Is this thing on? Tap, tap, tap.

It’s great to be able to move from the peanut gallery of commenters to a “contributing” position with In Shaw. However, I still believe I’m the peanut gallery.

As a recent commenter on the “The State of the In Shaw blog” post has indicated, this blog and TruxtonCircle.org were also factors in my decision to move to the area. I felt that of all the areas of DC that were currently in transition, the community here was unique, was relatively well organized, had similar values and were committed to improving the area. That is not to say that other areas don’t share some of those qualities… I just felt that if I was putting roots down in a transitional part of the city, this is where I wanted to do it for a large number of reasons. This blog in particular also helped me understand some of the issues to the area before moving in and I realized that none were so great that a little time and community involvement couldn’t overcome them. Since being here I’ve really come to appreciate how the blog accurately reflects life in Eastern Shaw and that it accurately reflects the community building efforts of this part of DC.

It’s true that Eastern Shaw is full of quirks and, often, humorous situations. But there are also issues that are citywide problems that still need to be addressed. I’m convinced the blog helps the community come together around those problems by fostering discussions and promoting awareness. There will obviously be disagreements on many of the major issues and that’s just fine—let’s just have the conversations.

There are a lot of exciting things happening in Eastern Shaw, along North Capitol St., Bloomingdale, Eckington, and in other surrounding neighborhoods. I believe that the coming years will bring even more positive changes to the area and I look forward to (most of) the coming changes with great hopes.

That’s it for now. I’ll try to post in the future whenever I have something worth sharing. Last but not least, thanks for the microphone, Mari!