The Future of Democracy Fan

I've enjoyed our month together, I really have. This blog started as a project to keep me from the jaws of leisure, and in that it's succeeded admirably: it's only since I let it slide, this week, that I've become bored of games and started getting angry about racist Facebook status updates- both issues that are, to put it as charitably as possible, first-world problems.

The reason I've been letting it slide is that I have, in fact, secured new employment. As is often the case, this is going to seriously cut down on the time I can spend reading internet expat papers from Izmir or Faro. On the other hand, it doesn't mean that I'm shutting down the blog, for these reasons:

1. Long commute. There are only so many puzzles I can do, and I may as well retrospectively justify the purchase of my netbook.
2. The blog came up in my job interview, and seemed to count in my credit. Why? Because the company has a stake in Turkey, and they seemed to be impressed when I was able to join in with talk of EU harmonisation and crazy projects.
3. That international portfolio means I might be spending some weekends in Bulgaria, Kenya or China (or at least looking at spreadsheets from there). It seems stupid not to read about the travails of their prime minister if I'm going to see the newspaper headlines in person.

There are likely to be changes. For one, I'm not going to have two-and-a-half-thousand words with pictures and supporting links each week. The pace is more likely to come down to one long post, or more likely two short ones, per week. I am going to try to keep up with at least something on the main blog every week.

Secondly, if I do end up downloading data from Mazovia or Bahia, I'll probably write about it even if they don't have an election coming up. That is, the focus might shift slightly from cup finals to league games. I will still try to crack open and peek inside any races that make the news, but with only a handfull of posts a month I'm not going to spend time on the procedural argy-bargy (unless it's super-ridiculous, of course).

Tomorrow is my first day in the office, so I might not get much done right away; rest assured, though, that I've stocked my netbook with reading for the train, and my iPod with the jazz music of King Rama IX.