On to the next chapter …

If you’re new to je parle américain, you may not have noticed it, but if you’re a long-term fan, you’ve certainly remarked that the presses seem to have shut down recently. As a matter of fact, the last article appearing on the blog was published almost six months ago! That’s a pretty long hiatus, I’ll admit. There was a time not too long ago when I would have been anxiety-ridden if I’d let just one week go by without publishing something new for my readers. Why the big change? Well, I’ve “blamed” the recent creative drought primarily on my job as an English teacher, which I started in January. “The demands on my time are just too great … I don’t have those long periods of time anymore to really delve into a subject like I used to … I’m just too tired to write after getting home from work.”

All of those statements are true … as is the simple, old adage that all good things must come to an end. I created je parle américain way back in the summer of 2011, when I really needed a creative outlet as an antidote to the mild depression I was suffering during my first year as an expatriate. The blog very quickly took on a life of its own, though, evolving into a pretty sizable repository of my musings about anything and everything from expat life to political activism to Franco-American history to English etymology. With almost 250 published articles over last three years, je parle américain has had a very good run. At this point, though, I think the blog has essentially “lived its life” and it’s time that I move on.

“But move on to what?” you ask. Well, this doesn’t mean that je parle américain will cease to exist. To the contrary, it’s actually going to evolve into something completely different: a website for my very own English-language instruction “business.” That means there won’t be a lot of fascinating or entertaining new articles for you to read on a regular basis but, from time to time, I will certainly publish a few articles that are of particular linguistic or pedagogic interest. Obviously, many of you will lose interest in je parle américain altogether as a result of this change; others of you, though, will hopefully decide to accompany me on this new journey.

The timing and details of this transformation are a bit fuzzy. I will need to undertake some administrative steps before anything becomes official but, in the meantime, the face of je parle américain will change. Most of the articles I’ve already written will still be available in a special section of the website, however, so if you ever want to take a stroll down memory lane, that side of je parle américain will be here for you.

Thanks for your support and readership over the last three and a half years.

Now, on to the next chapter …

© 2014 Samuel Michael Bell, all rights reserved