Who am I? Such a simple question, so difficult to answer. What do I like to do? How do I want to live? What am I good at? What am I not good at? What does my mind and heart tell me? What do proven results in life tell me? What is my role in … Read more
Happy New Year everyone! Last month I wrote about the holidays and said the following about New Year’s Eve celebrations: “I never enjoyed a hard-partying New Year’s Eve staying out late, or the hangover the next morning. But I have enjoyed the past twenty or so New Year’s Eves when I quietly stay at home, … Read more
Remember this. You have been wont to use your mind to command your body to perform. As if your body were separate from your mind, and not part and parcel of it. Your mind in the driver’s seat has its advantages: you get a lot out of what God has given you in terms of … Read more
Why? I have no problem with the holidays themselves – Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s Eve – especially Thanksgiving – I am a fan of that holiday dedicated to appreciating what you have, which everyone can and should celebrate. But Christmas has become so hyped and commercialized that I endure rather than celebrate it. And … Read more
I talk about abortion with my high school students, or about the losses on Civil War battlefields, or the movie Wit about John Donne’s poetry and the process of getting sick and dying. I watch my students very closely for their reactions to human tragedy: the dying of a sick toddler, the casualty of a … Read more
Posts on my webpage go up and down in popularity with Google, for God only knows what reason; I can see all the statistics in the Word Press app or Google Webmaster Console. I don’t care enough about getting attention for my posts to do a deep dive into Search Engine Optimization in the Google … Read more
At the moment I am watching everyone talk about how the social media network Twitter, bought recently by billionaire Elon Musk for 44 billion dollars, is supposedly going under. Long unprofitable, Twitter with its new owner is firing employees and urging those who remain to work harder – and many Twitter employees are quitting, too. … Read more
It is almost like a mantra for me: going off to college is where you can take your first baby steps as an adult – you can move out of your parent’s house and move into a university dorm, you can take harder “more adult” college classes, you can fall-in-love and fall-out-of love – meet … Read more
At my brother’s urging, I have been watching the Netflix series Narcos. In my usual way, it has taken me some seven months to get through eight episodes. Why so slow? I am busy. My wife and daughters tend to monopolize the TV. I am too impatient to sit through extended video. Whatever. But I … Read more
To be a teacher is to live the binge all-or-nothing lifestyle of the student forever. Your calendar is the academic one. You either have final exams and are overwhelmed. Or you have the summer off with little or nothing to do. And I have been doing this for 28 years. Most do the academic lifestyle … Read more
I am sailing the ship of state through a sea of estrogen. Or I feel at times like I am swimming in an ocean of estrogen, and I struggle to keep my head above the surface. Between work and home I am up to my ears in females – teenage girls, in particular. And this … Read more
So in a few short weeks I will go back to work in my 28th year of teaching. My classroom will be full of new students ready for a new semester. And it will be my 23rd at my current school. All of them in the same classroom, no less. The same 70′ by 50′ … Read more
The U-Shaped Happiness Curve, touted by researchers, claims that the data is clear, across cultures and even species. The numbers show that on average life satisfaction drops during midlife and begins its recovery around age 50, reaching its peak at the end of life. Younger people tend to be happy and the eldery tend to … Read more
So I turned 55-years old yesterday, and my father turns 83 tomorrow; we had our joint birthdays this weekend overlooking the ocean at my father’s house in Laguna Beach. We tend to do this each year during the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Beyond our birthdays, this annual celebratory weekend heralds the beginning of summer. I … Read more
I sometimes think I am. I am a public school teacher, and so I am in a job where I have little control over my working conditions. The traits entrepreneurs need – decisiveness, risk taking, incisive intelligence, competitiveness – don’t necessarily pay off for teachers. It goes the other way, too. The traits teachers need … Read more
(This is the second of a 2 Part Essay. Read Part 1 here.) I have never made much money, taking into account my level of education. Public school teachers are not paid all that much money in the United States. That is one of the many negatives to working as a teacher. I can hear … Read more
There are moments in youth when you make choices that alter the trajectory of your life. You might not recognize it at the time, but years later you can appreciate where a turning point took place. In this essay I will explain how my life changed so much for the better when I decided to … Read more
I wrote recently about adversity in competitive sports. But I was really using sport as a metaphor to talk about dealing with adversity in life generally. In this essay I would like to add to last week’s post to flesh out a fuller picture of how I see it. For the vast majority of us … Read more
So I wrote late last fall about the impending darkness of winter, and my ability to get my workouts completed in the dark and the cold. Now we are on the other side: it is April and spring, and the sun is out for longer. Driving by the tennis courts last night and they were … Read more
My grandma, Margaret (“Peg”) Harriet Sullivan Geib, died when she was 77-years old. Her husband, Phillip James Geib, my grandfather, died at 90-years of age. Their deaths could not have been more different. My grandma was ready to go. I remember her telling me around 1977 or so that she had little interest in the … Read more
Supposedly my paternal grandfather (born in 1898) could recite long stretches of poetry by heart — Shelley and Keats, the classics. I mostly saw him recite semi-salacious limericks or other pithy humorous sayings, although he could recite those well enough, too. My grandfather had it all memorized. It was poetry at his fingertips, ready for … Read more
Some years ago I had a giant purge of my Facebook contacts. I got rid of almost all my former students and current co-workers here in beachside Ventura, California. I miss hearing some of the news about former students, but I don’t miss hearing about my co-workers. I decided to semi-strictly wall off my work … Read more
Two days ago, on November 7th, 2021, we ended daylight savings time. Now it gets dark as soon as 5:00 pm. That is early. This is what is on my mind tonight. The change in time has got me a bit off my game. The clock says it is 7:30 pm but it feels like … Read more
I figured I would take a step back and write a birthday message about my personal webpage on the 25th anniversary of its inception. I intend to explain why it came into being and how it evolved over time, and to show some of the back-side technology details and performance statistics. I started my website … Read more
I am 54-years old. I have been a teacher for 27 years, exactly half of my life. I went to school and then college. I got a job and worked. Got married and raised a family. Does my adult life consist mainly of sustaining myself and my wife, helping to pay our bills, and raising … Read more
“That which does not kill you makes you stronger.” I never liked the above quote by Frederick Nietizsche. More accurately I suspected a conflict which almost kills you leaves you traumatized. It scars and leaves you less than you were. Instead of being strong and active, you are passive and vulnerable. I preferred the Chinese … Read more
My school year comes to an end tomorrow. It was my 27th. But my first full one during an epidemic. So it has been a long year of (distance) learning. I taught my students the best I could over the Internet using Zoom (and Canvas). I was there day-in, day-out for my students as much … Read more
Today is my birthday. I turn 54-years old. I hear some complain of “getting older.” They don’t want to hear out loud the number associated with the span of their years. They seem almost to want to keep their age a secret. That is not me. I enjoy getting older. I have earned my gray … Read more
Today, if she were still alive, my mother would turn 80-years old. But she is dead. She died at 56-years of age. To arrive at 80-years of age would have been quite the milestone for my mother, if she were alive. It was so for my father. Additionally, my older daughter Julia turns 14-years old … Read more
I had occasion lately to come across a posting of mine from January 15, 2007. It is titled, “The Past Is Not Done With Me.” That would make the essay over fourteen years old. I was 39-years old when I penned it, and now I am 53-years old. What is the difference between those two … Read more