On Going Private

Making the decision to go private was, on the one hand, incredibly difficult. On the other hand, it was a no-brainer. 

As I wrote to many of you a few weeks ago, I am really sad that I had to let the public aspect of my blog go - I know how much I love being an anonymous lurker, and for me to make my readers sign in to read these frivolous little stories about my days, well Mary Frances, don't you think the pot is calling the kettle a WEE BIT BLACK here? Ahem. So yes, keeping a private blog makes me feel hypocritical. It also makes me feel sad (because now lovely internet folks like you all can no longer find me), and annoyed (because OMG I can't believe I had to make this blog private. How dare you find me, Preston's tech-savvy students. THE GALL.).

But shame, sadness, and anger aside, I absolutely do not regret making this blog private. Once I knew for sure that I would be teaching this year (I signed my contract in mid-August - remember?), my decision was made for me. The seventh graders Preston taught last year knew about my blog, and since I'm teaching the grade below them this year, I decided it was too risky to keep my blog public. Because if my students could find this blog, so could their parents, and so could my bosses. And if my bosses ever found this blog, I'm afraid there's a strong possibility that I might actually explode. So. In order to avoid any exploding Mary Frances-es (And yes! It IS hard to make my name plural or possessive! Please never name your child anything ending in -s. They will thank you later.), private it was.

"But wait, Mary Frances! How do you know that Preston's seventh grade students were reading your blog?" That's an excellent question, internet. This is how I know. Prepare to be horrified.

Last year a seventh grade student left her iPod touch in a classroom. A teacher picked it up and, to see if she could tell whose it was, turned it on. For those of you who don't know, if you want to customize the background of an iPod touch, all you have to do is upload a photo and set that as the background. For example, this is what my iPod touch looks like when I turn it on:

 
And yes, that is a cheesy photo of Preston and me that appears. I am a sap. Anyways! When the teacher turned on this seventh grader's iPod, a modified version of this image appeared:

And yes, that is a photo of Preston and me from our wedding. So not only is it sketchy enough that this student has downloaded this photo and set it as her iPod background, BUT ALSO she had photo-shopped out my face and replaced it with hers. I imagine it looked something like this:

 
When Preston told me about this incident last winter I was mildly horrified. "That's awful," I thought. But, since I knew that I wouldn't be applying for a job for the 2010-11 school year, I just let it go. I had plenty on my plate without worrying about what twelve year-olds were looking at my blog. I never forgot about it, per se, but I did push it to the back of my mind.

And there it stayed until my first day of work this year, when I met with the head of the Classics Department, and she brought it up. "You need to be aware that you must keep your private life private. The girls will be very excited that you are Preston's wife, and they will want to know everything about you." I gulped, and she continued, "Last year we found a picture on a student's iPod that she had downloaded from your facebook, or something. And we took care of it, but if anything like that comes up again, X & X, the Division Dean & Head, will want to know." "Yes, of course," I said, as I felt the color rise up from my neck and into my cheeks. It felt like my eyeballs were on fire. "I try to keep my facebook pretty restricted," I said, "but I'll double check everything when I get home." 

I of course knew that the student must have downloaded the photo from the blog. My facebook photos are visible to friends only, and I've disabled downloading on all of my Flickr photos (not to mention that this photo is on neither facebook or Flickr). The blog was the only option. I was mortified during the rest of the meeting, and afterwards, kept thinking HOW MUCH MORE TERRIBLE it would have been if my boss had actually known that the photo was from my blog. {And...cue Mary Frances explosion}

So I wrote and published the post. I heard back from you lovely, lovely (have I mentioned that you're lovely?) readers, and, a week later, made the blog private. I'm still mourning the loss of my public blog, but this is just the way it is and hey, maybe I'll discover that I love having a private space. We'll have to wait and see.

When I started this blog in 2008, I had one reader: myself. Now, nearly three years later, to know that I have all of you by my side/in my corner of the internet, etc. - that's pretty awesome. Thank you for being here. You are rockstars. 

Depending on what the next few years hold, I might at some point go public again, but for now, welcome to Mary Frances Writes as a private blog! I'm so glad that you are here.

P.S. If you read in Google Reader (as apparently 26 of you do), please take note: because this blog is now private, new posts will no longer appear in Google Reader (feeds are public, and since this blog is private, it doesn't even publish feeds). Basically, you have to visit the blog to get updates. As I myself am a slave to Google Reader, I understand how truly annoying this is. From here on out, as a rule of thumb, I'll try to post every other day during the week and once on the weekend (with weeks here and there where posting will be either more or less frequent).  

(clearly this was one of the "less frequent" weeks...oops.)