Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
Earlier this week, earth crossed the equinox. Days in the northern hemisphere are longer than the nights now. Here in Norway, the sea change between winter and summer is always so dramatic, and around the equinox daylight change is the fastest. We're headed into sun and light. We've had a smattering of beautiful clear days... Continue Reading →
The school where I teach in Norway is part of the United World College movement. There are eighteen UWC schools around the world, united by a common mission, to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future. In these last seven years, I've been lucky to get... Continue Reading →
For the first six years I was teaching here in Norway, one of my primary roles was Learning Support, which is a role we don't quite have in the US--in a US context, learning support is special education work with students who have specific, documented learning differences, coupled with what we would call in the... Continue Reading →
A tension has been on my mind for a while, between the stories we tell in fiction and the question of meaning. It was on my mind in September 2020, then again two years later, December 2022. It seems that perhaps every year in autumn I find myself thinking about this theme. Here I am... Continue Reading →
Every October, our school stops classes for a week. We devote the time to special projects--some students are organizing a march against human trafficking in our nearby city of Førde; some are helping out on a local farm; others are job-shadowing in Bergen; a few groups are on three-day hikes in the mountains. My husband... Continue Reading →
School is busy. I'm behind on grading. A lot of my work time I'm needing to devote to lesson planning, and then there have a been a lot of additional meetings with students recently. And on top of it all, this last week, everything was put on hold because of the annual UWC Day celebration,... Continue Reading →
The new school year is back into full swing. With introductions over, we are well into academic work. With my first year groups, I'm teaching Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and the memoir of the Cambodian genocide I taught two years ago, First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung. Then in the second year,... Continue Reading →
After graduation, campus changes. Half the students depart, and we are left in a quieter place as the rest of spring unfolds, as the days stretch longer and longer (it's still light at 10:30pm now; I haven't stayed up late enough to check, but I think we have now entered that period of light when... Continue Reading →
Spring keeps burgeoning out. Already the crocuses are a distant memory. Daffodils are fading now. In the woods, anemones and cuckoo flowers are everywhere. In our yard, a volunteer patch of forget me nots has sprung up. I'm used to forget me nots being a beautiful purple-blue, and a few of these are, but many... Continue Reading →
On the first of May this year, Labor Day in Norway and around much of the world, the first-year class took its annual hike up the local mountain, Jarstadheia. The hike took us up 584 meters into thick snow--more than a foot along the top plateau. We formed a winding column of sixty or seventy... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 