Remember cameras? I’m talking about 35 mm, the kind you had to buy film for, and then roll it out and stretch it across the teensy knobs under the plastic flap. Remember how you were afraid you’d screw up and get your fingerprints all over it and waste your first few pictures? Remember how you [...]
{ 8 comments }
There are some days when I realize that my job—teaching—is probably the most important in the world. (Unfortunately, most people don’t agree. They put “most important” right up there with “makes a lot of money” and “prescribes medications.”) The reason this is so is because my primary goal, regardless of whether I’m teaching grammar or [...]
{ 5 comments }
I’m starting to become a rabble-rouser. Who am I kidding? I’ve always been. And what I’m particularly peeved about this time is—you guessed it—Christmas in November. Each year, it gets worse. Halloween passes and we see Christmas wreaths adorning the entrances to grocery stores. Music about snow and presents and drummer boys abounds in almost [...]
{ 4 comments }
The scariest movie I’ve seen in years is 28 Days Later, the 2003 British film where people turn into flesh-eating zombies when a science experiment goes awry. The apocalyptic images of abandoned houses, empty streets, ravaged mini-marts and darkened skyscrapers haunted my dreams for weeks, which is why I never watched the movie again, despite [...]
{ 2 comments }
I have three words to describe The Beatles. Boring. Flaccid. Did I mention boring? I know that technically, this is a matter of taste, but personally, I have to pronounce the Rolling Stones as the clear first choice when it comes to dynamic, immortal rock bands of the 1960′s. In Casa de Jana, there is [...]
{ 5 comments }
I have a thing for D.H. Lawrence. (No, I won’t make you read a book by him. At least not this year.) I can’t help it—I like a man who pushes buttons, who knows how to brood and uses his initials in place of his name. A man who isn’t alive anymore to disappoint. All [...]
{ 7 comments }
I am so pleased today to present a guest post by a friend of mine and yoga instructor, Michelle Fabrey. I asked her to write about the connection that yoga has to our body image, because I’ve noticed that doing yoga makes me feel so much better about my body. Based on this post, I [...]
{ 15 comments }
Today we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and life. One of my favorite things to teach is the Civil Rights Movement. While I am often brought to tears by the brutality of so many racist crimes in America, I am also similarly moved and inspired by the stories of nonviolent protesters, who endured beatings [...]
{ 7 comments }
At least not for my health. Here’s why. Tuesday night, I had the very unusual enthusiasm to make lasagna, which is crazy, since I never cook anything that’s not directly out of the freezer or a box. (The turkey meatballs I used were from the freezer, in the effort of complete disclosure.) I was so chipper [...]
{ 17 comments }
Thanksgiving is this week, and it’s easily become my favorite holiday. It’s made of all the most important elements: family, often friends, gathered around a table over delicious food and wine. (Food. Wine. Good conversation with the people you love. Gratitude. Isn’t this the best that life has to offer?) Thanksgiving doesn’t contain the same [...]
{ 9 comments }
