My favorite thing to do is think. I know a lot of people don’t like to. But I was the kind of kid who would quickly put together his Lego set, just so he could lie on his tummy and stare at the pieces. I learned late in life that […]
In a few words: wtf. Let’s just start by saying Instagram misses me and I miss Instagram. I can’t even bring myself to reply to my meme groups, because I don’t have the energy to sift through related pages these days and report. Plus it was so fun to […]
When I was a kid, I dreamed of being the main character of a video game. The game was about saving a princess, helping helpless villagers, and destroying the evil green-faced bad guy, who would stop at nothing to gain absolute power. He was powerful enough as is, but he […]
“Make mistakes.” This was my boss’s first piece of advice to me. It felt strangely familiar, knowing we must lose a few tokens to win the big chips. When I told him I appreciate his wisdom, he shook his head. “It’s not my idea. I just follow the principle.” Now […]
Indian flute music plays in the background. Chest breathes heavy, then soft, lungs seeking incense that isn’t there. My tongue, tingling, takes the hot iron straw of the yerba mate and draws in the vibrant green liquid. I look out the window at a beautiful Bucharest dawn, today a paisley […]
I was walking down one of those M.C. Escher stairs, in a museum, when I reached the end. From where I stood I could hear a young boy below, sobbing. The sound wasn’t echoing, as it should have been in such a large space. Fortunately, some of the railing was […]
No. No-o. Nope . . . No-o-o-o. No! No-u-u-u. NO! We shouldn’t complain. But here is a list of things that make me snarky, anyway. Some I am guilty of committing myself, while others are pure abstractions. At any rate, it’s what I’ve come up with and would like […]
I feel like someone has to slap me across the back of my head to get me to write about this. My eyes shoot for the horizon, yet I look down at my feet. I can only see the here and now, can’t imagine some other later, just yet. […]
Feel free to fail. You are climbing over a stumbling block. That’s one. What are other, recent life lessons? Some silly things. I feel like I am holding a hot ginger tea and wearing pajamas as I explain things or muse, like some youtubers I saw recently. But on […]
Outside in Bucharest the clouds pour gentle, warm buckets of rain. Button-up shirts look three shades darker around the shoulders and back. Hair, too. The smell of flaky, crispy pastries finds its way through the wetness of morning. It is still early, but not for long. One reads. A […]
The next book is called They Lived They Were at Brighton Beach. And this post is a respite from feeling like I have to work at it. Thank you post! What else compares to the chasm between inching forward in life and looking back to see how far one has […]
Ain’t no thing, either way, the play ends. We go home, and go to bed. Commonly, a happy ending comes at the end of a comedy, usually in a marriage; while a sad ending comes at the end of a tragedy, usually everyone’s death. You could argue that […]
There was this badass coworker of mine, a teacher who skedaddled to Hungary last year. We chatted a lot between classes, in the halls of our school. Who knows where he is now (as in, I haven’t messaged him in a while, and he’s probably still modeling three-piece suits on […]
“. . . come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret.” My uncle used to say, a bad lunch ruins your day. You go away hungry for not having eaten, angry for having spent the money, and, on top of […]
It occurs to me that, were I to exaggerate, I have never needed to write. My writing comes from a place of want. I want to write. The struggle is, in this case, when one wants to write, that the quality of the work comes into question. Wanting, one invests […]
Writer of many home-study courses for Time-Life Educational systems, Ron Bradley, was the English learning trainer who helped certify me to teach others. He has this to say about reflection: “[Use] reflective practice to improve your teaching and professional growth: ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll […]