Who Reads This Blog?

I was looking at the analytics for this blog today, and I noticed some interesting things. It's been a while since I had time to really look in depth at the stats, and things have changed since I did it last. Here are just some interesting facts about who reads this blog, and how they get here, in no particular order.

1. Nearly a third of all traffic last month was direct traffic, meaning people typed my URL into their web browser. This is super interesting to me, because I tend to assume that those views make up a very small portion of my readership.

2. Facebook referrals make up about a quarter of my views, which makes a lot more sense to me. I do a lot of promotion there. If anything, I'm actually surprised that number isn't even larger.

3. Google Plus and deviantART round out my social views with just a few percent each. This shows a big shift, as in the past a large percentage of my views came from Google Plus.

4. About 11% of my views come from search engines (Google and Bing), and of that, a quarter are new visitors, which is a surprising number. I would expect most of the search hits I would get would be from family members and other people specifically looking for my blog.

5. About 8% of my views come from referrals from other blogs. One site I get a lot of referrals from is the blog of a real life friend of mine, and that makes sense, but the other referrals are from a much, much larger blog of a homeschool family in my local area. I'm not actually sure where those views are coming from, but I would suspect they are from a time that I commented on that blog several months ago.

One interesting thing to take away from viewing these stats is that a lot more people read my blog than interact with it. And also, some of these views are far more valuable than others. People who come from social sources tend to stay longer, and view more pages, but direct views are more likely to comment. Search engine views and referrals tend to span short visits with little interaction.

University of Victoria {College Visit Notes}

Welcome to my first college visit post! These are all going to have the same basic format, which some changes for each school to cover it's unique points. This is going to be in the form of a Q&A, with the questions being ones I asked at the school, and the answer being what information I received or gathered on the topic.

What is the living situation for students?

Dorms are guaranteed for first year students, but no one is required to live on campus. Most students live off campus after their first year. Most dorms are single rooms, but there is also cluster housing, where six or eight students share what is basically an apartment. There are also a small number of double rooms.

What travel opportunities are available for students?

There are many foreign exchange options. Also, through the co-op program, students have the ability to gain paid work experience in their field of study, and those opportunities often involve travel all over the world.

All the stuff I got sent home with.

What is the academic focus of the school?

Academically, UVic seems to be a strong school in most fields. They have a strong focus in research, particularly undergrad research, which tends to lead more to a focus in STEM fields, but it does seem like they are strong in many areas.

How are Running Start credits handled?

This was one question I didn't really get a good answer to. I'm not sure how they would handle my RS credits. They did say that if you had 8 or more transferable college courses you were automatically a transfer student, so that might be how that would go.

What is the size of the school?

There are 17,000 undergrads and 3,000 graduate students. A lot bigger than a lot of the colleges on my list. Not necessarily too big, but I wouldn't want to go any bigger.

What is the cost?

$27,000 a year (including room and board). One major issue potentially is the ability to take U.S. scholarships to Canada. Some you can take, others you can't. It's a bit iffy.

What is the town like?

Victoria is a beautiful city. It's one of the safest cities in the world, and I think it would be a great place to live.

I don't have any pics of campus, but this is downtown Victoria.

What is the campus like?

The campus itself is a little confusing, thought I'm sure if I went there I'd find my way around pretty fast. It's a young school (about 50 years old), and that means the campus is in an odd position where it doesn't have any of the beautiful old buildings you see on many campuses, but  it also doesn't have any of the shiny new buildings you see on a lot of campuses. 

How are homeschool applications handled? 

This is another iffy thing. If you homeschool through an "accredited program" it's fine, but if you don't (and I don't), it's trickier. We're currently looking into how this might work.

Interesting Read of the Day: Oliver Sacks on Death

No time for a long post today, but I just wanted to share something I read today. This is an article written by Oliver Sacks after he received a terminal diagnosis a few weeks ago. He has a limited time to live, which is a tragedy in and of itself, considering what a brilliant and important man he is. But really, his attitude on life now, now that it's almost over, is thought provoking. It really makes you think about what's important.

His writing is really moving as well. He has a way with words, and he manages to convey emotion beautifully. His article is a short read, but it is moving. I highly recommend looking at it if you have a few free moments today.

"Oliver Sacks at TED 2009" by Erik Charlton - originally posted to Flickr as Real Awakenings. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Things I Like Right Now {Podcasts and CGP Grey}

Recently, I did a blog post about some blogs I read, and I thought maybe it would be fun to do a similar post, but instead of blogs, it would just be other random stuff I'm into. If you guys like this, maybe I'll try to do these regularly, maybe every month or two.

My big obsession recently has been podcasts. I've been listening to Welcome to Nightvale for almost a year now, and it introduced me to the wide world of podcasts. Radiolab, and This American Life are classics that are favorites of mine, and of course I had to jump on the bandwagon with Serial as well.

Nightvale is definitely my favorite fictional podcast, but of the talk show/educational variety, there is also little competition. Hello Internet is by far my favorite. It's a podcast of the "Two Dudes Talking" style, and if you don't like that, or if you don't like the two dudes (CGP Grey and Brady Haran), you wouldn't like it. It's nerdy, it's educational, it's funny, it's weird, and best of all, there are currently 31 episodes of nearly two hours each, meaning you won't run out too quickly. 

Finding this picture was a dangerous endeavor: I had to do a Google image search for CGP Grey. Grey is anonymous on the web, you never see what he looks like in any of his videos, and while pictures of him aren't that hard to find, I don't want to see them. I just don't.

CGP Grey has long been one of my favorite YouTubers, and since listening to his podcast, he has become one of my very favorite internet people (somewhere up there with Hank Green and Wil Wheaton). I am nowhere near as anal or organized as he is, but is is kind of what I aspire to be. Since listening to him, I've started using a lot of his suggested apps and here are a few that I've come to really like.

1. Overcast. This is a free podcast app that I started using at his suggestion (and the suggestion of a friend of mine who is probably a bigger Hello Internet fan than I am). I haven't been using it very long, but so far I like it. It's a thousand times better than the one that comes on iOS (not that that's very hard), and it's well organized.

2. Anki. This is a flashcard app that I absolutely love. It allows you to create cards and decks, and has many options to personalize how you use it. It's not the prettiest app, but it is very functional. It shuffles your cards for you, and shows them to you at intervals that are optimal for memorization. It can be a bit confusing at first, partly because of it's rather bare bones structure, but if you put some time into getting it how you want it, it's amazing. The desktop app is free to use. You can purchase a mobile app for the hefty sum of $24.99, but I haven't tried that personally (mainly because of the cost), so I can't vouch to it's quality. 

Another random thing not related to podcasts that I love is the webcomic XKCD. I've been a fan of  XKCD for a long time, and I can't believe I've never mentioned it on the blog before. It's funny, it's geeky, it's current, and it's sometimes a little inappropriate, and I highly recommend checking it out. 

On Being an Artist

What makes you an artist?

This is a question I think about a lot. For a long time, I had this idea I could not be an artist cause I don't really like traditional drawing or painting, or sculpting, or any of the things that I usually think of as art. I am a perfectionist, and that makes it really hard for me sometimes to do things like draw. It is never good enough, and the process is so stressful that I just quit. I just can't get past that wall.

But there are many forms of art that aren't just drawing or painting. While I don't usually think of myself as an artist, there are several ways in which I think I could define myself that way.

I am a writer. That is a huge part of who I am. Art is a way of expressing your emotions in a tangible form. Each type of art does it in a slightly different way, but the purpose, in the end, remains the same. Writing, be it poetry or prose, is something you create from nothing. You are a creator, and that makes a writer an artist.

I am a dancer. If you don't think dancers are artists, go watch this video and then come back. Dancing lives on the line between creativity and structure. It allows you to create something new and express whatever it is you want to express, but it gives you sets of boundaries to work within, if you choose to follow the traditional rules. I'm not a great dancer, but I love doing it. Dance, for me, it amazing, because there are specific rules and constraints. Unlike drawing, where anything goes, when I dance, there is one particular thing I'm trying to do, even if I'm not doing it very well yet. And I also know that if I keep working at it, eventually I will get the results I want.

Here is one simple design.

And in a way, I am a visual artist. I love color and the manipulation of it. I love putting colors together and I love creating dynamics with different shades and combinations. The way I often do this is by using coloring books. Yes, coloring books like little kids do. But not ones that you would give to a little kid. The coloring books I work out of are full of complex and often abstract designs that give the person coloring a lot of power.

A design with a lot of white space.

One of my favorites.

Artistry is a mindset. Am I an artist? I've always wanted to say yes, but I felt like an impostor saying that. But what the heck, maybe it's time to gain some self confidence and say yes, I am an artist. Art is something different to everybody. To me, it's a way of expressing yourself. It's something that takes persistence and effort to master, if mastery is even possible. It's a way of thinking.

In what way are you an artist?

Weekend Reviews #26, #27, and #28 {Catch up post}

It's been a while since I did one of these, so here is a bit of a catch up post about the last few weeks.

Jan 26-31

Monday I had a test in my Psych class, volunteered at the library, and went to dance.

Tuesday, I mostly just hung out at home and did homework, and then had ballet in the evening.

Wednesday was school and parkday.

Thursday I taught some Latin, and then did homework for the rest of the day.

Friday, I went to school, and then worked on an essay for my English class about the stuff going on in Ferguson.

Saturday was a pretty boring work day too. I finished the essay, did some reading for my psych class, and worked on math.

Feb 1-7

Sunday I babysat in the morning, then went to a Superbowl party in the afternoon. The party was fun, though I actually watched very little of the game. I did however, play Magic: The Gathering for the first time, and other geeky games as well, such as 7 Wonders.

Monday I had school, volunteered at the library, and went to dance. After the superbowl, the mood of the entire town was so different. It was like the energy was drained from everything.

Tuesday I had a bunch of homework to do, then had ballet in the evening.

Wednesday, my Psychology class was canceled, so I just hung out with people for a few hours until English. Then there was park day, though it was wet and cold, and few of my friends were there, so I went home early.

Thursday, Isabelle and I had dinner with our dad, then I went to an talk on sex trafficking in the Pacific Northwest, which is apparently actually a big issue.

Friday I had school, then we had current affairs at our house. The topic of the week was Net Neutrality.

Saturday, I went to the YA Review Committee meeting, then we went to Bellevue to visit a friend of ours who is in a medical facility there.

Feb 8-14

Sunday I didn't do much. I had homework to do, so I did that, but I wasn't feeling very well, so I didn't do much else.

Monday there was school, and the library. I ended up having dinner at Chipotle with a mom from our homeschool group, and then meeting up with my mom at a college event going on at a local highschool. The event was alright, but probably not worth missing dance for.

Tuesday I did homework and went to ballet.

Wednesday I had a test in Psychology, then went to game day (once a month in the wet/cold season, we have indoor parkdays where people bring board games and card games to play).

Thursday, Isabelle and I went to see the movie The Theory of Everything (about Stephen Hawking) at the community college with our dad. It was an excellent movie, and I'd highly recommend watching it.

Friday, I had school, then went to a game day at a friend's house. They have been doing these "boy game days" for a while now, so I was a little nervous about being the only girl there, but I like playing all the same games as most of the boys (though I'm not all that into Magic, and I don't really like Halo), and no one seemed to care. One person told me that I was filling out the gender ratio for online games and stuff, which is usually 10:1. In the evening, a group of us all went out to dinner and then went to see our friend in a musical version of Romeo and Juliet, which was a lot of fun.

Today, I'm mostly doing some homework, and then I'm babysitting tonight.

There you have it, what I've been up to for the past few weeks.

Blogs I Read

There are, at last count, 71 blogs on my blog reader (I use feedly, in case anyone is interested). Not all of these are active blogs, and there are some that I added in there two years ago that haven't posted since. But there are a lot of great blogs I read every day, and I thought I'd share some of them with you.

Some of these blogs are huge blogs with big followings that I really like, and others are the undiscovered tiny blogs of my internet friends which are still awesome, even if they lack a large audience. I follow a few pretty specific types of blogs, so I'll try to roughly organize them by type.

First, the homeschooling blogs. There are many, many homeschool blogs on the web, and I find them very interesting to read. While I read a lot of them, the ones I'm highlighting here are by families in my local area.

Little Earthling Blog

This is the blog of a homeschooling family with 14 kids, who actually live in my local area. I was in Girl Scouts with several of their kids at one point, and though we don't really know them personally anymore, I enjoy following Renee's blog. She has lots of great photography, and a lot of honest commentary about what it is to raise 14 kids, particularly since several have special needs that have changed their family's life considerably. 

Classically Homeschooling

This is the blog of a homeschooling family that I have known for many, many years. Sara only started blogging pretty recently, and she blogs about all sorts of things related to homeschooling.

Next, some writing blogs. I follow a lot of these, but here are just a few highlights.

Dragons With Typewriters 

This is the blog of a friend of mine, who I have known since I was about 7. His mom actually writes Classically Homeschooling, the blog highlighted above. Ian writes about writing, books, and more. 

The Mind's Elbow

This blog, also written by a mom of one of my friend's from our homeschool group, isn't actually active anymore. It has a great backlog of writing prompts and stories to read, though. 

Now, for some blogs that aren't actually written by people I know. These are kind of miscellaneous blogs about various topics, and are all large, popular websites.

Forever Young Adult

I know I've talked about FYA before on this blog, but it doesn't hurt to say again: I love this website. They have amazing reviews of new young adult books, plus they talk about TV shows, movies, and more. 

Doctor Grumpy in the House

This is a humorous blog written by an anonymous doctor. He tells stories about amusing events in his practice or stories that readers have sent in, and they are pretty hilarious, though they might not appeal to everyone. Unfortunately, the RSS feed on his site hasn't been working for a while, but hopefully he'll be able to take care of that soon.

WIL WHEATON dot NET

This is the blog of the amazing Wil Wheaton: actor, writer, and geek extraordinaire. This is definitely the biggest blog I am linking to today. Wil is really an amazing writer, and his blog is written in a very personal fashion, making it feel like a lot of the smaller blogs I read. He tells a lot of personal stories, talks about his kids and his dogs, and occasionally promotes his work. I highly recommend following him if you are into geek internet culture. 

There you have it, some great blogs you should read. Obviously, I read a lot more blogs than just this, but these are definitely ones I recommend you read too.