Chalkboard Quotes

To write as if your life depended on it; to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public the words you have dredged; sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence-- words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.

Everyday begins like a blank chalkboard, on which each one of us can write the poem of our present and our dreams for the future.

V had a passing thought that she used the word "anyway" like an eraser on a crowded chalkboard. She said it whenever she needed to clear off the things she'd just shared to make room for more.

I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other. Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they've been asked a trick question. The silence gives way to a smattering of nervous laughter. Occasionally, a young a guy will raise his hand and say, 'I stay out of prison.' This is typically followed by another moment of laughter, before someone finally raises his hand and soberly states, 'Nothing. I don't think about it.' Then I ask women the same question. What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Women throughout the audience immediately start raising their hands. As the men sit in stunned silence, the women recount safety precautions they take as part of their daily routine. Here are some of their answers: Hold my keys as a potential weapon. Look in the back seat of the car before getting in. Carry a cell phone. Don't go jogging at night. Lock all the windows when I sleep, even on hot summer nights. Be careful not to drink too much. Don't put my drink down and come back to it; make sure I see it being poured. Own a big dog. Carry Mace or pepper spray. Have an unlisted phone number. Have a man's voice on my answering machine. Park in well-lit areas. Don't use parking garages. Don't get on elevators with only one man, or with a group of men. Vary my route home from work. Watch what I wear. Don't use highway rest areas. Use a home alarm system. Don't wear headphones when jogging. Avoid forests or wooded areas, even in the daytime. Don't take a first-floor apartment. Go out in groups. Own a firearm. Meet men on first dates in public places. Make sure to have a car or cab fare. Don't make eye contact with men on the street. Make assertive eye contact with men on the street.

By the way, I'm not just one man with a chalkboard. I'm one man with four chalkboards.

Into the silence rips a sound that makes me let go of Max's hand and cover my ears. It is like the strafe of a bullet, nails on a chalkboard, promises being broken. It's a note I have never heard - this chord of pure pain - and it takes a moment to realize it is coming from me.

I’m a chalkboard that’s been erased over and over again until there’s nothing left but a haze of white dust. Before this I never understood how long an hour could take, how many ticks of the second hand are in a minute, how endless the space between seconds can be.

Then there was your voice Like a windup tin toy Like the sweetest nails on a chalkboard That I ever heard

They all looked up sharply as the door to the back opened. Blue and Maura stepped into the waiting room as a nurse began to shuffle behind the counter. All attention immediately shifted to Blue. She had two visible stiches in her right eyebrow, pinning together the cleaned-up edges of a gouge that continued down her cheek. Faint scratches on either side of the deepest wound told the story of fingers clawing into her skin. Her right eye was squinted mostly shut, but at least it was still there. Adam could tell that she was hurting. He knew he cared about her because his stomach was tingling uncomfortably just looking at her wound, the suggestion of violence scratching through him like fingers on a chalkboard. Noah had done that. Adam curled his own hand into a fist, remembering what it had felt like for it to move on its own accord. Gansey was right: Any of them could have died tonight. It was time to stop playing around. For a strange second, none of them spoke. Finally, Ronan said, “Jesus God, Sargent. Do you have stitches on your face? Bad. Ass. Put it here, you asshole.” With some relief, Blue lifted her fist and bumped it against his.

Then Glenn Beck burned to death on his Internet program, right in front of his chalkboard, burned so hot his glasses fused to his face,

I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die- No. Heather took a deep breath and tried to think about something else. Anything else. Like ponies. Ponies were a happy thought. They were nice and gentle and they never kidnapped people or strapped them to cold warehouse pillars. Ponies, ponies, ponies- "Tie him up by the girl and for God's sake don't kill him!" Clare's - er, Raven's - voice was like nails on a chalkboard as it floated into Heather's ears. Any attempts to think of ponies came to an abrupt halt.

But he's kind of... extreme. Like he came to school one day painted head-to-toe red, and it wasn't even Spirit Week. He told some people that he was protesting racism and others he was protesting the consumption of meat. Junior year he wore a cape every day for an entire month, cracked a chalkboard in half with a desk, and stole all the dissecting frogs from the science wing and gave them a funeral before burying them in the baseball field.

I had a professor in college who returned our graded essays, walked up to the chalkboard, and wrote in huge letters: “SO WHAT?” She threw the piece of chalk down and said, “Ask yourself that every time you turn in a piece of writing.” It’s a lesson I never forgot.

When I open the door, Baz is wheeling an old-fashioned chalkboard in front of our beds. “Where did that come from?” I ask. “A classroom.” “Yeah, but how did it get up here?” “It flew.” “No,” I say, “seriously.” He rolls his eyes. “I Up, up and away-ed it. It wasn’t much work.” “Why?” “Because we’re solving a mystery, Snow. I like to organize my thoughts.” “Is this how you normally plot my downfall?” “Yes. With multicoloured pieces of chalk. Stop complaining.” He opens up his book bag and takes out a few apples and things wrapped in greaseproof paper. “Eat,” he says, throwing one at me. It’s a bacon roll. He’s also got a pot of tea. “What’s all this?” I say. “Tea, obviously. I know you can’t function unless you’re stuffing yourself.” I unwrap the roll and decide to take a bite. “Thanks.” “Don’t thank me,” he says. “It sounds wrong.” “Not as wrong as you bringing me bacon butties.” “Fine, you’re welcome—when’s Bunce getting here?” “Why would she?” “Because you do everything together, don’t you? When you said you’d help, I was counting on you bringing your smarter half.

Wendell turned to the chalkboard and wrote I AM A WORTHLESS FAT-BODY.

It was a smile that spelled trouble. With a promise. I focused on the chalkboard.

He reminded me of the typical soap-opera star. His words were fake, his smile was fake, and his very presence affected me like nails on a chalkboard.

His laugh was like nails to a chalkboard. "I cannot remember a time when anything was new to me. I only ever see the tattered remains of what once was.

I had a dream about you. It happened during the day. You used a pencil to erase the ink I wrote over the chalkboard since the professor told me 7 + 4 didn't equal 10. You were really cool about it; in fact, you handed me a bucket of ice. Apparently I needed to chill out.

My loneliness...still comes over me sometimes...It's a liminal, lost sensation of having wandered wide, endless boulevards, among rows of orange trees, winter butterflies, seasons reversed and out of order, dogs barking from behind fences meant to keep out intruders. It's not the place that impoverishes me but I who bring my own sense of poverty, of loss, to the place. It's a sense of near nothingness, as though I were not so much a blank slate as an erased chalkboard, still bearing illegible smudges of smoothed-over writing.

Then Glenn Beck burned to death on his Internet program, right in front of his chalkboard, burned so hot his glasses fused to his face, and after that most of the news was less about who did it and more about how not to catch it.

I want you to start a brand-new section in your notebooks and call it Mr. Browne’s Precepts.” He kept talking as we did what he was telling us to do. “Put today’s date at the top of the first page. And from now on, at the beginning of every month, I’m going to write a new Mr. Browne precept on the chalkboard and you’re going to write it down in your notebook. Then we’re going to discuss that precept and what it means. And at the end of the month, you’re going to write an essay about it, about what it means to you. So by the end of the year, you’ll all have your own list of precepts to take away with you.

Ivan, Ivan. He got up in the morning, put on some clothes he got from somewhere, drank his orange juice, and went out into the world of chalkboards and motorcycles. He could be really arrogant sometimes. His jeans were always too short, and he thought clowns had something complicated to teach us about human fallibility. And still no waking moment went by that I didn’t think of him — he was in the background of everything I thought. My own perceptions were no longer enough to constitute the physical world for me. Every sound, every syllable that reached me, I wanted to filter through his consciousness.

As a child, I was very careful not to erase my mother's writing on the chalkboard because I would miss her.

My sister's voice is Minnie Mouse and a dash of fingernails down a chalkboard, but only when she wants to bend me to her will.

The Lights..." said Norv the Raw, as if we might not have noticed. Before any further statements of the obvious could be made doors of gleaming steel started to slide down from recesses above every entrance above the Gilden Gate. The action accompanied by a squealing noise that set my teeth on edge, the sound of nails down Lundist's chalkboard. "The doors..." said Norv. I resisted temptation to beat him around the head.

Here is a quote I used to post on the chalkboard once and a while for my students: Education is not going to fall out of a tree and bonk you on the head -like an apple- you have to dig for it, much like digging for Gold...

You've heard shards of our voice in the phantom-radio code of a numbers station in the roar of a crowd - in the screams of your clock - in the scrape of a chalkboard - in the snow static of a TV - in the chainsaw-decibel mating of cicadas - in the urban mythos that spreads amongst children like contagion - in the silence between lies. White noise becomes a cadence. Words develop self-awareness. Viral. Evolving. Living poetry. Sentient language.

What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade" Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas, how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark. After lunch she distributed worksheets that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep without feeling you had forgotten to do something else— something important—and how to believe the house you wake in is your home. This prompted Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks, and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts are all you hear; also, that you have enough. The English lesson was that I am is a complete sentence. And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions, and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking for whatever it was you lost, and one person add up to something.

It had maroon paint and exposed brick and scarred wood, and a chalkboard menu about ninety percent full of things that don’t really belong in coffee, like dairy products of various types and temperatures, and weird nut-based flavorings, and many other assorted pollutants.

And sometimes it all arrives at once. The anxiety, the fear, the voices that scratch your confidence like a chalkboard and somehow all the oxygen in the room suddenly becomes water and you begin to wonder if you have what it takes to grow gills. You wonder if you can blend in with the fish. You wonder if you will ever breathe again. And the answer is not every building that shakes will collapse. The answer is not everything that chips will crumble. The answer is this is temporary and yes, you will.

If ever I create a website, I'll call it Two-Face Book, and I'll invite everyone to it, it will be a game board, of a whitewash chalkboard. A social network, with reserved intentions, where we can fall into our cliques and circle of friends. We can dis who we want and accept who appeals to our discretion. Where the users will keep abusing, and abusers keep using, where the computer bullies will keep swinging and the J-birds that fly by will die; where the lonely will keep seeking and the needy still go desperate, where the envious will keep hating, and the lustful will keep flashing. Where those that think ignoring, will keep one down and the wannabes will foolishly think themselves greater by the number of "likes" that pours caffeine into their coffee. We can jump on the bandwagon of likes, or reserve not to show we care. Where the scorners, scammers and stalkers lay wait to take hold of the innocent and fragile, and my pockets will get fatter as more and more will join up, where being fake is accepted. As a mirror that stares at a different face. It will be my two-face epilogue, in a 3-world dimension, of a twofold war. I will build an empire of contagious hooks, and still we will live, happily-ever disastrous.

At the top of her chalkboard was a quotation from the philosopher Edmund Burke: Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.

Ever heard someone's voice and it sounded like nails on a chalkboard? I finally know what that feels like.

Though he had left Cleveland decades earlier, he had managed to hang on to his nasal, clipped, Upper Midwest accent that was like nails on a chalkboard to anyone south of Memphis.

The essence of life is continuous loss and abrasion that leaves behind traces of what used to be, like streaks of chalk on a chalkboard.

write my entire workout on the chalkboard, down to the number of sets and number of reps, and I wouldn’t let myself leave until I’d marked them all off.

Twilight in the mountains brought a special kind of cold. It crept out from the darkness of the lodgepole pine forest where it had spent the daylight hours and it slithered across the top of the snow to sting every inch of exposed human skin. Sounds became sharper and the snow itself became a different texture that squeaked like nails on a chalkboard with every footfall.

So . . . ,” she says, following him to the chalkboard. “You got a Visiting. An actual Visiting—Natasha Grimm-Pitch was here.” Baz glances back over his shoulder. “You sound impressed, Bunce.” “I am,” Penelope says. “Your mother was a hero. She developed a spell for gnomeatic fever. And she was the youngest headmaster in Watford history.” Baz is looking at Penny like they’ve never met. “And,” Penny goes on, “she defended your father in three duels before he accepted her proposal.” “That sounds barbaric,” I say. “It was traditional,” Baz says. “It was brilliant,” Penny says. “I’ve read the minutes.” “Where?” Baz asks her. “We have them in our library at home,” she says. “My dad loves marriage rites. Any sort of family magic, actually. He and my mother are bound together in five dimensions.” “That’s lovely,” Baz says, and I’m terrified because I think he means it. “I’m going to make time stop when I propose to Micah,” she says. “The little American? With the thick glasses?” “Not so little anymore.” “Interesting.” Baz rubs his chin. “My mother hung the moon.” “She was a legend,” Penelope beams. “I thought your parents hated the Pitches,” I say. They both look at me like I’ve just stuck my hand in the soup bowl. “That’s politics,” Penelope says. “We’re talking about magic.” “Obviously,” I say. “What was I thinking.” “Obviously,” Baz says. “You weren’t.” “What’s happening right now?” I say. “What are we even doing?” Penelope folds her arms and squints at the chalkboard. “We,” she declares, “are finding out who killed Natasha Grimm-Pitch.” “The legend,” Baz says. Penelope gives him a soft look, the kind she usually saves for me. “So she can rest in peace.

Cats mewling in the middle of the night combined with evil clowns dragging long, black crusted fingernails over a chalkboard would not have been able to rival the sound that assailed our ears. It

It feels sometimes like Joe, whom I loved very much, is being erased. He’s just a smudge now on a chalkboard, smeared in an effort to get rid of him to make way for something new. And I hate that.

After she hung up, the cabin was quiet. The birdsong felt more distant, and the creaking of the doors in the wind sounded like nails on chalkboard. And I knew home was this, too: laughter, company. Home was the opposite of loneliness.

The main thing that I loved about living alone was the silence. Sometimes simply talking to people was like listening to white noise. Often I could tune the sound out and be all right, but other times it was like hearing nails on a chalkboard—almost painful.

Ever see that picture on the internet of a chalkboard outside a bar that says ‘When I die, I want the members of my group project to lower me into my grave so they can bring me down one last time?’” He smiles at me and I laugh as I process the joke. It’s sadly accurate.

In learning any subject of a technical nature where mathematics plays a role, one is confronted with the task of understanding and storing away in the memory a huge body of facts and ideas, held together by certain relationships which can be “proved” or “shown” to exist between them. It is easy to confuse the proof itself with the relationship which it establishes. Clearly, the important thing to learn and to remember is the relationship, not the proof. In any particular circumstance we can either say “it can be shown that” such and such is true, or we can show it. In almost all cases, the particular proof that is used is concocted, first of all, in such form that it can be written quickly and easily on the chalkboard or on paper, and so that it will be as smooth-looking as possible. Consequently, the proof may look deceptively simple, when in fact, the author might have worked for hours trying different ways of calculating the same thing until he has found the neatest way, so as to be able to show that it can be shown in the shortest amount of time! The thing to be remembered, when seeing a proof, is not the proof itself, but rather that it can be shown that such and such is true. Of course, if the proof involves some mathematical procedures or “tricks” that one has not seen before, attention should be given not to the trick exactly, but to the mathematical idea involved.

But the fundamental lack of understanding of how the world works, the lack of awareness of how privileged they were, and the absence of basic respect for America that I heard coming out of the mouths of these kids was like listening to a sixty-minute loop of nails on a chalkboard

You’re not so bad,” she mumbled. “A little freaky looking, sure, but I don’t know what all the fuss is about, honestly. So you look like the grim reaper. Whatever. I think it’s kinda cute, honestly. You’d be a hit at one of Suyin’s Halloween parties, lemme tell ya. The goth kids would go nuts for you.” The claws continued to pet her cheek, and her awareness continued to slip away.” “But don’t get cocky,” she mumbled incoherently. “Doesn’t matter how much they love you, you’re my monster, and I don’t share.” “Isss,” Meph hissed in that fingernails-on-a-chalkboard voice. “Don’t worry.” She smiled faintly. “I’m yours too.

Obediently, I squash into a corner with a glass of cider. A chalkboard menu declares that the special of the day is stargazy pie. I gulp my drink, envisaging withered fish heads gazing plaintively at the ceiling. In the end, I'm presented with a cheese and pickle sandwich the size of my head and a pile of crisps.

The chalkboard menu really seemed to emphasize that everything was local and that everything had maple syrup in it. The BBQ beef was in maple syrup BBQ sauce. The mac and cheese was made with smoked maple cheese. There was maple tofu and maple-syrup dressing for the salads. "Did you forget you were in Vermont for a second?" Stevie said to Janelle as they took their trays. "Look down. You are standing in maple syrup." "Yeah," Janelle replied, a bit dispiritedly, as she took some tofu and vegetables. "It's not my favorite." Nate stared down the sneeze guard at the mapleized meats. "I'll drink the living blood of trees," he said. "Hit me.

The shop across the light from the pay phone was representative. It had maroon paint and exposed brick and scarred wood, and a chalkboard menu about ninety percent full of things that don’t really belong in coffee, like dairy products of various types and temperatures, and weird nut-based flavorings, and many other assorted pollutants.

Such is the totalitarian task of communism. Indeed, the textbook definition of totalitarianism, which I have scribbled on the chalkboard every fall semester at Grove City College since 1997, is to fundamentally transform—specifically, to seek to fundamentally transform human nature via some form of political-ideological-cultural upheaval.

All I have is a life's worth of school days. What came before school I can't remember. You can only sketch so many desks and teachers and chalkboards. You can only come home to so many dinners and homework assignments and nights of taking the garbage out. You can only go to so many museum field trips before you start to wonder, Is this it?

According to the chalkboard, tonight was “Ladies Night” featuring “Dollar Drafts for Chicks,” a marketing ploy that drew in, it appeared, a certain female clientele. For example, one straw-haired woman, who was cackle-laughing in a “notice me” manner, wore a yellow T-shirt that read “Sloppy Seconds,” which, alas, seemed all too apropos. Megan

What happens when that recently triggered mood lingers? You’ve been in a bit of a funk since that day, and now you look around the room during a staff meeting and all you think of is that this person’s tie is hideous, and the nasally tone of your boss is worse than nails on a chalkboard. At this point, you’re not just in a mood. You’re reflecting a temperament, a tendency toward the habitual expression of an emotion through certain behaviors. A temperament is an emotional reaction with a refractory period that lasts from weeks to months. Eventually, if you keep the refractory period of an emotion going for months and years, that tendency turns into a personality trait. At that point others will describe you as “bitter” or “resentful” or “angry” or “judgmental.” Our personality traits, then, are frequently based in our past emotions. Most of the time, personality (how we think, act, and feel) is anchored in the past. So to change our personalities, we have to change the emotions that we memorize. We have to move out of the past.

You see flaws in every face If you look long enough. That’s why I’m so afraid Of the word ‘forever’. Forever is long enough For sunrises to become stale For fire to become tame For a favorite song To become like nails On a chalkboard; Forever is long enough For passion to waste away Like grapes into raisins Under the beating sun Of countless days.

This is what the ego does. It crosses out what matters and replaces it with what doesn’t. A lot of people want to change the world, and it’s good that they do. You want to be the best at what you do. Nobody wants to just be an empty suit. But in practical terms, which of the three words Boyd wrote on the chalkboard are going to get you there? Which are you practicing now? What’s fueling you?

Today tolerance has replaced good manners as the ultimate value to be taught and practiced. There’s a cultural mandate in America that we will tolerate any and all belief systems and modes of behavior. But have you ever thought about that word tolerate? It’s a pretty low bar to clear. I can tolerate the sound of fingernails scraping the chalkboard, but it doesn’t mean I like it or respect it.

It's been over a year since they've visited their son's market. As they walk through the parking lot they take in a number of improvements. Brian admires the raised garden beds made of cedar planks that flank the sides of the lot. There are stalks of tomatoes, staked beans, baskets of green herbs- oregano, lavender, fragrant blades of lemongrass and pointed curry leaf. The planter of baby lettuces has a chalkboard hung from its side: "Just add fork." A wheelbarrow parked by the door is heaped with bright coronas of sunflowers, white daisies, jagged red ginger and birds-of-paradise. Avis feels a leap of pride as they enter the market: the floor of polished bamboo, the sky-blue ceiling, the wooden shelves- like bookshelves in a library. And the smells. Warm, round billows of baking bread, roasting garlic and onions and chicken.

She glanced at me as if looking for confirmation. I opened my mouth, then closed it. My mind was a chalkboard wiped clean. My fingers found the edges of the folded letter inside the envelope. “Thank you, Vernon.” Dot stood. “It’s time for us all to go home. We’ll eat, then we can talk about everything.” She looked at me. “We’ll see you at the house.” I pried open the manila envelope before I even closed my car door. Aside

Your dad told me what happened today . . . out in the woods. He told me that you tracked down the guy who’s been killing all the girls around here . . . that you put yourself in danger.” Violet couldn’t tell if he was angry or annoyed . . . or both. He ran his hand through his messy hair in an agitated gesture that indicated he was getting all worked up. “And it’s not like it was the first time you’ve done that. Trouble seems to follow you wherever you go, and you’re the only person I know who doesn’t seem to care. I don’t even want to think about what could have happened to you if I hadn’t shown up last night while Grady was . . . assaulting you.” He paused as if it really was too much to think about, and then he continued to rail at her. “You can’t even go to the mall safely. I made a promise to your parents, and you just wandered off without even telling me where you were going.” His voice was suddenly too abrasive, and it felt to Violet like he was scratching his nails across a chalkboard. She bristled against the accusation in his tone, and suddenly he wasn’t the only one who was upset. “And you didn’t speak to me for a week!” she lashed back at him. “What was that all about? I spent the entire week waiting for you to stop ignoring me. And all because I didn’t bother to check in with you? You don’t get to tell me what to do! You’re not my father, you know.” “Thanks for clarifying that, Violet,” he said sardonically. “It would be creepy if you got your boyfriend and your father confused.” Violet practically jumped when he said the word boyfriend. Obviously she’d noticed that they’d gone beyond just friendship, but she hadn’t been entirely sure what that meant for them. Apparently Jay had it all figured out.

... the result is a coffee shop on every block, and a four-figure annual tab for a serious enthusiast. The shop across the light from the pay phone was representative. It had maroon paint and exposed brick and scarred wood, and a chalkboard menu about ninety percent full of things that don't really belong in coffee, like dairy products of various types and temperatures, and weird nut-based flavorings, and many other assorted pollutants.

Everyone's here except for St. Clair." Meredith cranes her neck around the cafeteria. "He's usually running late." "Always," Josh corrects. "Always running late." I clear my throat. "I think I met him last night. In the hallway." "Good hair and an English accent?" Meredith asks. "Um.Yeah.I guess." I try to keep my voice casual. Josh smirks. "Everyone's in luuurve with St. Clair." "Oh,shut up," Meredith says. "I'm not." Rashmi looks at me for the first time, calculating whether or not I might fall in love with her own boyfriend. He lets go of her hand and gives an exaggerated sigh. "Well,I am. I'm asking him to prom. This is our year, I just know it." "This school has a prom?" I ask. "God no," Rashmi says. "Yeah,Josh. You and St. Clair would look really cute in matching tuxes." "Tails." The English accent makes Meredith and me jump in our seats. Hallway boy. Beautiful boy. His hair is damp from the rain. "I insist the tuxes have tails, or I'm giving your corsage to Steve Carver instead." "St. Clair!" Josh springs from his seat, and they give each other the classic two-thumps-on-the-back guy hug. "No kiss? I'm crushed,mate." "Thought it might miff the ol' ball and chain. She doesn't know about us yet." "Whatever," Rashi says,but she's smiling now. It's a good look for her. She should utilize the corners of her mouth more often. Beautiful Hallway Boy (Am I supposed to call him Etienne or St. Clair?) drops his bag and slides into the remaining seat between Rashmi and me. "Anna." He's surprised to see me,and I'm startled,too. He remembers me. "Nice umbrella.Could've used that this morning." He shakes a hand through his hair, and a drop lands on my bare arm. Words fail me. Unfortunately, my stomach speaks for itself. His eyes pop at the rumble,and I'm alarmed by how big and brown they are. As if he needed any further weapons against the female race. Josh must be right. Every girl in school must be in love with him. "Sounds terrible.You ought to feed that thing. Unless..." He pretends to examine me, then comes in close with a whisper. "Unless you're one of those girls who never eats. Can't tolerate that, I'm afraid. Have to give you a lifetime table ban." I'm determined to speak rationally in his presence. "I'm not sure how to order." "Easy," Josh says. "Stand in line. Tell them what you want.Accept delicious goodies. And then give them your meal card and two pints of blood." "I heard they raised it to three pints this year," Rashmi says. "Bone marrow," Beautiful Hallway Boy says. "Or your left earlobe." "I meant the menu,thank you very much." I gesture to the chalkboard above one of the chefs. An exquisite cursive hand has written out the morning's menu in pink and yellow and white.In French. "Not exactly my first language." "You don't speak French?" Meredith asks. "I've taken Spanish for three years. It's not like I ever thought I'd be moving to Paris." "It's okay," Meredith says quickly. "A lot of people here don't speak French." "But most of them do," Josh adds. "But most of them not very well." Rashmi looks pointedly at him. "You'll learn the lanaguage of food first. The language of love." Josh rubs his belly like a shiny Buddha. "Oeuf. Egg. Pomme. Apple. Lapin. Rabbit." "Not funny." Rashmi punches him in the arm. "No wonder Isis bites you. Jerk." I glance at the chalkboard again. It's still in French. "And, um, until then?" "Right." Beautiful Hallway Boy pushes back his chair. "Come along, then. I haven't eaten either." I can't help but notice several girls gaping at him as we wind our way through the crowd.

She wanted to lunge for him then. In that moment Sheila wanted to charge her whole self into his body, pull out a tibia or a femur and squeeze its proteins to dust. She felt like she had more strength concentrated in every muscle than she'd ever had in her life, and her joints were shifting around inside of her , her cells were multiplying, like the real living organism she supposed she had been all long, but also - and this was the strange thing - she felt helpless, she felt drained of every available energy, like all of this velocity building in her was a product of what he had given her and what she had done with it. She remembered Mr. Zorn, her sophomore-year physics teacher, stepping back from the chalkboard in admiration of an equation he had just written, saying how beautiful it was, how perfectly and essentially balanced, and Sheila had rolled her eyes sitting at her desk at how pathetic this had sounded, how devoid of beauty Mr. Zorn's life must have truly been for him to even think to say something so insane, but now she felt the weight of this truth sting in her somewhere. She and Peter had built this, they had built it together - that's where the velocity came from, that's where the force of the thing came from - and to remove one of the variables from the equation was to leave it unbalanced, and she was not going to let this happen.

She may even be married to the previously described wiling warrior. Her needs, gallantly subjugated to his towering prowess, are only shared with those who will stroke her selflessness and provide her with an awe-filled “I don’t know how you do it.” Indeed, this lovely yet unabashed matron of martyrdom craves applause even as her self-effacing wisdom and perfectly perky posture leave us squirming, as if listening to the screech of nails on a chalkboard.

Her tone changed from shocked to curious. “How was it? Was it… different?” Sarah bit her lip, ashamed to be gossiping but feeling the strong urge to tell. “Yes,” she confided. “He’s nothing like John. Nothing like him at all.” “Really? What was different? Did he…?” Grace waved a hand as though erasing a chalkboard. “Oh, forget it. I shouldn’t be asking this. But,” again her voice lowered, “is he tattooed everywhere?” Sarah knew it was wrong to talk about him like this, but her inner schoolgirl took over and she nodded, eager to share details. “He’s beautiful … like a stained glass window. And he’s really good with his … mouth.” She raised an eyebrow, giving Grace a significant look. Her friend gasped and giggled. “But isn’t it weird? Touching him?” “Skin is skin, Grace,” Sarah chided. “The tattoos are only on the surface, you know. He’s a man.” A sexy, vulnerable, intense, attractive, responsible, sweet, gentle and loving man.

I read the earliest date aloud, October twenty-third, and scanned the numbers for the next oldest, and the next. I glanced up after four or five. “What’s that you’re drawing?” I asked. Jackaby scowled. “Recording the dates. Keep going.” “Is that an elven language or something?” He stood back from the chalkboard and stared at it blankly. “No.” “Are those pictograms? What’s that bit you just finished? The one that looks like a goose tugging at a bit of string?” “That’s a seven.” “Oh.” We both looked at the board. I tilted my head. “Oh right—I see. I think.

In some circles, using the word feminist is the equivalent of an f-bomb dropped in church—outrageous, offensive. It’s likely some people saw this book sitting on the shelf and figured they knew what sort of author was behind the words written here: a bitter man-hater arguing that men and women had no discernable differences, a ferocious and humorless woman, perhaps, and so it’s no wonder they reacted at the sight of Jesus alongside feminist like someone had raked long fingernails across a chalkboard. Who could blame them with the lines we’ve been fed about feminists for so long?

We must train ourselves to even be able to see and hear anger from women and understand it not only as rational, but as politically weighty. It is, in fact, an anger on behalf of the nation’s suppressed majority and therefore especially frightening and combustible because of the threat it poses to the minority. We are primed to hear the anger of men as stirring, downright American, as our national lullaby, and primed to hear the sound of women demanding freedom as the screech of nails on our national chalkboard. That’s because women’s freedom would in fact circumscribe white male dominion.

Mental toughness is the ability to focus on and execute solutions, especially in the face of adversity. Greatness rarely happens on accident. If you want to achieve excellence, you will have to act like you really want it. How? Quite simply: by dedicating time and energy into consistently doing what needs to be done. Excuses are the antithesis of accountability. Important decisions aren’t supposed to be easy, but don’t let that stop you from making them. When it comes to decisions, decide to always decide. The second we stop growing, we start dying. Stagnation easily morphs into laziness, and once a person stops trying to grow and improve, he or she is nothing more than mediocre. Develop the no-excuse mentality. Do not let anything interrupt those tasks that are most critical for growth in the important areas of your life. Find a way, no matter what, to prioritize your daily process goals, even when you have a viable excuse to justify not doing it. “If you don’t evaluate yourself, how in the heck are you ever going to know what you are doing well and what you need to improve? Those who are most successful evaluate themselves daily. Daily evaluation is the key to daily success, and daily success is the key to success in life. If you want to achieve greatness, push yourself to the limits of your potential by continuously looking for improvements. Within 60 seconds, replace all problem-focused thought with solution-focused thinking. When people focus on problems, their problems actually grow and reproduce. When you train your mind to focus on solutions, guess what expands? Talking about your problems will lead to more problems, not to solutions. If you want solutions, start thinking and talking about your solutions. Believe that every problem, no matter how large, has at the very least a +1 solution, you will find it easier to stay on the solution side of the chalkboard. When you set your mind to do something, find a way to get it done…no matter what! If you come up short on your discipline, keep fighting, kicking, and scratching to improve. Find the nearest mirror and look yourself in the eye while you tell yourself, “There is no excuse, and this will not happen again.” Get outside help if needed, but never, ever give up on being disciplined. Greatness will not magically appear in your life without significant accountability, focus, and optimism on your part. Are you ready to commit fully to turning your potential into a leadership performance that will propel you to greatness. Mental toughness is understanding that the only true obstacles in life are self-imposed. You always have the choice to stay down or rise above. In truth, the only real obstacles to your ultimate success will come from within yourself and fall into one of the following three categories: apathy, laziness and fear. Laziness breeds more laziness. When you start the day by sleeping past the alarm or cutting corners in the morning, you’re more likely to continue that slothful attitude later in the day.

Gregori stepped away from the huddled mass of tourists, putting distance between himself and the guide. He walked completely erect,his head high, his long hair flowing around him. His hands were loose at his sides, and his body was relaxed, rippling with power. "Hear me now, ancient one." His voice was soft and musical, filling the silence with beauty and purity. "You have lived long in this world, and you weary of the emptiness. I have come in anwer to your call." "Gregori.The Dark One." The evil voice hissed and growled the words in answer. The ugliness tore at sensitive nerve endings like nails on a chalkboard. Some of the tourists actually covered their ears. "How dare you enter my city and interfere where you have no right?" "I am justice,evil one. I have come to set your free from the bounaries holding you to this place." Gregori's voice was so soft and hypnotic that those listening edged out from their sanctuaries.It beckoned and pulled, so that none could resist his every desire. The black shape above their head roiled like a witch's cauldron. A jagged bolt of lightning slammed to earth straight toward the huddled group. Gregori raised a hand and redirected the force of energy away from the tourists and Savannah. A smile edged the cruel set of his mouth. "You think to mock me with display,ancient one? Do not attempt to anger what you do not understand.You came to me.I did not hunt you.You seek to threaten my lifemate and those I count as my friends.I can do no other than carry the justice of our people to you." Gregori's voice was so reasonable, so perfect and pure,drawing obedience from the most recalcitrant of criminals. The guide made a sound,somewhere between disbelief and fear.Gregori silenced him with a wave of his hand, needing no distractions. But the noise had been enough for the ancient one to break the spell Gregori's voice was weaving around him. The dark stain above their heads thrashed wildly, as if ridding itself ot ever-tightening bonds before slamming a series of lightning strikes at the helpless mortals on the ground. Screams and moans accompanied the whispered prayers, but Gregori stood his ground, unflinching. He merely redirected the whips of energy and light, sent them streaking back into the black mass above their heads.A hideous snarl,a screech of defiance and hatred,was the only warning before it hailed. Hufe golfball-sized blocks of bright-red ice rained down toward them. It was thick and horrible to see, the shower of frozen blood from the skies. But it stopped abruptly, as if an unseen force held it hovering inches from their heads. Gregori remained unchanged, impassive, his face a blank mask as he shielded the tourists and sent the hail hurtling back at their attacker.From out of the cemetery a few blocks from them, an army of the dead rose up. Wolves howled and raced along beside the skeletons as they moved to intercept the Carpathian hunter. Savannah. He said her name once, a soft brush in her mind. I've got it, she sent back instantly.Gregori had his hands full dealing with the abominations the vampire was throwing at him; he did't need to waste his energy protecting the general public from the apparition. She moved out into the open, a small, fragile figure, concentrating on the incoming threat. To those dwelling in the houses along the block and those driving in their cars, she masked the pack of wolves as dogs racing down the street.The stick=like skeletons, grotesque and bizarre, were merely a fast-moving group of people. She held the illusion until they were within a few feet of Gregori.Dropping the illusion, she fed every ounce of her energy and power to Gregori so he could meet the attack.

How was one to communicate an idea to another person if when one had something to say, one could choose from ten different words for every word in a sentence? The number of potential variations boggled the mind. So much so that shortly after arriving at St. Paul’s, Woolly had gone to his math teacher, Mr. Kehlenbeck, and asked him if one had a sentence with ten words and each word could be substituted with ten other words, then how many sentences could there be? And without a moment’s hesitation, Mr. Kehlenbeck had gone to the chalkboard, scratched out a formula, and done a few quick calculations to prove incontrovertibly that the answer to Woolly’s question was ten billion. Well, when confronted with a revelation like that, how was one to even begin writing an

Imagine you are tied to a chair with your hands tightly bound behind you, preventing you from covering your ears. Before you is a giant chalkboard. A woman enters the room. Her fingernails are long, hard, and ready for attack. You follow her with your eyes as she saunters to the chalkboard and raises her hand to make a claw. She looks at you with a blank stare as she digs her fingernails into the chalkboard and drags downward. As the harsh sound hits your ears, you squeeze your eyes shut in an instinctive yet vain effort to shut out the noise, but the absence of sight only magnifies the vile sound. Your ears have become hypersensitive, and you feel an unpleasant chill shoot through your body down to the toes of your feet. Finally, the sound stops as she removes her nails from the board, and a wave of relief passes over you. But the reprieve is short-lived. Again, the nails dig into the board and screech all the way down. The process repeats itself several times, and each time she stops dragging, you think it has ended for good, but soon she starts all over again. You frantically call out to her and ask her why she is doing this. You wonder what you have done to earn this perpetual torture. But she only looks back at your with a blank, almost quizzical stare, and that is when you realize that she is unaware of the pain she is causing. You feel the hopelessness pass over you. You squirm to free yourself from the chair, but it's no use. This is your life now, listening to this terribly unpleasant sound with no way to stop it. Sometimes she leaves, but she always comes back to repeat the scene, oblivious to the torture she creates.

her room now?” They were led down the hall by Beth. Before she turned away she took a last drag on her smoke and said, “However this comes out, there is no way my baby would have had anything to do with something like this, drawing of this asshole or not. No way. Do you hear me? Both of you?” “Loud and clear,” said Decker. But he thought if Debbie were involved she had already paid the ultimate price anyway. The state couldn’t exactly kill her again. Beth casually flicked the cigarette down the hall, where it sparked and then died out on the faded runner. Then she walked off. They opened the door and went into Debbie’s room. Decker stood in the middle of the tiny space and looked around. Lancaster said, “We’ll have the tech guys go through her online stuff. Photos on her phone, her laptop over there, the cloud, whatever. Instagram. Twitter. Facebook. Tumblr. Wherever else the kids do their electronic preening. Keeps changing. But our guys will know where to look.” Decker didn’t answer her. He just kept looking around, taking the room in, fitting things in little niches in his memory and then pulling them back out if something didn’t seem right as weighed against something else. “I just see a typical teenage girl’s room. But what do you see?” asked Lancaster finally. He didn’t look at her but said, “Same things you’re seeing. Give me a minute.” Decker walked around the small space, looked under piles of papers, in the young woman’s closet, knelt down to see under her bed, scrutinized the wall art that hung everywhere, including a whole section of People magazine covers. She also had chalkboard squares affixed to one wall. On them was a musical score and short snatches of poetry and personal messages to herself: Deb, Wake up each day with something to prove. “Pretty busy room,” noted Lancaster, who had perched on the edge of the girl’s desk. “We’ll have forensics come and bag it all.” She looked at Decker, obviously waiting for him to react to this, but instead he walked out of the room. “Decker!” “I’ll be back,” he called over his shoulder. She watched him go and then muttered, “Of all the partners I could have had, I got Rain Man, only giant size.” She pulled a stick of gum out of her bag, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. Over the next several minutes she strolled the room and then came to the mirror on the back of the closet door. She appraised her appearance and ended it with the resigned sigh of a person who knows their best days physically are well in the past. She automatically reached for her smokes but then decided against it. Debbie’s room could be part of a criminal investigation. Her ash and smoke could only taint that investigation.

They were all there for the food, the drink, and the ambience, even as everyone devoured plates as disparate as Korean bibimbap and French vichyssoise. "I'm going over there." Ana pointed to a midnight-blue food truck that was known for having the best bao, steamed Vietnamese buns, in Denver. Which, given the popularity of the southeast Asian cuisine in the city lately, was more of an accomplishment than it might have seemed. "What about you?" Rachel asked Melody. "I'm having what you're having. You never steer me wrong." "Then A Parisian in Denver is the way to go. Come on. I want to say hello to Lilia." They found their way to the end of the line in front of a food truck painted in red, blue, and white, and Rachel craned her neck to feet a better look at the chalkboard that proclaimed the day's specials. There was French street food like crepes and merguez sausages alongside trendy favorites like duck confit pommes frites.

They all looked up sharply as the door to the back opened. Blue and Maura stepped into the waiting room as a nurse began to shuffle behind the counter. All attention immediately shifted to Blue. She had two visible stitches in her right eyebrow, pinning together the cleaned-up edges of a gouge that continued down her cheek. Faint scratches on either side of the deepest wound told the story of fingers clawing into her skin. Her right eye was squinted mostly shut, but at least it was still there. Adam could tell she was hurting. He knew he cared about her because his stomach was tingling uncomfortably just looking at her wound, the suggestion of violence scratching through him like fingers on a chalkboard. Noah had done that. Adam curled his own hand into a fist, remembering what it had felt like for it to move on its own accord. Gansey was right: Any of them could have died tonight. It was time to stop playing around. For a strange second, none of them spoke. Finally, Ronan said, "Jesus God, Sargent. Do you have stitched on your face? Bad. Ass. Put it here, you asshole." With some relief, Blue lifted her fist and bumped it against his.

Tell me what you and my dad were talking about." Jay jerked away from her as if she'd just slapped him. And Violet realized that she might as well have. He sat up quickly, as if his mind had suddenly cleared from the sensuous haze, and abruptly the teasing grin was wiped clean from his face. "Never mind," she blurted, trying to backpedal. "Forget I said anything." She wanted to go back to where they just were. But it was too late. The determined set of his jaw told her that. "No," he said harshly. "I think we should talk about this, Violet." Even the way he said her name was suddenly hard and angry. "Your dad told me what happened today...out in the woods. He told me that you tracked down the guy who's been killing all the girls around here...that you put yourself in danger." Violet couldn't tell if he was angry or annoyed...or both. He ran his hand through his messy hair in an agitated gesture that indicated he was getting all worked up. "And it's not like it was the first time you've done that. Trouble seems to follow you wherever you go, and you're the only person I know who doesn't seem to care. I don't even want to think about what could have happened to you if I hadn't shown up last night while Grady was...assaulting you." He paused as if it really was too much to think about, and then he continued to rail at her. "You can't even go to the mall safely. I made a promise to your parents, and you just wandered off without even telling me where you were going." His voice was suddenly too abrasive, and it felt to Violet like he was scratching his nails across a chalkboard. She bristled against the accusation in his tone, and suddenly he wasn't the only one who was upset. "And you didn't speak to me for a week!" she lashed back at him. "What was that all about? I spent the entire week waiting for you to stop ignoring me. And all because I didn't bother to check in with you? You don't get to tell me what to do! You're not my father, you know." "Thanks for clarifying that, Violet," he said sardonically. "It would be creepy if you got your boyfriend and your father confused." Violet practically jumped when he said the word boyfriend. Obviously she'd noticed that they'd gone beyond just friendship, but she hadn't been entirely sure what that meant for them. Apparently Jay had it all figured out. But that didn't mean he could push her around.

Fifteen of his clubs, dedicated to politics, music, and the performing arts, had all been developing strategic plans for the past two years. And the local branches of various societies--whose goals were to advance aviation, knowledge of chemistry, automotive transportation, equestrian sports, highway construction, as well as the prompt eradication of ethnic chauvinism--existed only in the sick imagination of the local union committee. As for the school of continuing education, of which Sardinevich was especially proud, it was constantly reorganizing itself, which, as anybody knows, means it wasn't undertaking any useful activity whatsoever. If Sardinevich were an honest man, he would probably have admitted that all these activities were essentially a mirage. But the local union committee used this mirage to concoct its reports, so at the next level up nobody doubted the existence of all those musico-political clubs. At that level, the school of continuing education was imagined as a large stone building filled with desks, where perky teachers draw graphs that show the rise of unemployment in the United States on their chalkboards, while mustachioed students develop political consciousness right in front of your eyes.

As I became older, I was given many masks to wear. I could be a laborer laying railroad tracks across the continent, with long hair in a queue to be pulled by pranksters; a gardener trimming the shrubs while secretly planting a bomb; a saboteur before the day of infamy at Pearl Harbor, signaling the Imperial Fleet; a kamikaze pilot donning his headband somberly, screaming 'Banzai' on my way to my death; a peasant with a broad-brimmed straw hat in a rice paddy on the other side of the world, stooped over to toil in the water; an obedient servant in the parlor, a houseboy too dignified for my own good; a washerman in the basement laundry, removing stains using an ancient secret; a tyrant intent on imposing my despotism on the democratic world, opposed by the free and the brave; a party cadre alongside many others, all of us clad in coordinated Mao jackets; a sniper camouflaged in the trees of the jungle, training my gunsights on G.I. Joe; a child running with a body burning from napalm, captured in an unforgettable photo; an enemy shot in the head or slaughtered by the villageful; one of the grooms in a mass wedding of couples, having met my mate the day before through our cult leader; an orphan in the last airlift out of a collapsed capital, ready to be adopted into the good life; a black belt martial artist breaking cinderblocks with his head, in an advertisement for Ginsu brand knives with the slogan 'but wait--there's more' as the commercial segued to show another free gift; a chef serving up dog stew, a trick on the unsuspecting diner; a bad driver swerving into the next lane, exactly as could be expected; a horny exchange student here for a year, eager to date the blonde cheerleader; a tourist visiting, clicking away with his camera, posing my family in front of the monuments and statues; a ping pong champion, wearing white tube socks pulled up too high and batting the ball with a wicked spin; a violin prodigy impressing the audience at Carnegie Hall, before taking a polite bow; a teen computer scientist, ready to make millions on an initial public offering before the company stock crashes; a gangster in sunglasses and a tight suit, embroiled in a turf war with the Sicilian mob; an urban greengrocer selling lunch by the pound, rudely returning change over the counter to the black patrons; a businessman with a briefcase of cash bribing a congressman, a corrupting influence on the electoral process; a salaryman on my way to work, crammed into the commuter train and loyal to the company; a shady doctor, trained in a foreign tradition with anatomical diagrams of the human body mapping the flow of life energy through a multitude of colored points; a calculus graduate student with thick glasses and a bad haircut, serving as a teaching assistant with an incomprehensible accent, scribbling on the chalkboard; an automobile enthusiast who customizes an imported car with a supercharged engine and Japanese decals in the rear window, cruising the boulevard looking for a drag race; a illegal alien crowded into the cargo hold of a smuggler's ship, defying death only to crowd into a New York City tenement and work as a slave in a sweatshop. My mother and my girl cousins were Madame Butterfly from the mail order bride catalog, dying in their service to the masculinity of the West, and the dragon lady in a kimono, taking vengeance for her sisters. They became the television newscaster, look-alikes with their flawlessly permed hair. Through these indelible images, I grew up. But when I looked in the mirror, I could not believe my own reflection because it was not like what I saw around me. Over the years, the world opened up. It has become a dizzying kaleidoscope of cultural fragments, arranged and rearranged without plan or order.

A mover started in on a girl’s bedroom, painted pink with a sign on the door announcing THE PRINCESS SLEEPS HERE. Another took on the disheveled office, packing Resumes for Dummies into a box with a chalkboard counting down the remaining days of school. The eldest child, a seventh-grade boy, tried to help by taking out the trash. His younger sister, the princess, held her two-year-old sister’s hand on the porch. Upstairs, the movers were trying not to step on the toddler’s toys, which when kicked would protest with beeping sounds and flashing lights. As the move went on, the woman slowed down. At first, she had borne down on the emergency with focus and energy, almost running through the house with one hand grabbing something and the other holding up the phone. Now she was wandering through the halls aimlessly, almost drunkenly. Her face had that look. The movers and the deputies knew it well. It was the look of someone realizing that her family would be homeless in a matter of hours. It was something like denial giving way to the surrealism of the scene: the speed and violence of it all; sheriffs leaning against your wall, hands resting on holsters; all these strangers, these sweating men, piling your things outside, drinking water from your sink poured into your cups, using your bathroom. It was the look of being undone by a wave of questions. What do I need for tonight, for this week? Who should I call? Where is the medication? Where will we go? It was the face of a mother who climbs out of the cellar to find the tornado has leveled the house.

Davy, ever the daring one, bought a jumbo peppermint milk shake and got fifty cents back. He talked me out of getting plain vanilla. “You can get plain vanilla anytime!” he said. “Try…” He scanned the chalkboard that listed all the flavors. “Try peanut butter!” I did. I have never been sorry, because it was the best milk shake I ever tasted, like a melted and frozen Reese’s cup. And then it happened. We were walking across the parking lot, under the burning sun, with our shakes freezing our hands in the big white paper cups that had Spinnin’ Wheel in red across the sides. A sound began: music, first from a few car radios and then others as teenaged fingers turned the dial to that station. The volume dials were cranked up, and the music flooded out from the tinny speakers into the bright summer air. In a few seconds the same song was being played from every radio on the lot, and as it played, some of the car engines started and revved up and young laughter flew like sparks. I stopped. Just couldn’t walk anymore. That music was unlike anything I’d ever heard: guys’ voices, intertwining, breaking apart, merging again in fantastic, otherworldly harmony. The voices soared up and up like happy birds, and underneath the harmony was a driving drumbeat and a twanging, gritty guitar that made cold chills skitter up and down my sunburned back. “What’s that, Davy?” I said. “What’s that song?” …Round…round…get around…wha wha wha-oooooo… “What’s that song?” I asked him, close to panic that I might never know. “Haven’t you heard that yet? All the high-school guys are singin’ it.” …Gettin’ bugged drivin’ up and down the same ol’ strip…I gotta find a new place where the kids are hip… “What’s the name of it?” I demanded, standing at the center of ecstasy. “It’s on the radio all the time. It’s called—” Right then the high-school kids in the lot started singing along with the music, some of them rocking their cars back and forth, and I stood with a peanut butter milk shake in my hand and the sun on my face and the clean chlorine smell of the swimming pool coming to me from across the street. “—by the Beach Boys,” Davy Ray finished. “What?” “The Beach Boys. That’s who’s singin’ it.” “Man!” I said. “That sounds…that sounds…” What would describe it? What word in the English language would speak of youth and hope and freedom and desire, of sweet wanderlust and burning blood? What word describes the brotherhood of buddies, and the feeling that as long as the music plays, you are part of that tough, rambling breed who will inherit the earth? “Cool,” Davy Ray supplied. It would have to do. …Yeah the bad guys know us and they leave us alone…I get arounnnnddddd… I was amazed. I was transported. Those soaring voices lifted me off the hot pavement, and I flew with them to a land unknown. I had never been to the beach before. I’d never seen the ocean, except for pictures in magazines and on TV and movies. The Beach Boys. Those harmonies thrilled my soul, and for a moment I wore a letter jacket and owned a red hotrod and had beautiful blondes begging for my attention and I got around.

Reader's Digest (Reader's Digest USA) - Clip This Article on Location 56 | Added on Friday, May 16, 2014 12:06:55 AM Words of Lasting Interest Looking Out for The Lonely One teacher’s strategy to stop violence at its root BY GLENNON DOYLE MELTON  FROM MOMASTERY.COM PHOTOGRAPH BY DAN WINTERS A few weeks ago, I went into my son Chase’s class for tutoring. I’d e-mailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, “Chase keeps telling me that this stuff you’re sending home is math—but I’m not sure I believe him. Help, please.” She e-mailed right back and said, “No problem! I can tutor Chase after school anytime.” And I said, “No, not him. Me. He gets it. Help me.” And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in an empty fifth-grade classroom while Chase’s teacher sat behind me, using a soothing voice to try to help me understand the “new way we teach long division.” Luckily for me, I didn’t have to unlearn much because I’d never really understood the “old way we taught long division.” It took me a solid hour to complete one problem, but I could tell that Chase’s teacher liked me anyway. She used to work with NASA, so obviously we have a whole lot in common. Afterward, we sat for a few minutes and talked about teaching children and what a sacred trust and responsibility it is. We agreed that subjects like math and reading are not the most important things that are learned in a classroom. We talked about shaping little hearts to become contributors to a larger community—and we discussed our mutual dream that those communities might be made up of individuals who are kind and brave above all. And then she told me this. Every Friday afternoon, she asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student who they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her. And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, she takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her, and studies them. She looks for patterns. Who is not getting requested by anyone else? Who can’t think of anyone to request? Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated? Who had a million friends last week and none this week? You see, Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down—right away—who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying. As a teacher, parent, and lover of all children, I think this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered. It’s like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold—the gold being those children who need a little help, who need adults to step in and teach them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or how to share their gifts. And it’s a bully deterrent because every teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside her eyeshot and that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But, as she said, the truth comes out on those safe, private, little sheets of paper. As Chase’s teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea, I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said. Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine. Good Lord. This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection. All

Memory like a chalkboard, but you can never quite remove the images there, only smudge them. Sometimes beyond recognition. —

Whalebone fan Spherical chalkboard Locks (11) Keys (“a handful”) Reflecting circle Deck of cards

Imagine a chalkboard with a line drawn down the middle dividing it into two columns. At the top of the left column is the word, “Blessings.” At the top of the right column is the word, “Curses.” According to Deuteronomy 28, health would be listed on the left in the blessings column, and sickness would be listed on the right in the curses column. Yet many people in the church today reverse this, saying, “Oh, no. It’s really a blessing that God gave me this sickness.” That’s not true.

They all looked up sharply as the door to the back opened. Blue and Maura stepped into the waiting room as a nurse began to shuffle behind the counter. All attention immediately shifted to Blue. She had two visible stitches in her right eyebrow, pinning together the cleaned-up edges of a gouge that continued down her cheek. Faint scratches on either side of the deepest wound told the story of fingers clawing into her skin. Her right eye was squinted mostly shut, but at least it was still there. Adam could tell she was hurting. He knew he cared about her because his stomach was tingling uncomfortably just looking at her wound, the suggestion of violence scratching through him like fingers on a chalkboard. Noah had done that. Adam curled his own hand into a fist, remembering what it had felt like for it to move on its own accord. Gansey was right: Any of them could have died tonight. It was time to stop playing around. For a strange second, none of them spoke. Finally, Ronan said, "Jesus God, Sargent. Do you have stitches on your face? Bad. Ass. Put it here, you asshole." With some relief, Blue lifted her fist and bumped it against his.

They all looked up sharply as the door to the back opened. Blue and Maura stepped into the waiting room as a nurse began to shuffle behind the counter. All attention immediately shifted to Blue. She had two visible stitches in her right eyebrow, pinning together the cleaned-up edges of a gouge that continued down her cheek. Faint scratches on either side of the deepest wound told the story of fingers clawing into her skin. Her right eye was squinted mostly shut, but at least it was still there. Adam could tell she was hurting. He knew he cared about her because his stomach was tingling uncomfortably just looking at her wound, the suggestion of violence scratching through him like fingers on a chalkboard. Noah had done that. Adam curled his own hand into a fist, remembering what it had felt like for it to move on its own accord. Gansey was right: Any of them could have died tonight. It was time to stop playing around. For a strange second, none of them spoke. Finally, Ronan said, "Jesus God, Sargent. Do you have stitches on your face? Bad. Ass. Put it here, you asshole." With some relief, Blue lifted her fist and bumped it against his.

Flawed as we are, it is those reactions that tend to stick with us. The teacher who determinedly looks away from us and stares at her chalkboard whenever we speak, the waiter who awkwardly stares down at the floorboards, or the receptionist who taps her fingers impatiently and looks around the room for someone to rescue her. They are the ones who make us feel too monstrous to behold.

Prøv lige at overveje den her formulering: So many nights, exhausted or just impatient, I have been eager for my children’s bedtime. One kid’s chatter barely registers in my ear because it’s the same chatter I’ve been hearing all day. The other kid’s chain of requests for a sip of water, to be tucked in (again), for another sip of water, to turn the hallway light on, feels like fingernails on a chalkboard. Minutes later, as I peak into their room and see that they have each fallen into slumber, I see all sweetness and splendor in their faces. I want to lie down and hold them close. I wonder what that last bit of chatter was that I tuned out. Whether it was something important about my child’s world. A tiny voice echoes in my head, “can I please have another sip of water?” And I hear it more clearly now as “It makes me feel secure and cared for when you bring it to me.” Their care and wellbeing matter more to me than anything and I feel at a cellular level the honor and joy of being their mom. Now that they’re asleep.

So many nights, exhausted or just impatient, I have been eager for my children’s bedtime. One kid’s chatter barely registers in my ear because it’s the same chatter I’ve been hearing all day. The other kid’s chain of requests for a sip of water, to be tucked in (again), for another sip of water, to turn the hallway light on, feels like fingernails on a chalkboard. Minutes later, as I peak into their room and see that they have each fallen into slumber, I see all sweetness and splendor in their faces. I want to lie down and hold them close. I wonder what that last bit of chatter was that I tuned out. Whether it was something important about my child’s world. A tiny voice echoes in my head, “can I please have another sip of water?” And I hear it more clearly now as “It makes me feel secure and cared for when you bring it to me.” Their care and wellbeing matter more to me than anything and I feel at a cellular level the honor and joy of being their mom. Now that they’re asleep.

There was a bottleneck up ahead at the boulangerie. A wrought-iron cart, a more elegant version of the pretzel vendors' on the streets of New York, was posted outside. In addition to croissants and pains au chocolat, it was loaded with flattish ovals of yeasted bread. Some were covered with grated Gruyère cheese and bacon, some with a tangle of caramelized onions and anchovies. The script on the chalkboard sign said Fougasse, which I took to be a type of local focaccia. I leaned toward one topped with toasted walnuts, pungent with the smell of recently melted Roquefort cheese.

Mr. Halsworth paced stiffly around the classroom and tapped his pointer stick to the chalkboard with “Darwinism” written on the center, dead- center, the kind of dead-centeredness so as to safely and absolutely hide his embarrassed uncertainty of why there was electricity in his brain, seven guided octillion atoms in his body, standing on an earth of perfect living conditions, and intuition of a God in his gut.

Misophonia is a disorder in which certain sounds and visual images trigger emotional or physiological distress; like hearing fingernails scraping on a chalkboard - or watching morning news and entertainment shows.

The producers.” he said it quietly, as if that meant something to me. “They hide the cameras and mics in all sorts of things—mirrors, computers, chalkboards, streetlights. They’ve planted mics in bushes and on trees. I think there’s one on your backpack.

chalkboard easel in the corner. A bin under the window, full

I could hardly believe there was a time in my life when Preston calling me Princess had grated on my nerves like hearing nails on a chalkboard. I’d hated it more than anything in this world. Now, I loved it. It made me feel safe and loved. He made me feel safe and loved.

I came across Kyla years ago, when she made short videos about the economy that were as funny as they were informative. It was instantly apparent that she had not only mastered the technical details of how the economic machine works; she could also explain it in a way that had so much empathy for the human side of this field. Her work exploded in 2022 when she coined the term “vibecession” to describe a situation in which the economy was technically okay but people still felt glum about it, and their vibes could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a perfect example of understanding the gap between the chalkboard and the real world. Let me tell you: Roughly 0 percent of economic PhDs understand that gap, and exactly 0 percent can explain it like Kyla can.

Nothing was different afterward except for my fresh loser eyes, noticing it all. People steering clear. Not touching me in gym, not even cheering if I sank a shot. Holding up their plate to my face in the lunchroom, like I’d eat off it like a dog. I wanted no sun shining on me now. I erased myself like a chalkboard. In my outgrown high-water jeans and the old-man shoes Mr. Peg had loaned me at Christmas, I joined the tribe of way-back country kids with no indoor plumbing and the Pentecostals that think any style clothes invented since Bible times is a sin. My specialty, acid holes. Who was going to take me shopping for new clothes? Hair over my collar, and who’s going to cut it? Miss Barks had noticed I was getting ratty, and kept reminding Mrs. McCobb how the monthly check from DSS should more than cover those things. And Mrs. McCobb kept saying she meant to get around to it, but just so busy with her kids. I’d been thinking about Emmy moving here in a few months, the walks we were going to take. Hand-holding. Now I just hoped she and June would move to some far-distant part of the county where she’d be in a different school and never find out what I was.

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Purpose is like chalk to a teacher standing in front of a chalkboard. No matter how small the purpose may seem, eventually, it makes a big difference.

It was as if everything Lucas had been, everything she wanted him to be, had been erased as easily as “BELGIUM, 1831” on the chalkboard.