new to me, as was the idea of SEO. I was initially against the idea of paying for a blog, especially since I wasn’t sure if I would follow through and keep up with it, but I also reasoned that if I paid for it up front for a year then I would be more motivated to post regularly.

After going through the process of purchasing a domain name and getting my site live on the web, I spent a week getting the site set up, figuring out the layout, and deciding how many separate pages I would have. I really enjoyed the process and it was satisfying seeing it all come together, although I spent way too much time agonizing over the small details like color scheme, font, and text size.

Here is a photo from my planner of my brainstorming process as I thought of things I wanted to write about. This was a list I added to as things popped into my head:

Here we are in May again, exactly a week before the AP Calculus exam! Cheers to another year of blogging :)