I found this cool GIF of the most common assigned-girl-at-birth baby names on The Atlantic’s website. I was born in a year when the odds were pretty good that I’d become a Lisa, a Jennifer, or a Michelle. The Michelle part seems funny because I recently went to an event with two friends, both WAY younger…
“Why”…Wednesdays
185. Why Candlelight
[The image comes from the City of Woburn’s website.] More than usual in composing my weekly blog, I’m acutely aware of the gap between when I’m drafting these words on May 25th at 10:30pm, and when my post will go live, in mid-July. At first, I was thinking that I could start the post saying…
184. Why Deposit
[image from istockphoto.com] If you’ve paid any attention at all to the economy in the past two year, you know that it’s been volatile. By July of 2022, the market is down almost 15% from January (or more, depending on what indicators you’re using). What this means, financially speaking, is that now is the perfect…
183. Why Embrace Dead Ends
I selected the image above from a royalty-free clip-art website because the person in the suit has gone a few steps into a direction that will lead to a closed wall, and I’ve been thinking a lot about dead ends lately. In paper or corn mazes, going into a closed hallway provides a moment of…
182. Why Be Authentic (a guest post)
[Every year, I enjoy meeting English teachers at the College Board’s AP reading. Earlier this month, I got to read essays about an octopus and a baby with English teacher and author, David Berger. I hope you will (1) look at his author website, (2) check out his cool merch website, (3) buy his books,…
181. Why Switch from Participles to Verbs
Sometimes, dealing with things is exhausting. Just ask Tuukka, who regularly takes breaks while we walk. Maybe he gets bored of travelling the same routes every day. One thing I’ve found exhausting recently is the number of times I’ve heard people at my school talk about how every student should feel “safe, seen, and supported.”…
180. Why Be Vulnerable
I’m incredibly lucky to work with a lot of amazing people. I was reminded of how great one of them is at a recent meeting with the (now graduated) Senior class. I served on the class’s council, so I went to all of their class meetings, which often consisted of making announcements and dealing with…
179. Why You Did Have a Chance
The silly quotation above comes from a website that sells pictures and quips. Over the time I’ve been writing a weekly blog, I’ve discovered that every thought I have, someone else has had first and worded it in a funnier way. I love that the line, in its ridiculousness, captures the essence of this week’s…
178. Why PREcrastinate
The Creative Life website has this picture at the top of a useful article that offers readers seventeen strategies to stop procrastinating. I found the article even though the word I typed into my search bar was precrastinate–Google didn’t acknowledge my word until I put the quotation marks around it. When I did wrap the…
177. Why Pay Attention
The photo above isn’t a great photo. I took it last month when I was lucky enough to be in NYC visiting with family. The weather was moody, shifting from sunny and warm to raining to cold. At one point, looking in three directions, we could see blue skies, but this was the view ahead…