Well this took a lot longer than I thought. Excited to be back though! When I look back at my first post on this, the renewed mcrotella.com, and see that it was from October 2024 I’ll admit that I feel a tinge of shame, especially when I see that I was airing my dirty laundry about my hosting costs. 2024 was a dark year for me though for a number of reasons, and I was rightfully feeling a little sour. I was legitimately excited to get going here though, and had real intentions of getting this site to be 5 times the site that it’s previous two incarnations ever were. Then I started teaching in the School District of Philadelphia, and teaching consumed my life. Not that I hold anything against my time there. This site just didn’t seem important when I was charged with educating and caring for so many of Philadelphia’s youth. I learned a lot about being a professional and an educator while I was there, and will treasure the time I had with my students and colleagues for the rest of my life.
But I can still make something here as good as I always intended, and I’m still exited to create and share. I gave a little too much of myself as a teacher in the district, and sidelined too much of what made me happy. I still intend to create and educate, but am currently pursuing other avenues of doing so. I still have ideas about returning to the district, but in a way that I can use my expertise and background in the arts and technology more effectively. At the moment, I intend to keep a better balance in my life and move forward.
As part of that balance I’ve already gotten back to a few old projects, began practicing drums in an academic way again, got the band back together, hope to get back on the air on WKDU soon, started some new projects, and have tons of plans for more. This includes some work that I promised some students that I’d make. Hopefully they’ll still see it as I post it here.
Matthew Cyreal Rotella 