Muted
I surprised myself this past Christmas! Normally I can't spend more than a year with a theme, yet there my website sat, doing nothing new. Technically there's nothing wrong with that, and staying on top of the latest trends is a ton of work. It wasn't the theming or color style that felt out of date though, it was mostly just what my last website was trying to say. It felt like a sales pitch or a resume. Nothing wrong that, looking back, that's definitely where I was last year. I was struggling with decision about my future, and just wanted options. With more options, you can always delay making a real choice, because you can take the easy choice of waiting to see if you have more choices to make!
Right now, I couldn't be farther from that. I'm not in grad school anymore, so using the Academic theme feels a little bit like cheating. It was very pretty, but it didn't click too well for what I wanted to present myself as. I'm not trying to show off my papers or course work anymore. I wish I could show off my research, but that's not going to happen any time soon1. Additionally, my blog has gotten significantly more personal. I guess I just… trust the internet more? In the age of social media, personal unfortunately means opening up the sadder sides of life generally. I try to keep personal to just opening up more emotionally in general - the ups and the downs. Things that might feel too gloating to put on Facebook as well as things that I have too many “friends”2 who restrict me from sharing anything personal. So all that info dump ends up going here.
The result is me looking for a significantly more muted theme. I wanted something that was flat and quiet. A few searches through popular Hugo themes and I find this one! Minimo, by Munif - link on homepage. I'm definitely over the minimalist vibe, but it works here I think. I was trying to find a good analogy for my blog, something like a garden, but it's really more like a succulent. I occasionally tend to it, but I'm always happy of it surviving on it's own! It has a couple colors, it organizes content just fine, it works. I'm going to have to spend a couple hours cleaning up links, but that's fine. It's a small cost for me to be able to comfortably link what I want, where I want, how I want. The separation of personal and tech posts was long over due - glad I was able to finally get that out. Hopefully it won't come at too big a hit to my Google search cred… heh3.
With all that said, welcome to version 4 of the blog. I predict this one lasting at least a year too - maybe the previous Xmas refresh will turn into more of a spring cleaning refresh. I'd be down for that! I would say let me know your thoughts, but I realized the comments were a waste of space before. Feel free to shoot me a {instant message in contact medium of your choice} though.