Meta-Post

Looking back and reading my past blogs was an entertaining experience. I definitely noticed both changes and common threads in the topics of my posts. There were obvious visual changes as well.

Whereas some of my earliest posts lacked pictures and even titles in some cases, my more recent posts always have a picture and an attempt at a creative title. Not to mention the length of my paragraphs have become shorter. The combination of these changes were undoubtedly an attempt to gain a larger audience. I couldn't help but compare these alterations to those between the different editions of Frederick Douglass' narrative. He adds chapter titles and has shorter paragraphs in his later writing as well. The main reason for this is because we both shared a similar goal of getting as many people as possibly to read our writing.

As for the topics of my posts, I noticed that a good number of them criticize America, something I didn't realize I was doing so frequently. More often than not, my criticism involves comparisons to different countries. In my Stealing Sushi post I claim "Americans tend to draw the line of moral relativism later than other countries." In We're Number One? (the title speaks for itself), I note that the United States is the largest oil consumer and has the highest obesity rate. Even in my Happy Halloween!! post I claim other countries center this holiday more around family and question if we have "gone too far in commercializing Halloween."

At first after revisiting my old posts, I was concerned that I am sending one of those secret messages we talked about earlier in the year. That message being that America is bad country, and I hate living here- none of which are true. In reality, I think America is a great country ("Land of the Free," "Melting Pot," "Land of Opportunity" and all that). Perhaps my criticism is a sort of a tough love for the country because I know we can do better.