Autumn is in full swing here in New Home 2.0. Our temperatures have dropped from the mid to even high 90's to the mid-80's or even the 70's. At least twice this month, we have had rain - interestingly enough, both times on a Sunday.
I am hoping that the leaves around us catch up soon. Having the ability to look forward to an actual Autumn with actual colour is exciting.
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Nighean Gheal has returned from South Korea.
It has been a little over a full year since she left to teach English there. As the year mark approached, she had three choices: remain in the school where she was, resubmit to the program (so no application process, but no guarantee of which city she would end up in; previous teachers do not have seniority in the program), or come home. Although she quite enjoyed her students (especially the second semester), she decided to come back.
She spent two weeks or so with us in New Home 2.0 before heading back to New Home, where she is thinking about what her options are and where her next adventure will be.
We are glad she is back.
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It is hard to believe that it has been a year and a half since we moved here to New Home 2.0. It seems like both a long time and not very long at all.
The apartment location still works fine, but The Ravishing Mrs. TB is starting to notice "features" about it, mostly the fact that the appliances are about as cheap as they come and not terribly convenient. I am not quite in a position to declare that we are more actively thinking about a more permanent location, but I can see a situation where we are not here more than another year.
Which is fine. This location has worked out fine for work and getting to know the area, but I really would like something with a bit more privacy (and a garden).
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In what I consider one of the strangest things ever, somehow I had edged up to almost 400,000 page views this month. For perspective, that is 15% of all the hits I have ever gotten.
Most of the traffic seems to be from the U.S., but given the limitations of the tracking, I cannot fully believe that those are actual people (I know what I write like). At best it is bots and spammers, at worst I have managed to attract the attention of some sort of agency or another.
To whoever it is driving those numbers, welcome.
I think Google did something with the algorithm as starting around the first of September, everything on my blog spiked dramatically too and I've read lots of others seeing the same thing. I have written it off as they are now tracking bots designed to archive your page and not actually interested humans.
ReplyDeleteHaving lived in apartments for well over a decade, I can say with much confidence that I couldn't go back to doing so easily, at least not for awhile yet.
Ed, the spike seems to have stopped with October. Not really sure what they hoped to accomplish.
DeleteThe apartment continues to work well for now, but it is not a long term solution.
Good to have the offspring back home in the States, a year long period living in another country is a valuable experience. As a page visitor here TB I can assure you that I'm NOT a bot, at least not yet though some mornings it takes awhile to boot up......:)
ReplyDeleteNylon12, it is a valuable experience but I am glad she is back if for no other reason than the state of the world right now - it s a 4 hour direct flight instead of a 9-11 hours indirect.
DeleteIf you are bot, someone definitely spent a great deal on your code for its originality of thought.
I have experienced a jump in numbers too. I don't know how it benefits anyone to do that, but it does seem inauthentic.
ReplyDeleteSandi, I really think that it is artificial. My actual "read" seems to be higher for some posts, but that might be expected with sharing - but not the numbers I saw.
Deletei asked chatgpt for a summary of your blog.
ReplyDeleteyour secret admirer
S_A - I did that very exercise in April. The description it returned was amusing, if nothing else: https://thefortyfive.blogspot.com/2025/04/an-amusing-interweb-search.html
DeleteTry taking some traffic slices for 24 hour periods.
ReplyDeleteMy blog is getting a lot of hits from universities. I suspect they are using Blogger platform content to teach students how to write software to vacuum the web and populate AI programs.
Anon - I have done that as well. I seemed (past tense) to be getting most hits from within the U.S. but from odd websites, including some "commercial" ones. Either they are almost spam, or I am indeed being vacuumed.
DeletePast tense, being that the traffic collapse considerably in October to more believable levels.