I’m not very good at waiting.  I’m an action kind of person.  If I walk into a store and the lines are super long, I’ll walk out and come by some other time.  I’m also not good at waiting to make decisions.  When I need to decide on something, I want to weigh all the…

On Christmas morning when I was seven, I received my first diary.  An avid reader, I loved the idea of writing down my own personal thoughts and what transpired during my days. I never intended anyone to read the words I had written.  But my siblings apparently thought I had something juicy in there.  I…

On NPR last November, they were interviewing a guy who made a documentary about what he called “the best high school in the world.”  As a math tutor who struggles to understand how it is that I have high school students who still don’t know their times tables, I was curious. He said 85% of…

While waiting for me to start the review session for their upcoming exam, one student asked, “So why are you a teacher?”  “You mean my motivation for teaching?” I asked.  “No, I mean, didn’t you say you were a physical therapist?  So I’ve been wondering why you’re a teacher,” he clarified. Oh how I loved…

Hello all – For today’s post I’m going to refer you to two posts I wrote as a guest blogger while at the John C. Campbell Folk School a couple weeks ago.  It was my second time the Folk School (the first was in March, 2006 which I talked about in an earlier post). http://blog.folkschool.org/2010/03/08/a-reunion/…

“Do you ever worry about saving up a bunch of money for the day you might retire?” my friend Kate asked me.  “No,” I responded.  “So you really do just live in the moment?” she asked.  “Well, I mean, I do have savings.  I try to put the max in my Roth every year and…

In true Rebecca fashion, when I got my first catalog for the John C. Campbell Folk School, I wanted to take every class they had.  Blacksmithing? Sign me up!  Glass bead making? Yes, I want to do that! Woodturning?  Had no idea what that was, but after reading the class description, I wanted to try…

It was in the Spring of 2000 that I first heard about El Camino de Santiago.  I had the TV on in the background while I was getting ready for work.  I did not know much about Shirley MacLaine, but was familiar with the name.  I stopped to watch, though, as she talked about the…

Four weeks into the semester, one of my students e-mailed me.  “I just wanted to let you know that I’m behind in my assignments because I didn’t get my book yet.”  She proceeded to tell me that she initially couldn’t afford the book.  Then, when she had the money the bookstore was out of the…

She sat in her usual chair, her rolling walker next to her.  I sat across from her in my usual spot on the couch.  This is how we’ve started my piano lessons for the last few years.  We sit in the living room and catch up.  Sometimes we don’t even make it to the piano…