Recently a student told me she had actually learned something from me. She learned, she said, that she had to actually read the syllabus and follow the directions. She was rewriting her second paper for the third time. She failed the first one … Continue reading Instructions
You paid tuition. You paid the meal plan. You paid for the dorm room, the apartment, the share of a house. You paid for the paper. You paid for the pens. You paid for the laptop with the extra memory … Continue reading The Costs of Higher Education
Some scientists have speculated that we may be living in a “Multiverse:” other universes in existence, parallel universes similar to but not the same as ours, possibly existing just slightly out of sync with ours, so similar, so close, and yet … Continue reading The Multiverse Exists!
For centuries, people have wondered how they can become invisible, and float through crowds of people entirely unseen. Novels and movies about The Invisible Man and “cloaks of invisibility” have fascinated us, sparked the imagination, and sent us down pathways … Continue reading How to Be Invisible
I wrote this early in the pre-dawn morning of September 10, 1989. Two days before I had gotten up and gone to work, and late that evening we were about to go to bed when Karen’s water broke and we … Continue reading Conor’s Song
January 14, 2014: Sitting in a film studio in Studio City, with the largest green screen I have ever seen behind me, a mic is clipped to the lapel of my jacket. The lights and reflectors are so bright in … Continue reading Chasing an Idea
Sticky post
Recently I was given a collection of letters written by a surgeon in the Civil War to digitalize. The hundreds of letters were written on good paper, and usually marked by ink or more often pencil from the field. A … Continue reading The Letters
This morning I went down for breakfast. We were a couple of minutes early, so I saw an elderly woman by herself and said hello, and she started up a conversation. Everybody else went to breakfast, but we were talking … Continue reading “Londonderry!”
The Long Coach comes up the coast, pulls in to the edge of town, but cannot navigate the narrow streets. No matter. The tourists scramble out, wearing backpacks, dragging wheeled suitcases, and in ones and twos spaced out and eyeing … Continue reading Irish Invaders
Get up early for breakfast. Have some french press coffee, then a bowl of porridge–steel cut, nutty and rich, with a shot of Bailey’s Irish Cream over it. Maybe a fresh scone with blueberries and raspberries. Go on a tour … Continue reading How to Live in Kinsale
Anthropologists believe that one of the critical elements that make us human is our penchant for seeing stories everywhere. Essentially, we seek patterns around us. Originally it was seeing where game and gather-able foods were, and that certain activities would … Continue reading Stories on the Land
As a writer and professor, I live in a world of words. I read them voraciously, proclaim them in class, grade them on papers, use them to argue points in committee meetings. In fact, we all live in worlds like … Continue reading My World of Words
In “The Hobbit,” J.R.R. Tolkien added a clever insight when Bilbo has just left with the dwarves for his adventure. Wait, he calls, I forgot my pocket handkerchief–we”ll have to go back to get it! The dwarves chuckle, throw him … Continue reading A Pocket Handkerchief
It is the fifth day on the road, and my energy is depleted! We had a wonderful and filled couple of days in Amsterdam, and two days full of just travel, lugging our stuff around. Now we are here, have … Continue reading The Scale of Travel
Wist Blog: Creative Scribbles 