“And on the eighth day, God created a blog…”

After three solid months of spamming your newsfeeds for submissions, now that we're post 9/30, we have finally descended into that murky, ambiguous time we call “reading period,” where our editing staff (affectionately called the Machine) chugs away at all your fine work. We are told that an issue will appear somewhere towards the end of this process, but to be honest, we’re not entirely sure how that's going to happen.

Therefore, we’re starting this blog to find out. Perhaps, in our self-indulgent explorations behind the curtain at Blueshift, we might discover just what exactly happened this first submission period. Or, perhaps, we really just have nothing else to do.

A few questions you might have: what is this thing? Why is it called the Blueg? Well, the second is a bit easier to answer, as seen in a group chat between Janine, Claire, Lily and I:

July 23 3:50

Claire: has the website info been switched on Facebook/twitter?

Janine: Mom

Claire: What

Janine: Mom I want a pony

If this masthead were a family Claire would definitely be Mom

Lily is the cool aunt who flies to Germany but also leaves us with valuable life lessons

Tyler is the patriarchy

If I write our family history can we publish it in Blueshift

Claire: i do want to start a blog for staff

Janine: first post "A Brief Family History of Blueshift"

except when i write it i'm just going to make up things for the people i don't know

is that okay?

i start now

Claire: name for the blog?

Or just "The Blueshift Blog"

Tyler: wait what just happened

We have a blog now??

Claire: janine you do the blog

I’ll start formatting

Janine: fine mom

Lily: Ahhhhh finally a blog!!!

Tyler: guys

Claire: love you

Tyler: guys what is going on

Janine: should we have a segment for interviews?

Claire: yeah definitely

But like

Tyler: why do we

Claire: interviews are for after submission period is over

Tyler: GUYS

Janine: ok

Tyler: GUYS

Claire: what is your problem

Tyler: WHY DO WE HAVE A BLOG

--Claire Carroll named the conversation: Blueshift Family--

Claire: yay our family is facebook official

Janine: Mom I want a pony

Tyler shut up

lily claire let’s stage a coup

Claire: well we cant anymore cuz its on facebook

ugh if you'd only paid attention to your studies, darling, maybe you'd go somewhere

Janine: oops sorry mom forgot about the paper trail

what if we called the blog the blueg

blue-blog

haha get it

god i have the best ideas

"The Blueg"

Tyler: no

omg

veto

I might cry rn

First we suddenly have a blog

Janine: "The Blueg"

Tyler: NO

July 23, 3:57

And so, created from seven minutes in which I went to go grab a snack, here is our affectionately dubbed “The Blueg,” our Blueshift-blog for the world. In writing this first blog post, I didn’t know what really to tell you guys. We got around 1,500 submissions (five hundred of which came in the last three days of submission period – thanks for that). Cataloging each of those individual email submissions, by the way, nearly caused an intern revolt that was barely quenched with the promise of Submittable by issue 2. *Sigh* interns.

So, in the meantime, I’ve decided to create a List of Things Blueshift is (Definitely Not) Doing in this month’s interim before publication:

• Renouncing U.S. citizenship. Income taxes aren't a thing in Singapore.

• Acquiring Apple Incorporated. Seething from accounts of bendable iPhone 6’s, Tim Cook may or may not have put his firm on the market, and we may or may not have snapped that up. Anyways, word on the street is that Blueshift staff will all be outfitted with new iPads before Apple suddenly starts handing them out for free. (PS. look out for staff applications in November!)

• Going public. We are happy to announce that we will hold our IPO this term. Our shares will be valued initially at $0.02, but things can only get better from there!

In all seriousness, thank you for all your incredible submissions. You made this happen, and we really are in awe of how far Blueshift has come in just a few short months. Issue 1 comes out November 1st – get hyped! And look out for an upcoming, exclusive interview with Jay Hopler, our Artist of the Month. Keep on following us, and we can’t wait for what comes next.

Your Very Own i-Editor in Chief,

Tyler Tsay

The Blueshift Journal

#behindthecurtain