Real Life vs. Blog Life

One of the difficulties I face as a blogger is real lifers accessing my blog life. Since I'm a teacher at a high school, I have to be careful what I say. Some of my students found my old livejournal (although none of them were smart enough to use the info garnered there to find my new blog) and asked me about it.

Luckily, I did not say anything too embarrassing on it. Mostly, I used it to track some writing I was doing at the time and my job search. There were one or two posts about alcohol and quite a few about politics, but none of my students mentioned these.

I have since then made some of my posts private, but left others up. I tried to keep enough there that students wouldn't notice that I took stuff down making it a game of hide and seek on information.

I originally had my name on my blog, but took it down since google actually started putting my blog on the first page of searches for various things. I'm careful not to mention my school name or where I live so that it doesn't come up in search results.

At this point, my blog is pretty innocuous. I don't blog about embarrassing personal issues or complain about my job (don't want any tech savvy co-workers or administrators fearing that I might leave).

Anyone else have this dilemma with real life intersecting with blog life?

Like military folks, or anyone with corporate or public ties (or anyone who's employer threatens termination), you're probably simply not in a position to speak candidly about a wealth of things.

Click to expand...

This is true. I ususally skirt the edge. I know my boundaries and attempt to not step over them. Of course, sometimes I feel like my hands are tied, but it's no more than when I'm in a meeting with various levels of administration who want to jump on some educational trend's bandwagon or when I have to meet with parents about a student's poor performance in the class.

I'd love to tell them that their son/daughter is lazy, does little, and cares less. But, being a professional, I have to break it to them in non-legally-binding words.

Wait, there's life outside of our blogs?

Click to expand...

I'm starting to feel as if I have a whole other life on the net. It's not that I secret my true identity away or live some double life, but I feel like the net is becoming an extension.

Maybe I'm becoming a cyborg...