If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, chances are that you also follow me on social media, or have at least checked out my Instagram, Pinterest or Twitter. If you have, then you know that "Miss ALK" isn't my real name obviously. On my former blog I frequently shared what Miss ALK was and why I blogged under that name, but I haven't been as vocal about that here on Southern Belle in Training. Yet all the same, I continue to write under that and have never signed a post before with my real name, or even typed out my real name on my blog. That's about to change:
My name is Annaliese. My other two initials are LK. (I won't be sharing what those names are- a girl's gotta still have some privacy in the online world! ;-))
Why did it take me over three years to share that?!
Well for starters, when I first started blogging back on my old blog, Confessions of a Maine Teenager, I was still pretty young. 16 to be exact. When I told my parents that I had started a blog, they still weren't really sure what that meant, but all they knew was that it mean that I had a public website. They were really concerned about my identity and privacy online since I was a minor, so they didn't want me to blog under my name. I didn't want to come up with a weird blogging nickname that sounded more like a weird chatroom username, so I settled on my initials with "Miss" in front of them. So Miss ALK I became!
As blogging became a bigger part of my life, Miss ALK became the first nickname that I'd ever loved. As a kid, I was never really one for nicknames. I never liked being called "Anna" or "Lisa" or anything else that could be short for Annaliese. When I got my Lucy (my name for my car) during my senior year of high school, I got vanity license plates that said MISS ALK to tribute my love of blogging! And that's still before I even started Southern Belle in Training, this is still back when I was writing on my former blog. :-)
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Back in high school when Lucy's license plates came in! |
Fast forward to now: blogging is now such a huge part of my life that all of my real-life friends know about my blog, and many are regular readers and supporters which means a lot to me! Many of my friends jokingly refer to me as Miss ALK now and that's become their nickname for me, and I love it. My dear friend
Katie even crafted me the most beautiful plaque for my 19th birthday that says Miss ALK on it with flowers surrounding it, and now it hangs in my dorm room. Miss ALK has become an identity for me, and a very positive one at that.
What many of you might not know is that when I started blogging I wasn't at a very good point in my life. It was the middle of my junior year of high school, and I was struggling with extreme anxiety and also some depression. I had recently gone through the loss of some friendships, and I barely had any self confidence. I dreamed of someday working in radio, but didn't think that I could ever make those dreams come true. I also never thought I could succeed at going to college out of state. Blogging has definitely helped me become a better version of myself. In the past three years, I have become more confident, happier and realized that I can make dreams and goals of mine come true! And my blogging name reminds me of that, which is why that even though I now share my real name in my social media accounts, I have continued to use my blogging name on my blog.
On a different note, sometimes people come up to me at gas stations when they see my license plates and ask if "MISS ALK" means that I was Miss Alaska, as in I won the Miss Alaska USA beauty pagaent. I politely tell them no (and wonder if they notice that my license plates clearly say MAINE). Some people... :-)
xoxo Annaliese // Miss ALK