Hi Loyal Readers. First, a note about the photo. When I sign up to read APs each year, the College Board makes me promise not to take photos of the reading itself. The photo above, I hope, provides no secret information about what’s behind the curtains (which is about a thousand college and high school…
“Why”…Wednesdays
21. Why I’m Excited about My Internship
By the time this post becomes public (If you know me at all, you’ve already figured out that I’m often a couple weeks ahead of writing my “Why I…Wednesday” posts.), I will have been Metamorphosis Literary Agency’s newest summer intern for two days. The first thing you might wonder is why somebody with a full-time…
20. Why I Ask First
I’ve had a weird day. Twice in the last twenty-four hours, I’ve been shouted at for being rude in separate cases in which I truly believe I didn’t do anything wrong. It all started with the Dining Hall sushi. (Aside: Our Dining Hall is amazeballs. They brought in trays and trays of terrific sushi from…
19. Why I Take Classes
I’m a teacher. I’ve been a teacher for so long that I can get perfect scores on the vocabulary and grammar quizzes I give without having to study. I’ve been grading essays so long that I can read a student’s introduction and see exactly what’s wrong with it. I’ve told so many students where to…
18. Why I Love Spring
When we moved into this house thirteen years ago, we planted this peach tree in our front yard. (We also planted a cherry tree at the side of our house, but alas, it didn’t survive until its second year.) Within a couple years, we had a few peaches. I don’t love the peaches (though I…
17. Why I Watch Shows
I started this website because I want to be a writer. I know that to become a writer, I have to write and read. I have to spend a lot of time, more than I’m spending now writing and reading, yet day after day, I find myself enjoying the guilty pleasure of television shows on Netflix….
16. Why I Love Passover
For years, I’ve organized a Passover Seder at my school. Because Hotchkiss has a global population, many of the students here can’t go celebrate holidays with their families. The School generously supports my efforts both to provide a Seder for the Jewish students here and to open the Seder to non-Jewish students, faculty, and staff…
15. Why I Cry at Movies (and books and TV commercials and…)
The short answer is, I don’t know. But creating a blog isn’t about giving the short answer to anything, so I’ll go on. I find romance novels, movies, and tv shows addictive. I can get totally immersed in the story in seconds, more eager to find out what happens–and by “what happens,” I mean “how…
14. Why I Love Main Building Duty
I’ve worked in boarding schools for my entire adult life. At my first school post-college, I lived in a dorm of eleven girls. My apartment (with two bathrooms, one with a shower and sink, the other with a toilet and sink) made up half of the small building and offered a stunning view of the…
13. Why I Love Our Old Neighbors
Okay, so the photo has NOTHING to do with the post, but how does somebody take a photo of so many great people in my neighborhood? Impossible, I think, and Tuukka always looks good in a photo, so enjoy a photo of Tuukka with a post about why I love my neighbors. And now that…