On blogging

If you haven't noticed, this blog is sparce on personal details. I include tidbits about volunteering at the Law Journal but this blog is not an online diary. You ask me, why? I'll let Heather B. Armstrong help me with my answer:

I started this website in February 2001. A year later I was fired from my job for this website because I had written stories that included people in my workplace. My advice to you is BE YE NOT SO STUPID. Never write about work on the internet unless your boss knows and sanctions the fact that YOU ARE WRITING ABOUT WORK ON THE INTERNET. If you are the boss, however, please don’t be a bitch and talk with your hands. And when you order Prada online, please don’t talk about it out loud, you rotten whore.

Since I've started writing, 2 blogs from Canadian law school students have shut down. The reason: the personal details they included on their blogs caught up with them and bit 'em in the arse. Other bloggers fear similar situations, but they just keep on blogging. (I wonder if blogging will be the next addition. Cigarettes, booze, blogs, . . . )

In fact, it's becoming clearer and clearer to me that it's no coincidence that I decided to out myself on my blog. I started the thing in order to talk about my work anxiety, and the question of trying to find a new job, and whether I am undermining my job search by not being little Ms. Publishing Machine, and whether I really want to even be a professor or whether, really, the whole anxiety thing is just more fucking trouble than it's worth and instead of working hard to "grow" past it, I should just fucking allow myself to avoid it and run the fuck away. Dude. I got my Ph.D. What more do I have to prove? (That's why the degree is so ostentatiously presented in my blog title, even though I also think it's fucking obnoxious to brag one one's degree-having. It's more a memo to myself than to anyone else.) But I started talking about my sex life because what is causing me problems in my work life is feeling dishonest, feeling inauthentic, and feeling insecure.

The excerpt above is from a Prof. Yep, I'm serious. Well, at least she says she's a prof. Her blog is actually one of my fiancee's bookmarks. It's pretty juicy, eh? Actually, it seems like both women above are following the advice of How to Blog. It lists many rules on how to produce a successful blog. Here's rule #4:

4. cuss like a sailor.

Not really my style, but hey, whatever works for ya. Oh, and How to Blog also has advice for the previous point. Rule #5:

5. dont tell your mom, your work, your friends, the people you want to date, or the people you want to work for about your blog. if they find out and you'd rather they didnt read it, ask them nicely to grant you your privacy.

Good advice, for some. For others, (for me) assume that someone you know will eventually read it and write with that in mind.
:0)

[My favourite, Rule #27:

27. nobody likes poems. dont put your poems on your blog. not even if theyre incredible. especially if theyre incredible. odds are theyre not incredible. bad poems are funny sometimes though, so fine, put your dumb poems on there. whatever.]

So, that's my take. Just wanted to let you know.