Apparently a lot. As most of you know, I was married in June and as my blog's title happens to deal quite a bit with my maiden name I was posed with the question: Do I change my blog name or keep it the same?
I've taken polls, asked friends, and contemplated on this idea for over a year (pretty much since our engagement in October 2010). And I am finally prepared to deliver my conclusion. If it isn't already apparent, I will not be changing this blog title for several reasons.
First of all, I love the alliteration. Maybe it's just the English teacher in me, but "Mrs. Urbanec's Reviews" just doesn't have as catchy-a-sound to it. I considered playing around with it: Urbanec's Utopian Reviews (completely senseless) or Mrs. U's Reviews (a bit of assonance rather than alliteration). But overall, I just like the title of my blog.
Next, I've been to BEA twice and a few other conferences. Not only have I handed my business card out to several different publishers, agents, bloggers, authors, but I have about 300 business cards left! While they weren't SUPER expensive, I feel like I'm not in a position to throw them away at this time financially and order new ones.
With that, I need to consider that this blog has been around for two and a half years. While I don't have a huge outreach of readers, the ones I do have are friends and colleagues. I feel like to change my name (of the blog, obviously) could potentially hurt blog traffic — something I've struggled with from the beginning to promote. While many people have done this effectively (most recently Ash from English Major's Junkfood to English Major's Narrative) , I'm just not sure I could. I loved how Ash incorporated her old name to the new with this subtitle: "English Major Junk Food All Grown Up," because what she's going to be talking about has changed. If you're interested in some fantastically cute pictures and the reason why — it's in this post. But Ash's blog name change and my potential blog name change (say that six times fast) are different and I'm not sure I could come up with as brilliant of connection between the two as Ash has.
There's another obvious reason: I have this really cool stamp that I stamp all my books with. It has my blog title and url. I don't want to RE-stamp all my books (talk about a hot mess) much less order a new stamp.
And finally, I kind of like having this blog a little bit separate from my students/school. Obviously I'm not going to rant about my students or job (as I love them both), but I do like the little bit of anonymity that comes a long with using my maiden name. Have I shared this blog with students? A few. Do I have anything to hide? Absolutely not! But when I created this blog in the beginning, (before teaching, the politics of teaching, and before discovering this amazing blogging community) it was meant to be a place to have students review their own reads. But now, (you can call me selfish) I kind of like my own place on the web. I like the freedom to post my own thoughts without trying to suede students to just pick a book up. I like the freedom to "geek out" or talk about personal events in my life (weight loss, weddings) — rather than feeling censored.
Will I continue to blog with students? Probably, it's something I would like to foster in my classroom, but until I get my feet more off the ground in this new school I think I'll wait. Will I share my books and thoughts with students? Everyday! Because of my profession, I am lucky that I am able to talk books on a daily basis and this is one area that blogging has helped me tremendously! Even if I haven't read a book, I'm able to give thoughts and recommendations based on YOUR reviews! My book group (now called Word Shakers) will still be meeting to read, write, and talk books. But for now, I just want Miss Remmers' Review to be just that — my reviews, my thoughts, and my life. While there are a lot of "my's" in there, I don't think I'm being selfish. And even if I am, oh well... it's my blog.:)
So for anyone who has skipped my rant and arrived at the bottom: I'm not going anywhere. Miss Remmers' Review is here to stay!