Hi! I’m Ali

I started this blog when I was a sophomore in high school. Like every other 16-year-old, it was an awkward time; I had braces, an unfortunate collection of plaid Bermuda shorts, and hadn’t yet realized that I can’t pull off bangs. I played flute and ran cross country, but my obsession was government club, because, as an editor for the press program, I got to brainstorm article ideas, write, and put the newspapers together.

Weekends and summers at government club conferences cultivated a love for journalism, which led to internships, working for several newspapers in the Southeast, and, more importantly, sitting down with my silver HP laptop one Memorial Day weekend and starting this blog.

Squinty eyes, and you can’t really tell, but I have palm leaves on my dress and my earrings are golden palm trees. I was very excited to be coming home.

 

So, some basic biography: I have lived in Tampa Bay my entire life, except for college, when I lived in a city in West Tennessee halfway between Memphis and Nashville, which means “a place where everyone thinks there are mountains, but actually there is nothing to see or do.” I graduated with a double-major in journalism and English and a minor in history (because why settle for overachieving?) and moved back to Tampa Bay, where I now live right next to the stadium of my favorite baseball team (no exaggeration – the stadium parking lot is literally my backyard). At any given time, you can catch me cheering for the Rays, reading Agatha Christie on the beach, ordering mint tea from any of the local coffee shops, or listening to Broadway soundtracks and Irish music while running in one of St. Pete’s beautiful parks. And, of course, blogging.

I’m going to be honest – in the six years since I started this blog, I’ve changed my mind about it a lot. I’m constantly redesigning the aesthetic, adding (and deleting) new sections, and I have been trying to decide if I should change the name since I first typed “A Floating Shift” into the title bar.

But somehow, through the awkward high school years, the overwhelming college years, and now, the young professional years, this blog has survived. And, obviously, so has the name.

What exactly is a floating shift? Long story short, I’m not sure. That’s kind of the point. It could mean almost anything. Life is constantly shifting and I’m learning to float along with it.

You can e-mail me at afloatingshift@gmail.com!