Farewell, Students. For the past three years, in my “retirement phase,” I have been teaching Chinese children online. This was never something I had planned to do, as I had reservations (and maybe pre-conceived notions) about teaching children from this Communist country. Even though I had taught hundreds of students from Asia, finding them engaging […]
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We are all just prisoners here…
“We are all just prisoners here of our own device.” This is a line from the Eagles’ song, “Hotel California.” I liked the song when I heard it way back when, but as I got older, I wanted to understand what the songwriter meant by some of the lyrics. I heard people condemning the song […]
Homework—mine
I have been taking writing classes for a while now, and where there once was a vague story line has turned into a memoir and two fiction proposals. I would like to say at least one is outlined, but writing is hard. It takes a lot of discipline and concentration. If you’ve tried it, you […]
You Have to Write Badly
Agreed. I’ve done it. I still do it. Maybe this is bad. But I am writing a Young Adult book. No vampires. No unicorns or princesses. Maybe a little love, just a little. But it’s a real high school, and it’s got violence and grit, maybe more than some people would be comfortable with. As […]
The Call at the Door: 10:35 pm
I have a little book in front of me titled The Pocket Muse: Ideas and Inspirations for Writing. It’s written by Monica Wood, and and I got it because a fiction professor told me it would help me get in the mind of a fiction writer. I’m supposed to be writing fiction; in fact, by […]
Magnets on Ducks and a New Classroom
Now do not skip to the end of this blog post, not yet. It’s true I have been unemployed, but no longer. I’m still am ESL teacher! And I teach students one-on-one. I began working toward my certification last November and met the qualification in late January. Today, I have seven bookings with Chinese children, […]
Sports and Other Oddities
Girls were just beginning to be encouraged to play sports in the late 1960s. I had half athletic genes from my Dad, but my mother broke her collar bone trying to execute a forward roll during high school gym class. It was gym class, not P.E., and the teacher was the gym teacher, of course. […]
Go Ahead and Don’t Cry
I have always considered myself a glass half-empty girl. If someone demanded that I put myself in one space or another, it would have to be introvert. Since I have had depression most of my life, that’s quite natural. I’d rather read than play outside, and I still feel that way. But since my depression […]
Parking Garages: Convenient or Confusing Hell?
Sometimes I forget about what scares me until I have to do it Twice in the last week I have had to use a parking garage. Oh, big deal. Yeah, I know some of you use them daily, so you are immune to the dangers. I hate parking garages! They speak to my claustrophobic tendencies […]
Eddie
Eddie was born at a farm north of where we live. I picked him because he was male and mostly white. Our cat already at home was dark in color. The two boys got along well, except Eddie was more like a person, and he got very lazy just like his brother Henry after an […]
