What’s in a Name?

This is my 42nd new blog, give or take a few. The last few have been connected to my real name, which I have discovered to be a problem. You see, I am a middle school teacher, and inevitably, some of my students found my blog. My principal read, or at least heard about, my blog during my first year teaching; that led to a mild rebuke that I should be careful what I write there for public consumption. In subsequent years, students talked me into adding them onto Myspace and then facebook, although not that many. I’ve had no major disasters as a result, and I suspect the students in question right now are innocent in their curiosity. That being said, I think I’ve played with fire for too long.

There’s a couple of major issues at play. One is that some of my content, while certainly less than R-rated, is really only appropriate for adult readers. The other is that, as for so many others, writing is cathartic for me, and at times I use my blog space to vent about my professional life; sometimes about incidents with specific students, colleagues, and administrators, and sometimes about American public education in general. I have always striven to be not-too-specific and never use real names, but still– those who know, if they read it, would realize I am writing about them.

So, in what I have to admit is a reactionary move to the discovery of my other blog by students this past week, I now begin anew, again. I hardly expect complete anonymity– those I initially invite to read this will know exactly who I am– but, for now, my only goal is to prevent anyone who types my real name into Google from finding the old blog. Even if they do, it’s now set to private.

Next is the matter of picking a new name. Giving oneself a “screen name” is no easy task. If you’re committed, this name is going to be with you for years. It’s your Internet identity– maybe not your only one, but if you’re attaching it to your blog, and you want your blog to succeed, it’s a significant investment. So I agonized for a few days over a new name, one that did not in any way feature my real name, as my last blog name did.

The other part of my old blog name was “writes,” and I wanted to include some form of the word in this name as well, as that is the whole point: I’m here to write, moreover, to motivate myself to write. A big part of why I “get in my own way” when it comes to motivating myself to write is my ADD. I simply don’t do well on concentrating on any one thing for a long time and I am easily distracted; in fact, I probably distract myself more than any external impetus does. That has led some friends to apply the name “squirrel” to me, not really equating me so much to the squirrel itself, as to how an attention-deficient individual is so easily distracted by something like a squirrel…

They meant it as a term of endearment, and I take it as one. But I’ve always kind of admired squirrels themselves. Sure they’re rodents, and some may see them as pests, but I, for one, think they’re cute, and admire their food-gathering skills and awesome jumping ability. In any case, this is me, Squirrelly Writer, for the forseeable future, and I hope you’ll jump along with my mind from time to time.