Jedi by Knight

It’s hard to believe I’ve been blogging for six years this month.  I don’t plan on stopping any time soon!  My blog is never going to be huge and famous, but it is exactly what I intended: a way to practice my writing and express my thoughts on various nerdy topics.  Along the way, it also turned into a way to connect with other nerdy people and have great nerdy discussions.

I thought it would be fun to look back over what I’ve written in six years, so I went through all my blog post and pick my favorite from each year.  These aren’t necessarily the best or most popular posts, just the ones I had the most fun writing or were the most meaningful to me.

Year One

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon

Honestly, most of what I wrote on this blog in my first year was crap.  I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I didn’t really care about attracting readers; I was just putting words to screen.  And that’s fine, it just doesn’t make for compelling reading.

This is one of the first posts I did that’s actually interesting to read: it gives a bit of original analysis on the manga of Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, but with a personal touch.  Plus, it has some images, which immediately makes it more readable.

Year Two

Fall leaf identification

I love sharing “everyday” science, and what is more everyday than leaves?  If I had unlimited time and coding skills, I would write an app to let people identify trees by answering simple questions about its characteristics.  As with most of my favorite posts, I learned some new stuff I hadn’t known before while writing this.  I also really enjoyed taking pictures of the leaves.

Year Three

Birthday Jungle

Here is a post that combines two of my favorite things: zoology and baked goods.  My mom made adorable jungle animal cupcakes for my birthday, so of course I had to go and analyze how similar the cupcake animals were to the real things.  I had fun doing the research, and also eating the cupcakes.

Year Four

My Star Wars pilgrimage: Skellig Michael

After seeing the title of my blog, you will not be surprised that I frequently write about Star Wars topics.  In 2015 I took a trip to Ireland with my mother, and one of the highlights was visiting Skellig Michael, which is the setting for Ahch-to, the rugged island where Luke is hiding out in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.  I even got to meet the real-life porgs (the puffins that inhabit the island by the hundreds).

But the journey to Skellig Michael was not easy; this post chronicles my personal experience of the visit.  It was special to me in many ways, and hence the post is special to me, too.

Year Five

Ok, I couldn’t pick just one favorite from this year, so we have two:

Fan Art Friday: More Star Wars Coloring Book!

This post has one of my favorite coloring book pictures I’ve done, a kind of art nouveau Leia on Tattooine.  But even more importantly, this is also the post that gave birth to the monthly Fan Art Friday that I share with Kiri at Star Wars Anonymous.  Every month we color the same picture in our Star Wars coloring book and compare our results.  Over a year and half later and we’re still going; it’s so much fun!

The Lunar Chronicles/Sailor Senshi team

This post occupied my brain at work for days while I was writing it.  It combines two wonderful franchises: The Lunar Chronicles (beginning with Cinder) by Marissa Meyer, and the anime/manga Sailor Moon that helped inspire it.  I had started to see some similarities in the cast of characters, and once my brain got a hold of that it wouldn’t let go until I had matched all the Lunar girls up with their anime counterparts.  I also really like the look of this post, with all the fun images of the Sailor Senshi.

Year Six

My Top 5 Versions of Cinderella

Fairy tale retellings are another of my obsessions, and this year I did posts with my favorite versions of Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella.  These posts were super fun to write because I got to talk about some of my favorite books and movies, both popular and lesser known.  I also got great interaction from the blogging community with some likes and comments which is always great.  To me, that’s definitely one sign of a great post!

Which year’s is your favorite?  Here’s to more years of fun blog posts!