today, in the gym locker room, i was tying my shoes and a woman carrying her baby paused in front of me. "i have a rather odd favor to ask. i want to know how much my son weighs, so i was thinking i'd weigh myself and then weigh me with him, but..."

"you want me to hold him?"

"yes, if you would.."

she holds out a towel and then hands me her ( Read more... )

without them, i'm beginning to feel music again. without them, tears swell in the corners of my eyes for almost any reason - a subway car full of tired, lonely eyes, my children when they get to the door in the morning, out of breath from running up the stairs, only to be told by ms. pierce that they need to go back down to the cafeteria until the ( Read more... )

i'm not good at classroom management. i like kids too much. they call out when they are excited and i like them more because that was me. they whisper to one another during independent work time and i like them more because it took me eighteen years to learn how to shut up. and i've always been bad at being mean.

i'm good at communicating through ( Read more... )

it's been almost two months since i first commanded attention in front of a classroom, five weeks since i passed my teaching tests, a month since institute in all its sordid glory came to an end. since then it's been three weeks of professional development, piles upon piles of instructional texts i've half read, handfuls of group meetings to ( Read more... )

there are so many things that i can't believe: that it's already been a year since the water rose over the levy, that, had she lived, jon benet would be sixteen. that i'm old enough to be living with my boyfriend, to be considered a teacher, to have an annual salary. how can it be that i've experienced a lifetime this summer and still instinctively ( Read more... )

what stays after six weeks of exhausting effort, six weeks of reflecting to the point where everything becomes a question, six weeks of transitioning from being a 22-year old college graduate to a young professional, a teacher even?

the people - the tap on my shoulder that told me our friendship would last past the closing ceremonies, the phone ( Read more... )

it's thursday night and i'm not packing a bag. tomorrow will be my first friday night on campus, solely because i have to take my certification tests for like ten hours on saturday. institute is a thousand times harder without the promise of his soft matress and strong arms ( Read more... )

two and half years from a circumstancial crush to picking plates - patterened or plain? bright or just white? - at fortunoff. we may seem young, foolish, rash, but it's less about years gone by and more about those on the horizon. it's less our two year anniversary and more our entire uphill history. from stolen summer kisses to international ( Read more... )

for the first time in my life, i underpacked. for the second time in my life, i'm figuring out a college campus. for the third time in my life, i'm ambivalent about the "good luck" that let me wind up with a single. for the millionth time in my life, i'm adjusting to something new ( Read more... )

"Kasey, an econ major with a psychology minor and a ''markets and management'' certificate, brings her books to the gym. ''And a highlighter,'' she says. ''Not that I can actually read this small print on the treadmill, but it's just the fact that it's sitting there and that I brought it and the effort's there''Reading on the treadmill with the ( Read more... )