The End (and a New Beginning)

It's been about two-and-a-half years since I wrote anything music-related on this blog. When I stopped, it wasn't all of a sudden, but more a realization that I wasn't having as much fun with the blog as I once did. That, and the knowledge that if I was ever going to finish my PhD, I needed to get serious. I was serious about this blog, and serious meant time and energy, which took away from my dissertation writing. And dissertation writing is HARD.

Ouff.

But I finished it, defended it, and graduated just this past June! Awesome! I've continued to go to shows but much, much less so. In fact, the last time I was really out was in late September. Weird/not weird.

Here's the thing: I don't listen to much music at home. I LOVED going out to see live music, but that wasn't because I was obsessed with hearing it. I was never that kid who listened to records on repeat in her bedroom during her angsty teen years. Nope. The closest I got was watching MuchMusic during the 90s, when my younger siblings tuned into Nirvana and then the Seattle alt rock bands.

I started going to shows when I was 27 years old. I'd only been to a handful before that---Shaggy, Christina Aguilera, whoever played that Ottawa U frosh concert in 1997 (?)---and when I jumped in, I committed to it. I was excited to share my experiences with others, hence starting to blog about them, and my weekly listings came out of that same desire. My thinking was, "These shows are awesome! Other people should know about them. I will tell them!" So I did.

Over the years that this blog was active as an archive and chronicle of sorts of the local music scene, my life was pretty good. I wasn't super keen on my dissertation, but the scene was my salvation. Ok, maybe not quite that, but my life changed loads, and for the better. There was so much excitement, so many supportive people, new things to discover, and plain ol' fun to be had and dancing to be done. For that, I say, "Thank you!" Thank you very much, everyone.

Post-PhD Historyjen---Jennifer Polk, IRL---can now be found at FromPhDtoLife.com, my new blog. Join me! Let's keep life awesome.