tenure blogging

Somehow it seems fitting that I discover the world of academic's blogs the same week that I get tenure. If only I had known that my "tribe" had such a presence on the web, I might have been caught up in blogs before. I guess the blogs I'd stumbled across before were either techno-geeky or very teenagery -- both of which I understand, but don't fully identify with -- but this seems to be my way "in" to this part of the webworld.

Not that I always want to identify as an academic -- partially or fully. Yet I know from long experience that academe is one of my primary communities--one in which, despite the hierarchies, backbiting, and petty games, also offers incredible freedoms and the opportunity to live in such a way that sometimes the interior encounters the exterior life.

If I'd found all this before, perhaps the process (grad school, tenure) would have been easier. Blogs were just beginning midway thru my PhD. But, on the other hand, I've never had any trouble finding ways to procrastinate...

So, it's fitting. I'm creating yet another online identity (having a few already) at the same time that I get the chance to develop another sense of who I am as a tenured professor.