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CARITA GARDINER

What to Read When You're Avoiding School Work

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“Why”…Wednesdays

73. Why “Up Next” Hurts Us

Posted on May 27, 2020May 29, 2020 by caritagardiner

If you’ve ever read any of my earlier Why Wednesday posts or have ever seen me out walking my dog, you probably know that I listen to a lot of podcasts. One pair of geniuses I might not know anything about without all my podcast listening is Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. (To be fair…

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72. Why Parenting is Hard

Posted on May 20, 2020December 28, 2023 by caritagardiner

These photos show my daughters when they were younger; now, clocking in at eighteen and twenty-one years old, they’ve both reached milestone adult ages. Somehow, the parenting hasn’t gotten easier. When they were little, as you can tell from the photos, I didn’t spend any time worrying about how tangled they got their hair or…

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71. Why Senior Spring

Posted on May 13, 2020May 14, 2020 by caritagardiner

I have two daughters. Just after one of them turned twenty-one in one of the cities most world-famous for its parties and fun, she had to leave college to come live in isolation with her parents in rural Connecticut (not famous for fun). For her, I hope the world goes back to normal this fall…

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70. Why Anything is Everything

Posted on May 6, 2020May 1, 2020 by caritagardiner

The amazingly smart people at Peloton are giving 90-day free trial memberships right now (though I apologize if the deal is over by the time this blog posts, as I’ve gotten a little ahead in writing since I don’t have much else going on). Anyway, I’ve been trying to keep active by walking outside a…

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69. Why Finish What You Start

Posted on April 29, 2020April 29, 2020 by caritagardiner

Usually, I take the photos I use on my site, but my sink is empty because I had the idea for this post as I was cleaning it out. Anyway, the photo above came from Jane’s Kitchen Miracle, a site that looks pretty good and certainly is getting at what I wanted to talk about…

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68. Why Social Distancing

Posted on April 22, 2020April 23, 2020 by caritagardiner

A lot of people would say that where I live is the middle of nowhere. They’re wrong, of course. In fact, this town has easy access to NYC, Boston, Albany, and other places. The town of Lakeville might not be big enough to have a grocery store, but the location allows its residents to feel…

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67. Why Swedish Fish

Posted on April 15, 2020March 14, 2020 by caritagardiner

I’ve talked before about how much I love candy, but I didn’t give you, loyal readers, the full story about my particular love of Swedish Fish. (I did give pretty close to the whole story last September, but I have a few more followers now than I did then, so if you’ve been with me…

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66. Why Social Isolation

Posted on April 8, 2020April 23, 2020 by caritagardiner

I’m writing this post during my Spring Break, a two-week vacation that I just heard yesterday has become a three-week vacation for the students. The school will follow our time off with online classes for at least two weeks. We’ll have to reassess what’s going to happen after the social isolation, to see if Covid-19…

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65. Why Make Lemonade…or Water

Posted on April 1, 2020April 2, 2020 by caritagardiner

I’m writing this post during my Spring Vacation. Yesterday, I was supposed to fly to Poland, a country I’ve never visited but know I will (I’m saying “will” to stay hopeful) find fascinating. I was really looking forward to seeing Krakow, which I’ve heard is stunning, and the camps, which I know would move me….

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64. Why Not Rely on Policy

Posted on March 25, 2020March 7, 2020 by caritagardiner

The photo above has absolutely nothing to do with the rant I’m about to lay on you. Instead, it’s a photo I took this week of the stunning sky over the Main Building on our campus. Sometimes, when I remember to look up and look around (sage advice from a dear friend), my jaw goes…

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WHAT I DO

I serve as a class dean and teach English to high schoolers at a boarding school in Connecticut. I’ve earned a Bachelor of Arts (Amherst College), an Education Master in Learning and Teaching (Harvard University Graduate School of Education), a Master of Arts in English (Bread Loaf School of English), and most recently a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a certificate in the online teaching of writing (Southern New Hampshire University).

As a writer, I hope to capture the complexity and joy of life in the New England boarding school world. On this site, I share what I know about trying to write fiction while deaning, teaching English, coaching, and doing the other tasks associated with helping to raise over six hundred other people’s children.

WHAT I CAN DO FOR YOU

Teach                    Tutor

Revise                   Edit

Entertain             Enlighten

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Contact Me

  • cgardine@hotchkiss.org

Read my recent “Why” Wednesday Blog Posts

  • NetGalley Review of Sunny Side Up
  • 337. Why Not Fit In
  • 336. Why SFAH
  • NetGalley Review of The Ripple Effect
  • NetGalley Review of Far and Away
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