I’ve been thinking lately about how much can happen when you just keep showing up. Not in any dramatic way, just consistently, month after month.
A year ago I started this website and newsletter without really knowing where it would lead. I knew I needed to create something, needed that sense of agency when a lot feels out of our control these days. So much of the internet has become this corporate, tracked, optimized thing, and I wanted to build a small corner that felt different. Friends started asking what I thought about AI because I’ve been into it for years and now it’s everywhere. I needed to think it through. Maybe writing it all down would help.
So I started. Twice a month, a post. Once a month, a newsletter to people I care about.
Now it’s been a year. Twenty-seven articles. Twelve newsletters. Something like 35,000 words that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Wow. I didn’t set out to write a book’s worth of material. I just kept showing up.
What surprised me most was how the work found its own shape. AI kept pulling me back, not because I planned to be “the AI person,” but because I discovered things worth exploring there. Building Babbleborg with my students, wrestling with the ethics, and watching young people use it in unexpected ways were all worth writing about. The work I was interested in seemed to be about that intersection of technology and education, so that’s what it became.
Cambodia brought me something completely unexpected. Five pieces documenting a trip that changed me. Not travel writing, really. More like completing a circle that started a decade ago when I helped start the Khmer Magic Music Bus from thousands of miles away. Going there, meeting the people, riding on the Bus. Beginning work on resources that matter to them. Those pieces let me write about things I’d rarely touched. Things like cultural exchange, historical trauma, and what it means to show up for work that isn’t about you.
The newsletters became their own thing, too. More personal than the articles. The bus stop on my front lawn, my relationship with winter, that perfect moment when the gas tank is full and the laundry is done and the fridge is stocked. Almost fifty recommendations over the year for things I genuinely love. Updates on music-making even when progress stalled. Reaching out each month like writing to a friend.
I’m grateful for what the practice has given me. That sense of agency I was looking for? I found it. Clarity about AI? It’s there in the work. A sustainable creative outlet? Turns out twice a month is exactly sustainable enough. Space on the small web built my way? It’s all there.
There’s this tension I haven’t resolved, though. I deliberately don’t track metrics. No analytics, no user data, and no engagement optimization. It aligns with everything I believe about the promise of the internet. But it means I create mostly without knowing if anyone’s reading. I’ve explored ways to reach more people. Looked at Medium, thought about platforms. For some reason, I’ve been hesitant to put myself out there more. Perhaps that’s a useful thing to consider in more depth next year.
For now, the work serves the people I can point it to. Colleagues asking about AI can get articles on ethics and classroom practice. The links database keeps growing with every newsletter recommendation. Small steps that compound into something useful.
Writing regularly has made me better at it. Ideas come more naturally now. I’m not trying to sound as much like an expert anymore, as well, from looking at some of my earlier posts. Now I’m just someone sharing what they’ve learned while still figuring plenty out.
What might come next? Well, AI will keep evolving. New agentic capabilities are starting to come online, systems that don’t just respond but take action. The change between “AI as thought partner” and “AI as autonomous agent” could make a big impact. I’ll have plenty to say about that.
My Cambodia work continues. I have some exciting new educational resources coming online next year. Tending this online garden continues, too. Twice monthly posts, monthly newsletters, building this little part of the web that’s mine.
Year two starts soon. More small steps, more showing up, more willingness to see where it leads. That’s been enough so far.
The work reminds me of something I wrote in this month’s newsletter about open loops — all those perpetual tasks that never really finish, like groceries, laundry, and gas. Creating content is another one of those loops. There’s always another post, another newsletter, and another idea worth exploring. But there’s also that rare moment when everything lines up, you look back, and see what accumulated from just showing up consistently.
I’m grateful you’re here reading this. Whether you’ve been following along all year or you’re just finding this now. We’re all figuring it out as we go, and I’m so glad you’re a part of it.