So Long....

Hello again.

It's been rather quiet around here for the past while. Recent developments have made it more difficult to maintain a blog and give it the attention it needs, thus Pixar Corner fell into an unscheduled hiatus for the past year. I have been inactive on social media this year as well, so as to dedicate more time towards tending to other aspects of my life.

I don't want to leave this site collecting dust when I know I can no longer take care of it as well as I used to. As such, I have made the decision to close the book on Pixar Corner. However, I'm not about to go without first reminiscing and showing a bit of gratitude. So apologies in advance, I may get rather sentimental.

This blog has been an adventure beyond my wildest dreams, surpassing anything I could have ever imagined when I first started, and I mean that quite sincerely. When I began doing this in 2010, I was an eager and excitable 11-year-old with no real sense of what journalism or blogging were. My writing was clunky, and yet by some miracle, people embraced what I was doing. I soon started getting comments from people telling me, "Great job!" and "Keep up the good work!" That meant and still means the world to me.

As time went on I continued receive comments, emails, and tweets from fellow Pixar fanatics who appreciated the blog, and it never ceased to blow my mind. This was never a professional news site by any means, just a pastime for a kid who happened to really like Pixar and animation. So the fact that I had people from around the world enjoying my little blog and going out of their way to let me know was surreal, and I am, as the Toy Story Aliens would put it, "eternally grateful." If you ever reached out to me to tell me you liked Pixar Corner and are reading this now, consider this a virtual hug. Or handshake, whichever you're comfortable with.

Another one of my favorite aspects of running this blog was getting to mingle with the minds behind many of the other Pixar blogs on the web. Where in other cases news sites of similar subject matter may regard each other as rivals and sworn enemies, the Pixar blog community is by far the friendliest group of individuals I have ever encountered on the internet. Despite being the new kid on the block (and literally being a kid, when the rest of the bloggers were adults), I was never treated like I was lesser. My interactions with fellow bloggers were never anything but delightful, and I am grateful to all of them for being so welcoming and supportive every step of the way.

A year into my blogging journey, the unimaginable continued to occur. In May of 2011 I was invited to tour the Pixar studios in Emeryville, California. Yeah, it's as ridiculous as it sounds. I was twelve years old at the time and felt like I had just been handed the Holy Grail. Looking back, it's even more mind-boggling now. I had grown up admiring the studio from afar, watching behind-the-scenes material on the films' DVDs and dreaming about how great it would be to visit the place where the magic happens. Needless to say, walking through those doors and into the studio atrium was unlike anything I have ever experienced, and a moment I will never forget.

Two years later, I was blessed with the opportunity to tour Pixar Canada in Vancouver, before it sadly closed its doors a few months later. That visit was every bit as fulfilling as Emeryville. The people I met there were unbelievably warm and encouraging, giving me inside looks at how the films are made and even telling me they liked my blog. There I was, standing amidst artists who I look up to and whose work I love, and they were complimenting me on something I had done. I've gone on and on about it time and again, but it was surreal, to say the least.

I'd like to give a sincere thank you to Pixar publicist Chris Wiggum for graciously supporting the blog and showing me around the studio all those years ago. A heartfelt thank you also goes out to Pixar Canada's General Manager/Vice President until its closing, Amir Nasrabadi, who helped make my studio visits happen and was incredibly kind and supportive as well. Thank you, Chris and Amir, for making a wide-eyed kid's dreams come true.

A big thank you goes out to Paul Robin as well, who designed the Pixar Corner logo and header, as well as several delightfully clever seasonal headers, which you can still view under the "seasonal headers" section of the site. Thank you for sprucing up this blog with your creativity, Paul.

On that note, I guess I'll wrap this up. It's bittersweet writing this, but I am so very thankful for all the opportunities this blog has brought about in the past seven years, and the people I have encountered because of it. I realized a childhood dream, improved my writing, and even met my best friend in the world, all thanks to a silly little Pixar blog. Thank you to everyone who ever stopped by and to all those who supported me along the way.

So long, partners.