Narcissism in 2012

McKayla is probably not impressed by this post either

Time for ye olde year in review in Spew.

The posts that got the most hits here in 2012 (unless something changes in the next ten days or so) have been:

1. Self-Hating Political Scientist, where I was most critical of someone on the left for lining up with the folks on the right to oppose US funding of political science.
2. Hogwarts Houses: a post I wrote in 2009 that still gets heaps of hits (probably the briefest of hits because of Harry Potter fans ending up in the wrong place)
3. Game of Thrones and US politics--just a widely distributed picture.  My only post in the top twenty that has zero Steve added.
4. Going Old School, ranking of Star Wars, from 2010, showing that Star Wars is almost as good google bait as Harry Potter.
5. Present and Future of IR: I entered a debate about the future of my field, and was relatively optimistic.
6. Not Alone in Narcissism: I talk about a bunch of survey work done by the TRIP project at William and Mary.  Little did I know that I would be sucked into the vortex of navel-gazing!
7. School's Out, Let's Talk about School: about whether one should go to grad school, even a policy school.  I entered a debate on twitter about this stuff.
8. Meme This-- a deadlink!
9. Most Important Question of Our Time: The classic would you rather fight 100 duck-size horses or one horse sized duck?
10. Politicology, No Thanks.  An extension of post numero uno.
11. Back to the Past: Montreal student strike goes on a tangent when satirists invoke Mao.
12. When It's Time to Change--a 2011 post announcing my move to Carleton and Ottawa.
13. Sex or Gender--pondering sexual harassment in academia.
14. Purposes of Comprehensive Exams.  Apparently a lot folks care about comps?!
15. APSA Boycott.  Overcome by events.  Best example of how writing blogposts can change my mind.  Started out as a justification for attending but became reasoning for why I was not attending.
16. Guide to ISA in Montreal (another old post)
17. Wuffle's Law--that any new ranking will improve the status of the institution of person recommending the new ranking
18. Guide to SD ISA
19. Rules for Writing CVs: combined narcissism with public service!
20. Decision Time, Phd Style: Link to a Duck piece on deciding on grad schools.

What unifies these posts?  As it turns out, writing about my profession seems to get some attention (1, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20).  Pop culture references lead to probably a heap of mistaken hits that continue to occur.  I was sorry to not see two of my favorite posts (here and here) using the Avengers movie to spew about IR rank highly.

Anyhow, it is has been a fun blogging year, even if my output at the Spew has declined a good bit.

I hope you and yours have had a great year.  I have been very lucky this year--a great trip to Orlando, a pretty painless move to a great place, Princeton University Press is going to publish the much mentioned NATO and Afghanistan book, I am only six months behind on my next book project, and as this post hits, I will be flying someplace warmer than Ottawa.

I hope you have the very best winterfest and a happy new year!