Entries by Bethany

The Fence

I have been gifted this quarter with students who argue with me. Try writing every day, I suggest. “I can’t do that,” they say. Try using a little dialogue, let us hear this character’s voice, I suggest. “I never remember what people say.” I felt confused by this sentence, I tell them in workshop. “I […]

Cold Meds

Despite a sleepless night (couldn’t stop coughing), I decided I had to go to class today. Standing in the kitchen with my cold meds in my hand I said aloud, “If I take these I won’t be able to think straight in class. If I don’t take these, I’ll spread my germs to everyone.” One […]

Nag, nag, nag

“Intimacy is anarchic and mutual and definitionally incompatible with control.” Jonathan Franzen I’m sick, sick enough that I felt justified in calling in sick to the college and going back to bed. I thought I would get up at ten or eleven and work on-line. Instead I slept nearly all day. But I also did […]

Nagging or Negotiating?

I’ve been meaning to post an announcement (ta da!) for Annie — she passed her summer math class after all and is now happily enrolled in Math for Educators, the first math class she has ever loved. On the first day of classes, she told me that she was just going to drop from the […]