Blogology

Well once again a long dormant spell has been broken by an unusual occurrence that took place on Wednesday in the 'real' world in which I am occasionally obliged to spend time.

There I was savagely beating some of my A level students for not handing in their coursework on time when I was accosted by one of my former GCSE disciples who waved a piece of paper in my face and said;

"Sir, sir (put down the hammer please), is this from your blog?"

I put down the hammer, wiped the blood and viscera from my hands and perused the document in question.

I recognised the writing style as one recognises one's own reflection in the mirror, with equal parts vanity and self-loathing.

Fragmented sentence structure... Check.

Bizarrely ambling, discordant tangents... Check.

Gratuitous use of the swears... Big ol' check.

Anyway, the urchin in question informed me that her class had been studying my blog in their English lessons. The ensuing emotional double whammy was a bizarre mixture of affront and flattery. It was like finding out that someone has taken pictures of you in the shower with a telephoto lens, but then used those photos to give a lecture on exemplary human anatomy.

Of course, since my blog is, after all, within the public domain I have little right to outrage. In fact, a better analogy would be parading around naked at your living room window and then being outraged at the people who take photos... And on that note I think I'll be abandoning that metaphor right there.

I am, however, somewhat bemused at the idea of my blog being held up as an example of literary merit or worthy of analysis in any way. Seriously, what linguistic devices do I have in my arsenal worth observing other than my odd metaphors and Herculean use of the F word?

Anyway I'm unsure who the English teacher in question was but I'm pretty sure that they didn't

explicitly state that the blog was mine (I can only guess some bright spark recognised some weird idiosyncrasy of mine in the writing).

Still it was another lesson to me that this is not just me ranting incoherently into a vacuum. People actually read this thing.

Once again I find myself in the centre of an ethical conundrum.

Should I start sanitising the misanthropic ravings of my online doppelganger in the knowledge that my students may be reading?

Or should I remain with my arms folded in petulant indignation, blowing raspberries at anyone who suggests that as a teacher it's incumbent upon me as a teacher to consider my profession before putting virtual pen to equally virtual paper.

Once again I jam my fingers in my ears and start screeching "I HAVE A RIGHT TO A LIFE OUTSIDE OF TEACHING!!" at the top of my voice.

Or... Do I?