hmm.
well, i had my grad school interview this evening. overall, i think things went fairly well. the alum interviewing me couldn't have been friendlier. i looked respectable, i think. i wore black slacks, a cream sweater, my black pumps - i looked, i dunno. i looked like a republican. i don't think i came off as an idiot, which was my lofty goal. we chatted, we laughed, i feel i articulated why i want to go to the school and the specific new media program in particular and that i have the experience and dedication to do so.
but there's one problem.
in the process of talking about new media and online journalism, the interviewer asked me if i ever read these "blog things." yes, i admitted happily, i do in fact read blog things. i think they're great. oh, he asked me, well, do you have a blog? i hesitated for one second, and before i could find the presence of mind to outright lie, i blurted, yes, yes, i do have a blog. ah! he said. would you mind sending me the URL to your site? i really would like to read more blogs and see what they're about. SURE! i smiled through clenched teeth. you can read my blog!
and thus the alumni interview is expecting me to email him the URL of my blog. by tomorrow or monday.
shit shit shit shit shit.
how can i have this guy read my blog? he's an alum of what is probably the best journalism school in the country. he is judging whether or not i should be allowed into the hallowed halls of his institution. he wants to know if i have the presence of mind to be a fair-minded, intelligent journalist. i'm not sure how much weight his input will have on the application process, but i'm pretty certain it's not going to help me if he reads huge entries by me, bitching about everything and nothing under the sun, frequently mispelling things, showing my terrible partisanship, and just plain being stupid.
if he comes to this blog, he is going to see nothing but...crap. from me. (not tommy's posts; those are great, and i'm tempted to pass them off as my own.) this blog is all inanity, profanity, insanity. it's nowhere near respectable, and certainly my ranting and raving doesn't show any capacity for intellectual journalistic endeavors.
so, dear readers, in my state of panic, i turn to you. what do you think i should do? wait a few days before i send him the URL, hoping that he's already sent off his impression of me to the school? delete all the terrible, stupid, celebrity-centered posts, no mind the hours it would take me to purge the site of them? bump up some of my more writerly posts from months ago, hoping that he'll only look at the first few entries and not browse the muck that is the archives?
please. this is my hour of need. and in the spirit of interactive writing/jouralism/blogging, i am asking for your input.
by the way, this post will self-delete in 48 hours.
Comments
I'd say leave your blog as it is and send him the URL; unless this blog is your source of income, it's all in fun. This is not to say he won't make judgments about your professionalism based upon things written for amusement, but your writing style is engaging, and it would (I hope) be refreshing for him to see something not canned or tailored to suck-up for a job. After all, who wants to hire someone who's "professional" outside of work, too?
I sorta agree...but as paranoid as you are, would sending him the dcist.org count?
Kriston and I agree that you ought to point him to DCist. You know, "it's not my blog, but I'm a contributer." If this person already knows that you actually have a personal blog of your very own, and is expecting the URL to that blog, I would just say that it's a personal site to update your friends on your life and not really something that is indicative of your professional capabilities. And therefore, you'd rather not point him that direction. Or something. It'll be okay.
Knowing that he doesn't have much experience with blogs works to your benefit. Knowing that, you don't have so much to worry about. If he's not expecting CatherineAndrews.com, he's not going to be curious as to why you don't write that blog, will he? You can show him DCist and tell him to just look for your posts, and maybe even suggest some other blogs that you read—you know, blah blah blah, show him how in touch you are with new media.
Maybe if he'd been all, "Is your blog more Josh Marshall or more Dan Drezner?" you'd be screwed. We all would be compared to those guys, because they actually have careers. But DCist is nothing to scoff at and it's something you play a part in, and he'll be impressed. You've got nothing at all to worry over.
Wow. This is a real pickle. While part of me agrees with the first poster--it's all a free time lark and you shouldn't be ashamed of it (and you shouldn't!), I am one of those people who develops situational Aspergers Syndrome and starts reading all kinds of stuff into everything. So your reticence...i feel it.
Three things:
1. The most obvious solution has already been mentioned--point him in the direction of DCist. If he tracks over to your blog from your bio page, he may be impressed with how well you compartmentalize the two--you may be showin' skillz right now without knowing it.
2. The zany solution would be to borrow Rob Goodspeed's blog for the next month. Because the man is running some deep ass science there.
3. This has nothing to do with a solution to your immediate problem, but I am so totally optioning your story. I don't know what I can promise you monetarily at the moment, but you should know that I am prepared to offer you at least two--if not five--ice cream cakes. And they will have the sprinkles.
I'd say: point him to DCist, and just in case add a tagline on your masthead here saying something like "my personal rantings."
My personal inclination is to trust that he'll understand, but everyone else here probably has a better sense of it.
I'd leave this post up whether or not you send him the URL -- no need to hide the sausage factory of self-doubt that's the foundation of the blogging process, right? How else will he learn?
But yeah, you should definitely send him DCist. Whether you include this site as well, with a disclaimer that most blogs have nothing to do with journalism proper, well, I think that probably your sense of the guy is the best guide.
these are all quite good suggestions. hmm. the guy said he read wonkette, so at least he knows what that is in terms of blogs, and i'm definitely not writing anything more shocking or embarrassing than she is. of course, nothing so clever or witty, either, but if he reads wonkette, maybe he thinks all blogs are shallow and about inane stuff.
i think what i'm leaning towards right now is sending him my posts from DCist, along with a list of other blogs that i like, and maybe just not mentioning this site at all. of course, last night i was leaning towards sending him this URL with 10 billion caveats, so i might change my mind again in the next 12 hours. but we'll see.
other thoughts?
First amendment and free internet arguments aside, America still has a nasty puritanical streak (not that anything on zunta is that salacious).
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dooced
http://www.dooce.com/about.html
Crawl back into bed, pull the covers over your head and pretend you never promised him your URL.
No, I'd send him both URL's. There's something about your personality, in your personal writing/ranting, that's very engaging. I think it might help you.--s
who knew i was engaging? now two people have said so. that's sweet. thank you.
justin, i actually have been reading dooce.com for a while - i love it - and the sort of thing that happened to her is exactly what terrifies me. of course, i don't talk about work that much, and when i do, i try not to be incredibly bitchy, and i never name names. but the thought that this blog could affect me in any sort of professional way - whether it be work or grad school - is definitely scary.
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