As you note, I've been thinking about this a lot. I, too, have two separate blogs, partly because I am using my professional blog to push out information to the faculty about instructional technology. But I think about the professional stuff when I'm at home and the personal stuff when I'm at work. Honestly, although I'd tell the faculty about the things I write about in my personal blog, I wouldn't want it broadcast to them the way I broadcast my professional blog (via rss to the Instructional Technology web site). It is a big tension. For me, it's more of a problem when I'm at home and I have to hide the geeky side. I have less of a problem with letting my personal/mom side be known at work. My immediate colleagues--other IT staff--read my personal blog.

as one of my fave profs here would say, it's "healthy tension." haha. the issue that I think about frequently is that right now, no one is *really* reading what I'm saying and having particularly critical judgments about me. when I go onto the job market (in a 100 years), I'll want to be able control what people see about who I am, but I don't think having two separate blogs will help that. I mean, if it's on the web, someone will find it, even if I don't hand out the URL. I've heard stories of search committees googling prospective profs and finding, you know, everything.

I guess the point is, I can't control what people know about me, really. So I try not to use the F word a lot, but other than that, I'm realizing I don't have a whole bunch to hide.

I find it difficult to separate the two as well. I don't think I'd really thougth of it in those terms, though. That is: I don't find that I have thoughts of personal stuff running through my head when I'm working or vice-versa, but I do feel strongly to know personal aspects of people everywhere, regardless of whether they're in a public/professional arena of my life. Blogging is somewhat like that for me, too. I began blogging anonymously on another site and eventually disclosed my name and location, and when I began my current blog, I just didn't bother w/any pretense. I find that I relate to people based on their own ideas and thoughts, which is why I don't tend to read the blogs that focus only on a specific objective thing like poli-blogs.