tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41245632011-12-14T21:36:51.609-05:00Every Wednesday…The Journal of a Teacher in Search of a ClassroomKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comBlogger531100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1072282430161059392003-12-24T11:13:00.000-05:002003-12-24T11:15:13.123-05:00By Kathleen Dixon Donnelly
Author Robert Parker’s wife: “Wait—they’re going to pay you an obscene amount of money, just to show up once a week and teach one class on Wednesdays?! And you don’t know whether you should take it?!”
Parker: “Yeah, but every Wednesday…!”
Wednesday, December 24, 2003, Hollywood, FL
It was a building year.
We Steeler fans have learned the double-edged-sword of Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1071963662399860422003-12-20T18:41:00.000-05:002003-12-24T11:15:41.106-05:00Wednesday, December 17, 2003, Hollywood, FL
Many of you are familiar with the Whack Pack by Roger von Oech that I use in my creativity presentations and my life. I pull out one or two of these cards from time to time to help me with whatever I’m working on.
The problem is, I’m so familiar with the concepts on the cards that my reaction is always, Oh, right. Well, I already do that… Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1071280052541926002003-12-12T20:47:00.000-05:002003-12-20T18:43:09.700-05:00Wednesday, December 10, 2003, Hollywood, FL
My husband Tony said it best. �There are a lot of fun things to do in Miami. But by the time you finally get there, you�re so pissed off about getting lost, you can�t enjoy it.�
We have had this experience numerous times since we moved here six years ago. The biggest difference now is that when we get lost, it looks familiarKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1070663071720858292003-12-05T17:24:00.000-05:002003-12-12T20:46:55.530-05:00Wednesday, December 3, 2003, Hollywood, FL
The first time I traveled outside the continental United States (Tijuana and Niagara Falls don’t count) I made sure it was to Ireland, where most of my great grandparents had come from. On my last night in Dublin I treated myself to dinner at a “nice” restaurant, right off O’Connell Street. I sat at the table in the window so I could watch the Dubs Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1070118031681978552003-11-29T10:00:00.000-05:002003-12-05T17:26:00.390-05:00Wednesday, November 26, 2003, Hollywood, FL
Last week I went to a lovely event to thank all of us who volunteer at the local NPR station, WLRN. Every year so far this dinner has been held in a different location, and this year it was at the Miami Women’s Club. I drove over the causeway that cross the Intercoastal and wove through the maze of buildings on the Miami side.
The four-story, Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1069617209865125222003-11-23T14:53:00.000-05:002003-11-29T10:01:52.873-05:00Wednesday, November 19, 2003, Hollywood, FL
I want to tell you about an amazing man.
When I was doing my research for my dissertation on early 20th century writers’ salons—W B Yeats and the Irish Literary Renaissance, Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, Gertrude Stein and the American expatriates in Paris, and Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table—there was this character who keptKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1069034701239182742003-11-16T21:05:00.000-05:002003-11-23T14:54:37.013-05:00Wednesday, November 12, 2003, Hollywood, FL
Last week I went up to Okeechobee for a few days to stay with an old friend who had had surgery. Well, she’s as old as I am; Debbie and I grew up together in Pennsylvania. She came to Okeechobee fresh out of college to take a nursery school teaching job sight unseen and she has stayed for 30 years. Six years ago, when I moved down to Miami for a Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1068004721181351582003-11-04T22:58:00.000-05:002003-11-16T21:06:31.000-05:00Wednesday, November 5, 2003, Hollywood, FL
I’m going to be doing a regular 15-minute spot each week for our local Radio Reading Service at WLRN-FM, where I am a volunteer reader. Some of you may remember that I did a series on our experiences with Summer Study Abroad programs in Europe in 2002, “Dixon Donnelly @ Sea,” that ran on the RRS. This one would be more local, “Friends and Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1067644385352444532003-10-31T18:53:00.000-05:002003-11-04T22:59:27.840-05:00Wednesday, October 29, 2003, Hollywood, FL
We love our town, Hollywood, which is slipped in between “white bread” Fort Lauderdale to the north and big, bad Miami to the south. A man of vision named Joseph Young founded it in the early 1920s and thought that, if he named it Hollywood, he could lure the motion picture business here.
Built around a lovely park in a large roundabout, it stretchesKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1067115759239763462003-10-25T17:02:00.000-04:002003-10-31T18:52:27.903-05:00Wednesday, October 22, 2003, Hollywood, FL
The Great Telephone Book Delivery Adventure.
Yesterday I headed west out Sheridan Street—far west. Past our town of Hollywood, past the Turnpike, past the Interstate. My mission: Deliver telephone directories to the needy phone customers in Southwest Ranches.
Last year an academic colleague of mine mentioned that he had gotten an insert with hisKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1066596854893069732003-10-19T16:54:00.000-04:002003-10-25T17:03:11.373-04:00Wednesday, October 15, 2003, Weston, FL
Today was the last session of my six-week series about my writers that I have been doing in Weston for the Institute of Retired Professionals sponsored by the University of Miami. Their courses are held at a really new private school here, and it’s definitely a different world than the one I’m used to.
I leave my MBA graduate students behind in Ft. Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1065619583227286952003-10-08T09:26:00.000-04:002003-10-19T16:54:47.873-04:00Wednesday, October 8, 2003, Hollywood, FL
This past weekend I attended yet another workshop about putting together a proposal to get your book published. I’m not published, but I sure have attended a lot of workshops.
This one included a writing exercise: “Describe a moment that changed your life.” I wasn’t picked to read mine at the end, so here it is.
The Moment That Changed My Life
WeKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1065298351274965012003-10-04T16:12:00.000-04:002003-10-08T09:26:47.563-04:00Wednesday, October 1, 2003, Weston and Hollywood, FL
Today I did the “Americans in Paris” part of my series on Early 20th Century Writers’ Salons for the Institute for Retired Professionals in Weston. I can’t re-create it for you, but here is an article I’ve written, similar in tone, that I have submitted to the magazine Mental Floss in hopes of getting a regular column with them about my Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1064775078451928842003-09-28T14:51:00.000-04:002003-10-04T16:14:04.603-04:00Wednesday, September 24, 2003, En route from Brighton, England to Hollywood, FL
“Quotidian.”
The first time I heard that word I thought it sounded incredibly exotic. Then I found out that as an adjective it means “everyday, commonplace.”
I didn’t travel outside North America until just before I was forty. My first trip was the Globus package that took me to the three countries of my origin:Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1063937653929948562003-09-18T22:14:00.000-04:002003-09-28T14:52:24.380-04:00Wednesday, September 17, 2003, Hollywood, FL
I was reminiscing with myself about job interviews I have had over the years.
When I was first out of college and making the rounds of employment agencies, I met with one young woman about the same age as I was—but she had a job, of course—who went through her little card file looking for something to fit my unique qualifications.
“Here’s one,” she Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1063405009383991272003-09-12T18:16:00.000-04:002003-09-18T22:14:48.286-04:00Wednesday, September 10, 2003, Hollywood, FL
A local newspaper has asked its readers to send in “your worst Thanksgiving cooking disaster and what you did to remedy it.” For my first Irish Thanksgiving I remedied each disaster that crossed my path.. So this I what I sent to them:
“American Woman Crushed by Huge Turkey”
That’s the headline that flashed through my mind as I crossed the “dual Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-106311591531701562003-09-09T09:58:00.000-04:002006-01-17T14:40:27.930-05:00Wednesday, September 3, 2003, Hollywood, FLBy Kathleen Dixon DonnellyMy Irish husband Tony and I went to see the new movie, The Magdalene Sisters. We have been reading about this film since it caused a stir in Ireland last year for its in-depth look at the young women who were sent to live and work in the “Magdalene laundries” in Dublin, either because they got pregnant, or sometimes just becauseKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1062189790358420162003-08-29T16:43:00.000-04:002006-01-17T14:40:59.066-05:00Wednesday, August 27, 2003, Hollywood, Wauchula, Okeechobee, and back to Hollywood, FLBy Kathleen Dixon DonnellyRoad trip!My husband Tony and I set aside this Wednesday, the only day we are both off work, to do a one-day road trip. August is so dead here that I've been working hard on my book, so a full-day break in the middle of the week is welcome.By 7:30 am we are on the road, outfitted with Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1061559984181944562003-08-22T09:46:00.000-04:002003-08-29T16:43:45.413-04:00Wednesday, August 20, 2003, Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale, FL
This week, and many weeks, I, and many teachers, get a similar complaint from students, many students: “We don’t know what you want.”
It is usually in the context of, “We don’t know what you want for this project.” “We don’t know what you want us to study for the test.” “We don’t know what you want us to write.”
I’ll tell you what I Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1061248982906395432003-08-18T19:23:00.000-04:002003-08-25T20:06:50.290-04:00Wednesday, August 13, 2003, Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Dear Anonymous student,
I understand you have some concerns about the class. (So do I, by the way, but let’s deal with yours first.)
Apparently you’ve talked to some of the other students, and the assistant Dean, but, unfortunately, you haven’t come to me. Whatever the problem is, I’d prefer to hear it directly from you.
From what I Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1060221073121157992003-08-06T21:51:00.000-04:002003-08-18T19:23:28.310-04:00Wednesday, August 6, 2003, Hollywood, FL
I know this is a cop out, but this week I’m putting up a letter to the editor I wrote to the editor of The Herald. I sent it by e-mail but haven’t heard back whether it will be published. At least it’s timely.
To the Editor:
As a college professor who teaches courses on creative problem solving, I am personally really glad that the story about the Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1059844979350320592003-08-02T13:22:00.000-04:002003-08-06T21:51:47.493-04:00Wednesday, July 30, 2003, back in Hollywood, FL
“Even children get older
And I'm getting older too”
Stevie Nicks, Landslide
Back from our trip to France for my husband Tony’s daughter’s wedding, it’s time to write our thank you notes.
To my 10th grade French teacher, Miss Rackly
Thank you for making us memorize conversations in French that we assumed we would never use. The only one I Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1059700653348045902003-07-31T21:17:00.000-04:002003-08-02T13:24:59.390-04:00Mercredi, le 23 Juillet, 2003,
en route de Paris a Morlaix dans Bretagne
Enough showing off—yes, we’re in France!
On our way to Tony’s daughter’s wedding in Brittany, we allotted three days to Paris and one day to drive through the French countryside.
To assuage the guilt I felt about spending ten days hanging out in France while being only partially employed, I determined to spend one full Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1058564534053078362003-07-18T17:42:00.000-04:002003-07-31T21:20:56.623-04:00Wednesday, July 16, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
I have always loved the first day of school
New shoes. Buy a pencil box. Figure out what time the school bus will come. However, I do remember being in tears the night before third grade, panicking about what this new Sister Mary Joseph would be like.
Yesterday was my first day of school teaching daytime MBA students at a local private Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1057954676579285432003-07-11T16:17:00.000-04:002003-07-31T21:21:49.316-04:00Wednesday, July 9, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
Man, did I work this morning. I sure hope I get paid some day for all this, because I have really been productive.
Well, I deserve a break and I sure as hell deserve dinner out. Tony’s working tonight. I haven’t spent that much money this week. What can I get cheap before I go home?
Wait—what did I have for lunch? Just a bagel with some creamKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1057327998141485882003-07-04T10:13:00.000-04:002003-07-11T16:18:31.496-04:00Wednesday, July 2, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
Watching the documentary film Capturing the Friedmans, I was of course captivated by the story, of a dysfunctional family dealing with the indictment and conviction of the father and youngest son of sexual abuse of young boys. But there was another aspect that interested me even more.
Coming out of the Ladies’ Room after the showing, I heard one Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-1056825219548051332003-06-28T14:33:00.000-04:002003-07-04T10:14:06.090-04:00Wednesday, June 25, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
Tomorrow will be 6 months since my last day of full-time, permanent employment. That means it’s been 6 months to the day since I started this blog. In that time I have:
Volunteered to read for the Radio Reading Service, taping 18 programs of Vanity Fair, reading newspapers 3 times live, and once going sailing with the disabled (“You’re a real Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-958739952003-06-20T16:19:00.000-04:002003-06-28T14:32:57.443-04:00Wednesday, June 18, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
Happy “Bloomsday”!
99 years ago this week (June 16th, to be exact), James Joyce had his first date with the woman who was to become his wife, Nora Barnacle, and so he chose to immortalize it in his epic, Ulysses, which covers every detail of one day in the life of Leopold Bloom, a Jew living in Dublin, in only 783 pages.
What this really means is Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-956896302003-06-15T13:49:00.000-04:002003-06-20T16:20:33.000-04:00Wednesday, June 11, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
I haven’t had a kitten in 23 years.
Now we have two.
My legendary cat, Maxwell Perkins, a calico Maine coon, finally gave up the day after we returned from our three-month trip away. She had waited for us.
She was one month short of her 23rd birthday, so we’ll give her 23. She was a great cat. She outlasted at least three Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-954623192003-06-09T09:13:00.000-04:002003-06-15T13:51:03.000-04:00Wednesday, June 4, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
Costs of an extended weekend, accompanied by my friend Mary Lou, in the Bahamas, where I am sent to teach by a local university:
$22. Chicken Caesar Salad Thursday afternoon at the Ft. Lauderdale airport.
$35. Van from Nassau airport to hotel, including tour by driver pointing out fourth location I’ve heard of so far for Sean Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-953051102003-06-04T19:19:00.000-04:002003-06-09T09:13:59.000-04:00Wednesday, May 28, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
What are those little games called that we used to play before we had Rubik’s cubes? Chinese puzzles, I think. The flat squares with all the little squares in them that you had to move around to form a pattern, and you could only move one square at a time.
Now that we’ve moved the square of all the stuff in my “home office” (read, “once-lovely Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-948101952003-05-23T21:34:00.000-04:002003-06-04T19:20:32.000-04:00Wednesday, May 21, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
I rented an office.
I rented an office and now I have buyer’s remorse.
For someone with a long-term lack of commitment, signing even a six-month lease is traumatic. Six months! Who knows what I’ll be doing in six months? I thought I’d be in Croatia in six months. Now it looks as though I’ll be in Hollywood. Not that there’s anything wrong with Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-945791162003-05-19T09:25:00.000-04:002003-05-23T21:37:40.000-04:00Wednesday, May 14, 2003, Hollywood,
Pompano Beach, Delray Beach, Coral Gables,
Miami, Hollywood, Florida
The detritus in my car after one week of driving around South Florida:
File folder with leftovers from Kinko’s trip including copies of application form
for Lecturer in Marketing Communications at the London Institute. [Croatia didn’t come through, so the search for gainful employment in Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-943032842003-05-13T22:35:00.000-04:002003-05-19T09:27:45.000-04:00Wednesday, May 7, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
Things I learned by being an extra in the film Stuck on You with Gregg Kinnear, Meryl Streep and Matt Damon:
People really don’t listen anymore.
I first noticed it with my students. I would give explicit instructions in class about an assignment and then after class half of them would cluster around me to ask questions—I encourage questions, I like Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-937224562003-05-03T18:41:00.000-04:002003-05-13T22:35:47.000-04:00Wednesday, April 30, 2003, Hollywood,
Coral Gables, Miami, Florida
Rains in South Florida usually come fast, mean, and then they’re gone. Today was more of an Ireland rain—all day. Heavy, then light, then heavy. But no sign of letting up. At least here it’s warm.
The weather made my route a bit more treacherous. But I headed for the Hollywood branch of Kinko’s—God bless Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-933654652003-04-27T19:47:00.000-04:002003-05-03T18:41:51.000-04:00Wednesday, April 23, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
Sure, why not. It didn’t pay, but it would be a chance to see a foreign land.
So sometime last year I agreed to do a speaking engagement in Palm Beach County. At the time I didn’t even know if I’d be living in Florida this April, but what the hell? I would do my presentation on Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table to a Women’s Group in Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-929839672003-04-21T10:43:00.000-04:002003-04-27T19:47:54.000-04:00Wednesday, April 16, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
“Greetings from Dubrovnik.”
As soon as I saw the Subject line of the e-mail, I grabbed Tony and said, “Click on it! Click on it!” He fumbled with the mouse, and I poked him. “Open it! Open it!” Wisely, he got up and said, “Here—you do it.”
The e-mail we have been waiting for. “Are you still interested in teaching for us in Croatia?”
Yes!
Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-926657002003-04-15T14:49:00.000-04:002003-04-21T10:43:59.000-04:00Wednesday, April 9, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
She told me it was “Teacher Heaven” and she was right.
Soon after we moved down here for my new teaching job at Florida International University, I was on a plane seated next to a man who taught at nearby Nova Southeastern University. He told me they were really looking for part-time marketing professors, and they even had programs in the Bahamas Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-925082922003-04-12T21:20:00.000-04:002003-04-15T14:51:05.000-04:00Wednesday, April 2, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
The perfect day in the life of an adjunct teacher/“free-lance” writer:
2:30 am. Wake up. Go back to sleep.
4:50 am Wake up. Go to the bathroom. Put on headphones plugged into the radio and get 5 minutes of reggae music and then NPR. Fall back asleep with the war in my ears.
7:30 am. Watch husband wake up, get out of bed and slide directly into Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-918147032003-04-01T22:09:00.000-05:002003-04-12T21:21:06.000-04:00Wednesday, March 26, 2003, Hollywood, Florida
My name is Kathleen and I am a news junkie.
I read the Herald and The Wall Street Journal every morning, the radio is tuned to NPR all day (in the car and at home), and I read Time magazine and The Atlantic Monthly cover to cover every issue. When I go out of town the papers are saved for me and when I return I go through them (pretty fast), in Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-912516432003-03-23T20:52:00.000-05:002003-04-01T22:11:25.000-05:00Wednesday, March 19, 2003, Key West, Florida
George W. has given Saddam until 8 pm tonight to get out of Dodge.
Here at the Westwinds in Key West, those without TVs in their rooms gather around the set in the common lounge to get the latest. Middle aged couples watch along with young female college students, surprisingly quiet for Spring Break-ers.
We have TV in our room but finally wean Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-908172182003-03-16T16:04:00.000-05:002003-04-15T14:56:16.000-04:00Wednesday, March 12, 2003,
You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-903641442003-03-08T13:51:00.000-05:002003-04-15T14:57:10.000-04:00Wednesday, March 5, 2003,
You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-899041942003-02-28T10:18:00.000-05:002003-04-15T14:57:55.000-04:00Wednesday, February 26, 2003,
You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-899038022003-02-28T10:10:00.000-05:002003-02-28T10:10:01.763-05:00Wednesday, February 19, 2003,
En Route from Hollywood, FL
The night before the biggest trip of my life (well, one of the biggest) my darling husband left my laptop turned on—and unplugged—all night.
When I first awoke, remembering I was to fly out that afternoon, I curled up close for one last snuggle with this wonderful man who had spent so much time yesterday trying to get my e-mail access setKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-892084512003-02-16T18:53:00.000-05:002003-02-28T10:11:07.000-05:00Wednesday, February 12, 2003, Hollywood, FL
Years ago I learned the hard way that collecting unemployment is the hardest job you’ll ever have.
I swear I am not making this up: After mailing me unemployment checks for weeks, the Department of Labor of Pennsylvania, in its infinite wisdom, mailed me a letter asking for my address. I wrote back and said that it was the address Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-888729532003-02-10T17:02:00.000-05:002003-02-16T18:54:27.000-05:00
Wednesday, February 5, 2003, Hollywood, FL
Boxes. Our lives are waiting in boxes. Bankers’ boxes from Office Max. Some stacked three high, pushed out of the walkway. Others piled up in a corner with a blanket thrown over them, as if no one will notice a 5-foot mountain under an old green blanket. Some boxes haven’t even been put together yet.
When we left for three months last summer to Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-883476462003-01-31T16:53:00.000-05:002003-02-10T17:04:16.000-05:00Wednesday, January 29, 2003, Hollywood, FL
An old Saturday Night Live skit shows a group of conductors who come over to another conductor’s house to practice. He plays a recording, and they all start conducting each other. I was reminded of this scene when I spent a full day at an orientation for 30 other would-be adjunct instructors at a local university’s business school.
Put aKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-879185412003-01-23T16:21:00.000-05:002003-01-31T16:54:00.000-05:00Wednesday, January 22, 2003, Hollywood, FL
What we know:
· I have a job teaching abroad from mid-February to mid-March that will pay well and put me in the Frankfort airport on March 13th with a ticket back to Miami.
· Tony’s daughter is getting married in France in July.
· I am 99% sure I can pick up teaching two to four courses in the fall. With luck, I’ll get a real full-time teaching job, Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-877543042003-01-20T19:26:00.000-05:002003-01-26T17:20:47.000-05:00Wednesday, January 15, 2003, Hollywood, FL
I’m so confused.
Where to go; what to do. What to do with my life. What do I want to be when I grow up. Am I grown up? I’m married. Never having kids allows you to hold on to your own childhood forever.
But I do have kids—I have my students. I have an index card on every single one of them since the very beginning. Sitting in a gray metal fileKathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-876849202003-01-19T12:18:00.000-05:002003-01-26T17:21:36.000-05:00Wednesday, January 8, 2003, Hollywood, FL
Finally, a nibble.
I was doing my volunteer stint at the Radio Reading Service and Tony called me on my cellphone. “You got a nibble,” he said. An interview with a university nearby (maybe we won’t have to move!). It’s only for adjunct teaching, but still, it’s teaching. It may even involve teaching and travel, my two favorite Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-876846052003-01-19T12:08:00.000-05:002003-01-26T17:23:22.000-05:00Wednesday, January 1, 2003, Hollywood, FL
Last year, on New Year’s Day, 2002, Tony and I took ourselves to lunch at an Irish pub we don’t often get to, The Field in Dania Beach, Florida. I suggested we make a “Wish List” of all the things we would like to do in our lives—together and separately. I had already been notified that my teaching contract wouldn’t be renewed after December of Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124563.post-876843752003-01-19T12:01:00.000-05:002003-01-26T17:25:59.000-05:00Wednesday, December 25, 2002, Hollywood, FL
As of tomorrow, I will no longer be employed full-time.
Last year I was notified that my contract as an assistant professor at a large state university would not be renewed as of December 26, 2002. Don’t you love academia? They don’t have to give you a reason, but they have to give you a year’s notice. In how many professions do you Kathleenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00953011298494834855noreply@blogger.com