composition

Even though I spent my early years in a bilingual household-- my grandparents, aunt, father and their friends all spoke Greek and English-- I lost my connection to the Greek language when we moved from the duplex my family shared with my grandparents to our own single-family home in New Jersey just before my 5th birthday. While I may still know a few words here and there, I am by no means fluent. I don't know what it's like to know two languages, let alone use them interchangeably. Which is why I'm fascinated by my boyfriend's 3-year-old sister (aside from being one of the coolest little kids I know). My boyfriend and his family are Brazilian-- not of Brazilian descent, but actually from Brazil. His sister, though, was born and raised in America. Dear BF is completely fluent in English (even more so than some English-speaking people I know I'd say), and his mother speaks enough to get by, though she is more comfortable with and prefers to speak in Portuguese. His li...

My longtime readers already know that when I began my doctoral program, my intention was today study Victorian literature, specifically Children's literature of the Victorian age. A little less than a semester in, however, I decided to flip to the dark side of Comp/Rhet, and I've loved every minute of it. The problem is that I began my doctoral program with a background in British literature and Children's literature, and because I already had a M.A., I was fast-tracked in my residency requirements. This meant that while I normally would have had three years of full-time classes, I was cut down to one-- nice for my wallet, not so nice for my brain. Now that I'm at the dissertation phase, I'm struggling. I picked three areas of interest for my comprehensive exams that were somewhat useful, but not directly applicable to my dissertation. So at the moment, I'm forced to play catch up with all of the readings that I missed over two years of lost residency and to fig...

Every time the semester ends, I feel a little sad. Yes, I'm happy to take a break from school work. Yes, I'm happy to have a break from writing comments on papers for hours. And yes, I'm overjoyed to avoid my 1 - 1 1/2 hour commute each morning and afternoon. But it's hard to watch students go when you grow to like them as people and know how much more you could accomplish with more time. This year was particularly emotional for me, as I taught at my alma mater. I watched students follow the same paths that I did. It wasn't hard for me to put myself in their shoes. I sat in some of the same classrooms that they sat in. I had some of the same professors that they had. I told stories with my friends in the same cafeteria. I did the same things outside of class in the same residence halls. And I remembered my FYW course, which I did not like very much. I did not want my students to have that experience. I think, as a whole, I stuck to my values. I embraced the idea tha...