I spent a good portion of this past Saturday helping my wife with her small business. She is a master baker and makes a variety of Mediterranean breads and desserts. Her goodies are artisanal and high-end. She sells them each Saturday at a farmer’s market located in Boerne, Texas, a town with a large German-speaking … More Sacred Places
I’m a busy guy. I manage two writing centers at a community college in San Antonio, Texas, USA. That takes fifty hours per week. My wife has a business that I help with. I take care of her purchasing, public relations, and I occasionally assist her with sales. On top of all that, I write, … More Pardon Me While I Ramble
Emerging through hardship … More On the Duality of Life
Note: This blog was originally published as an Op-Ed in the San Antonio Express-News. I’m republishing it here today because it relates nicely with Learning to Question: A Pedagogy of Liberation, a book I’m reading and one I wrote about in my most recent Pointless Overthinking blog. *** I am an American educator. My job … More Community Colleges Are Helping to Transform America
Hemingway said you should write your story, and then take all of the “best” lines out. Would we like F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Toni Morrison, or James Baldwin half as much if they took our their best lines? S … More How To Kill Your Darlings. In Your Writing, I mean. Obviously. Not In Some Creepy Jim Jones Way.
Some weeks ago, I checked out Learning to Question: A Pedagogy of Liberation, by Paulo Freire and Antonio Faundez, from the library at the college where I work. Yesterday, after having the book sit around unread since I’d taken it home, I decided the time was right and opened it up. I’m not far enough … More Participating in Something New and Special
Not long ago, I wrote a piece about thinking that prompted lots of reaction. After publishing it, my mind moved on to other topics. Recently, though, like in the last couple of days or so, I started thinking about thinking again. As you can probably tell, thinking is one my favorite activities. We think for … More I’ve Been Doing Even More Thinking about Thinking
So, as I have mentioned more often than is dignified, I have a theater company. Specifically, an online theater company we started in 2020. We did well critically in our first season, but the opposite of well in terms of making any money. We were also really bad at even breaking even. Frankly, we weren’t … More Allow Me To Use This Space To Express My Opinion That I Have Too Many Spaces To Express My Opinions
Beware fear disguised as optimism. “There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, ‘Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,’ and an optimist who says, ‘Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine any way.’ Either way, nothing happens.” — YVON CHOUINARD Most of us don’t call fear out for what it … More Fear-Setting: A powerful exercise for making major life decisions.
I am not bossy, I have just better ideas. I read it in the office of my colleague. At first, it made me laugh, but then I started to think about it. There are not only managers but also people who behave bossy. On the other hand some people seem more co-operative, they like working … More Are You Bossy or You Just Have Better Ideas?
As someone who manages a couple of writing centers at Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas, USA, I’m often asked, by faculty members of one sort of another, to do writing workshops for students. Exactly one week ago today, I did a critical thinking activity with a class of writers. It’s a workshop I’ve … More I’ve Been Thinking about Thinking