Working Diligently

On my coffee table at this moment:

The Riverside Shakespeare
An anthology of English Renaissance Drama
My class notebook
Us Weekly
A peanut butter cookie
This laptop with the screen open to Myspace and now Blogger

I wouldn't say the title of this post is entirely a lie, would you?

So, I've been thinking lately about maybe making my blog a bit more pseudonymous. At this point, it would be pretty easy to find me on the internet if you only knew the basics like my name and my field. The only thing I even remotely try to obscure is my location, but even that would be pretty easy to figure out if a reader really wanted to try. And the further I get down this whole "career path" thing, the more I feel like maybe I need to be a bit more cautious about allowing people to find this blog, particularly considering the fact that I'll probably be teaching students next year. I'd like to be big enough to not worry about it, I'd like to be able to just say, "Fuck 'em if they find this and can't handle what they read here, I don't write anything that I'm ashamed to admit in real life." And technically that's true. But I also write a lot about friends, using their real names, and I imagine eventually I'm going to want to write about colleagues and it would just be easier if I felt like I was doing it at least somewhat secretly.
I know it's the internet and by its very nature this blog is never going to be a "secret". That's why I have a personal journal, so that I can keep the truly private stuff private.
But I like keeping a blot, and I'd like to continue to do it. And at this point, I feel like I can either write openly about my studies, my location, my new university, my friends, and my family and start being a bit more careful and cautious about what I'm saying, or I can take on some sort of pseudonym and make up names for people I want to write about a lot and for locations I mention often, and I can stop talking about what exactly it is I do---I can just be a Ph.D. candidate in an unknown field at an unknown university and leave it at that--and then I can write a lot more openly without worrying about the sticky situation of a student or mentor finding my blog.
I already went "undercover" on myspace and facebook for just that reason--I don't want students stumbling upon my profile online. It makes me a little bummed out to think that people that may be looking for me can't find me, but then again, I can find them if I really feel like I need them in my life, you know?
The other benefit to starting a new, more pseudonymous blog, would be that I could give the link to all the friends I'm leaving behind here and then they could stay in touch with me this way, as I already stay in touch with some of you, knowing that they wouldn't come across an entry I'd written about them on this blog that might make them upset (given, off the top of my head I can't think of a single mean thing I've written on this blog about anyone I know, but you never know what some people might interpret as mean or inappropriate).
And since I would have to start a whole new blog if I choose the option of going more under the radar (since this one has far too many identifying details at this point to go back and change them all) I could have a new layout. That's fun.
The cons to starting a new blog? Well, I'd hate abandoning this blog. This would be the second old blog of mine drifting around on the internet. The first one wasn't pseudonymous AT ALL, which is why I finally had to switch over to this one. I felt like I couldn't share that old link with anyone, and what's the point of keeping a journal on the internet if you honestly don't want anyone to read it but you and maybe your best friend (who already knows everything going on in your life anyway)? So I'd hate to have another dead blog out there, 'cause the internet has enough junk on it as it is. I also know, as an avid blog reader (seriously, it's something of an addiction), that I hate when I start reading through someone's archives and find out that their blog has actually existed for a very long time but I can't access any of the old posts anymore because they're at another now defunct site. And truthfully, I kind of hate pseudonyms, too. I admire bloggers who are out there writing under their professional names and not worrying about who might be reading them. Then again, I don't know a single person in academia who is blogging under their real name. The two academic blogs I read whose writers are "out of the closet", so to speak, use their blogs in a purely professional way to post show reviews, book reviews, or other academically-oriented things, and they write little if at all about their real lives. That's not what I want my blog to be.
The other thing about pseudonyms, though, is that I sometimes get frustrated reading those blogs because I spend every day waiting for them to drop a big hint so that I can figure out where they might live or what their job really is or whatever. Seriously, I get far too excited in a completely nerdy way when one of my favorite bloggers slips up and uses a real name instead of a nickname.
And see, I think that would be a problem for me. I think I could keep my identity under wraps for a while, but eventually I'd slip and use a real name. Plus theatre by its nature is so different from most other academic fields that it's going to be hard to keep my studies a secret unless I don't write about them at all, and that's just not going to happen. I'm going to want to write about shows I see, I'm going to want to write about any future productions I get involved with, and that's going to mean that people will know I study theatre. There's not really a way to hide my job, even if I want to.
But I suppose I can at least do a better job of hiding where I am and, more importantly, WHO I am. I think even if readers know what I study, as long as I don't get into my specific specialties too much it should be possible to still retain a pretty good degree of anonymity. I guess I don't mind people suspecting that they know whose blog this is, I just don't want it to be blatantly obvious.

Oh, and by the way, I do realize that a lot of my paranoia about people finding me online is ridiculous. I keep track of my hits (I'm watching you!) and have a pretty good idea of who is reading my nonsense at any given time. I know exactly who 80% of my readers are based on their location, and I have my assumptions about who the lurkers are 'cause at least I know where they're getting here from. So I know I'm mostly worrying about nothing since it's not like this site is even remotely high profile, and it never will be. Heck, it's not even low profile! I write this for my friends and family to be able to keep up with what I'm doing, and I intend for this blog to always have that function.

Still, I guess I'm leaning towards being safe rather than sorry, and I guess this is a roundabout way of saying I'll probably be "moving" again in a few weeks. I'll let this blog take me through the end of the MA, I think, and then I'll start up somewhere new with less identifying details. I'll probably even make up a dumb name for myself. I hate to do that, but even though I have a very common and hard to google name, I still think it's a pretty good bet that I'm one of the only people with my name working on a Ph.D. in theatre.

So yeah. Consider this a warning of changes to come. And yes, I'll post the new link when I move. Obviously I want you to move with me, if you have actually been bothering to read my rants and raves so far.