Excited To Go To School Quotes

If you're trying to be miserable, it's important you don't have any goals. No school goals, personal goals, family goals. Your only objective each day should be to inhale and exhale for sixteen hours before you go to bed again. Don't read anything informative, don't listen to anything useful, don't do anything productive. If you start achieving goals, you might start to feel a sense of excitement, then you might want to set another goal, and then your miserable mornings are through. To maintain your misery, the idea of crossing off your goals should never cross your mind.

I felt excited to go to school, and that scared me. I knew it wasn't the simulating learning environment I was anticipating, or seeing my new set of friends. If I was being honest with myself, I knew I was eager to get to school because I would see Edward Culllen. And that was very, very stupid.

People think of education as something that they can finish. And what’s more, when they finish, it’s a rite of passage. You’re finished with school. You’re no more a child, and therefore anything that reminds you of school - reading books, having ideas, asking questions - that’s kid’s stuff. Now you’re an adult, you don’t do that sort of thing any more. You have everybody looking forward to no longer learning, and you make them ashamed afterward of going back to learning. If you have a system of education using computers, then anyone, any age, can learn by himself, can continue to be interested. If you enjoy learning, there’s no reason why you should stop at a given age. People don’t stop things they enjoy doing just because they reach a certain age. What’s exciting is the actual process of broadening yourself, of knowing there’s now a little extra facet of the universe you know about and can think about and can understand. It seems to me that when it’s time to die, there would be a certain pleasure in thinking that you had utilized your life well, learned as much as you could, gathered in as much as possible of the universe, and enjoyed it. There’s only this one universe and only this one lifetime to try to grasp it. And while it is inconceivable that anyone can grasp more than a tiny portion of it, at least you can do that much. What a tragedy just to pass through and get nothing out of it.

In any case, do you really think kids even want something that is relevant to their daily lives? You think something practical like compound interest is going to get them excited? People enjoy fantasy, and that is just what mathematics can provide -- a relief from daily life, an anodyne to the practical workaday world.

I was also sick of my neighbors, as most Parisians are. I now knew every second of the morning routine of the family upstairs. At 7:00 am alarm goes off, boom, Madame gets out of bed, puts on her deep-sea divers’ boots, and stomps across my ceiling to megaphone the kids awake. The kids drop bags of cannonballs onto the floor, then, apparently dragging several sledgehammers each, stampede into the kitchen. They grab their chunks of baguette and go and sit in front of the TV, which is always showing a cartoon about people who do nothing but scream at each other and explode. Every minute, one of the kids cartwheels (while bouncing cannonballs) back into the kitchen for seconds, then returns (bringing with it a family of excitable kangaroos) to the TV. Meanwhile the toilet is flushed, on average, fifty times per drop of urine expelled. Finally, there is a ten-minute period of intensive yelling, and at 8:15 on the dot they all howl and crash their way out of the apartment to school.” (p.137)

If you're trying to be miserable, it's important you don't have any goals. No school goals, personal goals, family goals. Your only objective each day should be to inhale and exhale for sixteen hours before you go to bed again. Don't read anything informative, don't listen to anything useful, don't do anything productive. If you start achieving goals, you might start to feel a sense of excitement, then you might want to set another goal, and then your miserable mornings are through. To maintain your misery, the idea of crossing off your goals should never cross your mind.

The people at the top in high school get into the best colleges, get the best jobs, go on to run the country, and win Nobel Prizes. The rest end up with dead-end jobs, heart failure, and then have to start an affair with their assistant to create some excitement in their otherwise dull lives.

Susie: Hi Calvin! Aren't you excited about going to school? Look at all these great school supplies I got! I love having new notebooks and stuff! Calvin:All I've got to say is they're not making me learn any foreign languages. If English is good enough for me, then by golly, it's good enough for the rest of the world! Everyone should just speak English or shut up, that's what I say! Susie: You should maybe check the chemical content of your breakfast cereal.

I have the impression that our children are much more excited about going to school than children in other countries are. They think of it as a special privilege. Going to school, being with other children, getting books and pencils - all of that is like a dream for them.

THERE WAS ALWAYS a boy in your life that common sense and the prayers of parents told you to stay away from: fast talker, fast car, and fast hands. He was the boy your father kept a loaded shotgun by the door for and met on the front porch if he ever thought about venturing onto his property…let alone the threshold. He was the tall, dark, mysteriously handsome, and uncharacter-istically quiet one that made you wonder what was going on in his head, and that little voice in your head said it wasn’t always so honorable. He was the boy you broke all of the rules over because bad-boys equaled excitement and the rebel in you liked the ride.

An ambulance, lights and sirens blaring, sped past us, going in the opposite direction, towards the school, and for an instant, I felt a nervous excitement and thought, it could be someone I know. I almost wished it was someone I knew, to give new form and depth to the sadness I felt.

Back in Henrietta, night proceeded. Richard Gansey was failing to sleep. When he closed his eyes: Blue’s hands, his voice, black bleeding from a tree. It was starting, starting. No. It was ending. He was ending. This was the landscape of his personal apocalypse. What was excitement when he was wakeful melted into dread when he was tired. He opened his eyes. He opened Ronan’s door just enough to confirm that Ronan was inside, sleeping with his mouth ajar, headphones blaring, Chainsaw a motionless lump in her cage. Then, leaving him, Gansey drove to the school. He used his old key code to get into Aglionby’s indoor athletic complex, and then he stripped and swam in the dark pool in the darker room, all sounds strange and hollow at night. He did endless laps as he used to do when he had first come to the school, back when he had been on the rowing team, back when he had sometimes come earlier than even rowing practice to swim. He had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be in the water: It was as if his body didn’t exist; he was just a borderless mind. He pushed himself off a barely visible wall and headed towards the even less visible opposite one, no longer quite able to hold on to his concrete concerns. School, Headmaster Child, even Glendower. He was only this current minute. Why had he given this up? He couldn’t remember even that. In the dark water he was only Gansey, now. He’d never died, he wasn’t going to die again. He was only Gansey, now, now, only now. He could not see him, but Noah stood on the edge of the pool and watched. He had been a swimmer himself, once.

Regardless of who leads it, the professional-class liberalism I have been describing in these pages seems to be forever traveling on a quest for some place of greater righteousness. It is always engaged in a search for some subject of overwhelming, noncontroversial goodness with which it can identify itself and under whose umbrella of virtue it can put across its self-interested class program. There have been many other virtue-objects over the years: people and ideas whose surplus goodness could be extracted for deployment elsewhere. The great virtue-rush of the 1990s, for example, was focused on children, then thought to be the last word in overwhelming, noncontroversial goodness. Who could be against kids? No one, of course, and so the race was on to justify whatever your program happened to be in their name. In the course of Hillary Clinton’s 1996 book, It Takes a Village, the favorite rationale of the day—think of the children!—was deployed to explain her husband’s crime bill as well as more directly child-related causes like charter schools. You can find dozens of examples of this kind of liberal-class virtue-quest if you try, but instead of listing them, let me go straight to the point: This is not politics. It’s an imitation of politics. It feels political, yes: it’s highly moralistic, it sets up an easy melodrama of good versus bad, it allows you to make all kinds of judgments about people you disagree with, but ultimately it’s a diversion, a way of putting across a policy program while avoiding any sincere discussion of the policies in question. The virtue-quest is an exciting moral crusade that seems to be extremely important but at the conclusion of which you discover you’ve got little to show for it besides NAFTA, bank deregulation, and a prison spree.

When I was fifteen and had quit school forever, I went to work in a vineyard near Sanger with a number of Mexicans, one of whom was only a year or two older than myself, an earnest boy named Felipe. One gray, dismal, cold, dreary day in January, while we were pruning muscat vines, I said to this boy, simply in order to be talking, "If you had your wish, Felipe, what would you want to be? A doctor, a farmer, a singer, a painter, a matador, or what?" Felipe thought a minute, and then he said, "Passenger." This was exciting to hear, and definitely something to talk about at some length, which we did. He wanted to be a passenger on anything that was going anywhere, but most of all on a ship.

But what I would like to know," says Albert, "is whether there would not have been a war if the Kaiser had said No." "I'm sure there would," I interject, "he was against it from the first." "Well, if not him alone, then perhaps if twenty or thirty people in the world had said No." "That's probable," I agree, "but they damned well said Yes." "It's queer, when one thinks about it," goes on Kropp, "we are here to protect our fatherland. And the French are over there to protect their fatherland. Now who's in the right?" "Perhaps both," say I without believing it. "Yes, well now," pursues Albert, and I see that he means to drive me into a corner, "but our professors and parsons and newspapers say that we are the only ones that are right, and let's hope so;--but the French professors and parsons and newspapers say that the right is on their side, now what about that?" "That I don't know," I say, "but whichever way it is there's war all the same and every month more countries coming in." Tjaden reappears. He is still quite excited and again joins the conversation, wondering just how a war gets started. "Mostly by one country badly offending another," answers Albert with a slight air of superiority. Then Tjaden pretends to be obtuse. "A country? I don't follow. A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France. Or a river, or a wood, or a field of wheat." "Are you really as stupid as that, or are you just pulling my leg?" growls Kropp, "I don't mean that at all. One people offends the other--" "Then I haven't any business here at all," replies Tjaden, "I don't feel myself offended." "Well, let me tell you," says Albert sourly, "it doesn't apply to tramps like you." "Then I can be going home right away," retorts Tjaden, and we all laugh, "Ach, man! he means the people as a whole, the State--" exclaims Mller. "State, State"--Tjaden snaps his fingers contemptuously, "Gendarmes, police, taxes, that's your State;--if that's what you are talking about, no, thank you." "That's right," says Kat, "you've said something for once, Tjaden. State and home-country, there's a big difference." "But they go together," insists Kropp, "without the State there wouldn't be any home-country." "True, but just you consider, almost all of us are simple folk. And in France, too, the majority of men are labourers, workmen, or poor clerks. Now just why would a French blacksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us? No, it is merely the rulers. I had never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with the majority of Frenchmen as regards us. They weren't asked about it any more than we were." "Then what exactly is the war for?" asks Tjaden. Kat shrugs his shoulders. "There must be some people to whom the war is useful." "Well, I'm not one of them," grins Tjaden. "Not you, nor anybody else here." "Who are they then?" persists Tjaden. "It isn't any use to the Kaiser either. He has everything he can want already." "I'm not so sure about that," contradicts Kat, "he has not had a war up till now. And every full-grown emperor requires at least one war, otherwise he would not become famous. You look in your school books." "And generals too," adds Detering, "they become famous through war." "Even more famous than emperors," adds Kat. "There are other people back behind there who profit by the war, that's certain," growls Detering. "I think it is more of a kind of fever," says Albert. "No one in particular wants it, and then all at once there it is. We didn't want the war, the others say the same thing--and yet half the world is in it all the same.

You big ugly. You too empty. You desert with your nothing nothing nothing. You scorched suntanned. Old too quickly. Acres of suburbs watching the telly. You bore me. Freckle silly children. You nothing much. With your big sea. Beach beach beach. I’ve seen enough already. You dumb dirty city with bar stools. You’re ugly. You silly shopping town. You copy. You too far everywhere. You laugh at me. When I came this woman gave me a box of biscuits. You try to be friendly but you’re not very friendly. You never ask me to your house. You insult me. You don’t know how to be with me. Road road tree tree. I came from crowded and many. I came from rich. You have nothing to offer. You’re poor and spread thin. You big. So what. I’m small. It’s what’s in. You silent on Sunday. Nobody on your streets. You dead at night. You go to sleep too early. You don’t excite me. You scare me with your hopeless. Asleep when you walk. Too hot to think. You big awful. You don’t match me. You burnt out. You too big sky. You make me a dot in the nowhere. You laugh with your big healthy. You want everyone to be the same. You’re dumb. You do like anybody else. You engaged Doreen. You big cow. You average average. Cold day at school playing around at lunchtime. Running around for nothing. You never accept me. For your own. You always ask me where I’m from. You always ask me. You tell me I look strange. Different. You don’t adopt me. You laugh at the way I speak. You think you’re better than me. You don’t like me. You don’t have any interest in another country. Idiot centre of your own self. You think the rest of the world walks around without shoes or electric light. You don’t go anywhere. You stay at home. You like one another. You go crazy on Saturday night. You get drunk. You don’t like me and you don’t like women. You put your arm around men in bars. You’re rough. I can’t speak to you. You burly burly. You’re just silly to me. You big man. Poor with all your money. You ugly furniture. You ugly house. You relaxed in your summer stupor. All year. Never fully awake. Dull at school. Wait for other people to tell you what to do. Follow the leader. Can’t imagine. Workhorse. Thick legs. You go to work in the morning. You shiver on a tram.

He looks up. Our eyes lock,and he breaks into a slow smile. My heart beats faster and faster. Almost there.He sets down his book and stands.And then this-the moment he calls my name-is the real moment everything changes. He is no longer St. Clair, everyone's pal, everyone's friend. He is Etienne. Etienne,like the night we met. He is Etienne,he is my friend. He is so much more. Etienne.My feet trip in three syllables. E-ti-enne. E-ti-enne, E-ti-enne. His name coats my tongue like melting chocolate. He is so beautiful, so perfect. My throat catches as he opens his arms and wraps me in a hug.My heart pounds furiously,and I'm embarrassed,because I know he feels it. We break apart, and I stagger backward. He catches me before I fall down the stairs. "Whoa," he says. But I don't think he means me falling. I blush and blame it on clumsiness. "Yeesh,that could've been bad." Phew.A steady voice. He looks dazed. "Are you all right?" I realize his hands are still on my shoulders,and my entire body stiffens underneath his touch. "Yeah.Great. Super!" "Hey,Anna. How was your break?" John.I forget he was here.Etienne lets go of me carefully as I acknowledge Josh,but the whole time we're chatting, I wish he'd return to drawing and leave us alone. After a minute, he glances behind me-to where Etienne is standing-and gets a funny expression on hs face. His speech trails off,and he buries his nose in his sketchbook. I look back, but Etienne's own face has been wiped blank. We sit on the steps together. I haven't been this nervous around him since the first week of school. My mind is tangled, my tongue tied,my stomach in knots. "Well," he says, after an excruciating minute. "Did we use up all our conversation over the holiday?" The pressure inside me eases enough to speak. "Guess I'll go back to the dorm." I pretend to stand, and he laughs. "I have something for you." He pulls me back down by my sleeve. "A late Christmas present." "For me? But I didn't get you anything!" He reaches into a coat pocket and brings out his hand in a fist, closed around something very small. "It's not much,so don't get excited." "Ooo,what is it?" "I saw it when I was out with Mum, and it made me think of you-" "Etienne! Come on!" He blinks at hearing his first name. My face turns red, and I'm filled with the overwhelming sensation that he knows exactly what I'm thinking. His expression turns to amazement as he says, "Close your eyes and hold out your hand." Still blushing,I hold one out. His fingers brush against my palm, and my hand jerks back as if he were electrified. Something goes flying and lands with a faith dink behind us. I open my eyes. He's staring at me, equally stunned. "Whoops," I say. He tilts his head at me. "I think...I think it landed back here." I scramble to my feet, but I don't even know what I'm looking for. I never felt what he placed in my hands. I only felt him. "I don't see anything! Just pebbles and pigeon droppings," I add,trying to act normal. Where is it? What is it? "Here." He plucks something tiny and yellow from the steps above him. I fumble back and hold out my hand again, bracing myself for the contact. Etienne pauses and then drops it from a few inches above my hand.As if he's avoiding me,too. It's a glass bead.A banana. He clears his throat. "I know you said Bridgette was the only one who could call you "Banana," but Mum was feeling better last weekend,so I took her to her favorite bead shop. I saw that and thought of you.I hope you don't mind someone else adding to your collection. Especially since you and Bridgette...you know..." I close my hand around the bead. "Thank you." "Mum wondered why I wanted it." "What did you tell her?" "That it was for you,of course." He says this like, duh. I beam.The bead is so lightweight I hardly feel it, except for the teeny cold patch it leaves in my palm.

Sometimes my entire high school experience feels like being the only one who already knows the end of a movie, when everyone else you're going with is excited to see how the movie will end. Spoiler alert: a 20 percent discount at Target.

was at playtime. Big Joe came up to school to see Charlie and me. He just stood and watched us from outside the school gate. He did that often when Charlie and I first went off to school together — I think he was finding it lonely at home without us. I ran over to him. He was breathless, bright-eyed with excitement. He had something to show me. He opened his cupped hands just enough for me to be able to see. There was a slowworm curled up inside. I knew where he’d got it from — the churchyard, his favorite hunting ground. Whenever we went up to put flowers on Father’s grave, Big Joe would go off on his own, hunting for more creatures to add to his collection; that’s when he wasn’t just standing there gazing up at the tower and singing Oranges and Lemons at the top of his voice and watching the swifts screaming around the church tower. Nothing seemed to make him happier than that. I knew Big Joe would put his slowworm in with all his other creatures. He kept them in boxes at the back of the woodshed at home — lizards, hedgehogs, all sorts. I stroked his slowworm with my finger, and said it was lovely, which it was. Then he wandered off, walking down the lane humming his Oranges and Lemons

And we were in our thirties. Well into the Age of Boredom, when nothing is new. Now, I’m not being self-pitying; it’s simply true. Newness, or whatever you want to call it, becomes a very scarce commodity after thirty. I think that’s unfair. If I were in charge of the human life span, I’d make sure to budget newness much more selectively, to ration it out. As it is now, it’s almost used up in the first three years of life. By then you’ve seen for the first time, tasted for the first time, held something for the first time. Learned to walk, talk, go to the bathroom. What have you got to look forward to that can compare with that? Sure, there’s school. Making friends. Falling in love. Learning to drive. Sex. Learning to trade. That has to carry you for the next twenty-five years. But after that? What’s the new excitement? Mastering your home computer? Figuring out how to work CompuServe? “Now, if it were up to me, I’d parcel out. So that, say, at thirty-five we just learned how to go on the potty. Imagine the feeling of accomplishment! They’d have office parties. "Did you hear? The vice president in charge of overseas development just went a whole week without his diaper. We’re buying him a gift." It’d be beautiful.

Well, take e-mail for example. People don’t write to each other anymore, do they? Once my generation’s gone, the written letter will be consigned to social history. Tell me, Jefferson. When did you last write a letter?’ Tayte had to think about it. When the occasion came to him, he smiled, wide and cheesy. ‘It was to you,’ he said. ‘I wrote you on your sixtieth birthday.’ ‘That was five years ago.’ ‘I still wrote you.’ Marcus looked sympathetic. ‘It was an e-mail.’ ‘Was it?’ Marcus nodded. ‘You see my point? Letters are key to genealogical research, and they’re becoming obsolete. Photographs are going the same way.’ He looked genuinely saddened by the thought. ‘How many connections have you made going through boxes of old letters and faded sepia photographs? How many assignments would have fallen flat without them?’ ‘Too many,’ Tayte agreed. ‘I can’t see genealogists of the future fervently poring over their clients’ old e-mails, can you? Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the excitement and the scent of time that so often accompanies the discovery?’ He had Tayte there, too. Tayte’s methods were straight out of the ‘Marcus Brown School of Family History.’ Tripping back into the past through an old letter and a few photographs represented everything he loved about his work. It wouldn’t be the same without the sensory triggers he currently took for granted.

Tell me something else instead. Tell me what you’re looking forward to most about going to school here.” “You go first. What are you most excited about?” Right away, Peter says, “That’s easy. Streaking the lawn with you.” “That’s what you’re looking forward to more than anything? Running around naked?” Hastily I add, “I’m never doing that, by the way.” He laughs. “It’s a UVA tradition. I thought you were all about UVA traditions.” “Peter!” “I’m just kidding.” He leans forward and puts his arms around my shoulders, rubbing his nose in my neck the way he likes to do.

And why can't I have an ignore button like my phone? As I hit it, his calls disappear from the screen and the ringing stops. But the tingles are still at my fingertips, as if he sent them through the phone to grab me. Shoving it in my purse-the pockets on skinny jeans must just be for show 'cause nothing else is fitting in there-I smile at Mark. Ah, Mark. The blue-eyed, blond-haired, all-American quarterback. Who knew he had a crush on me all these years? Not Emma McIntosh, that's for dang sure. And not Chloe. Which is weird, because Chloe was a collector of this kind of information. Maybe it's not true. Maybe Mark's only interested in me because Galen was-who wouldn't want to date the girl who dated the hottest guy in school? But that's just fine with me. Mark is...well, Mark isn't as fantabulous as I always imagined he would be. Still, he's good-looking, a star quarterback, and he's not trying to hook me up with his brother. So why am I not excited? The question must be all over my face because Mark's got his eyebrow raised. Not in a judgmental arch, more like an arch of expectation. If he's waiting for an explanation, his puny human lungs can't hold their breath long enough for an answer. Aside from not being his business, I can't exactly explain the details of my relationship with Galen-fake or otherwise. The truth is, I don't know where we can go from here. He ripped holes in my pride like buckshot. And did I mention he broke my heart? He's not just a crush. Not just a physical attraction, someone who can make me forget my own name by pretending to kiss me. Not just a teacher or a snobby fish with Royal blood. Sure, he's all of those things. But he's more than that. He's who I want. Possibly forever.

But not really needing to be rescued sort of makes being rescued more exciting,you know." "No,I don't know," Keeley snapped. "Go to school,Mo.I've got mucking out to do." "I'm going,I'm going. Sheesh. You must be low on the caffeine intake this morning.I'll come by later to see how the gelding's doing.I've got a kind of vested interest,you know? See you.

These are all issues in search of clarity. The good listener knows that, via conversation with another person, we’d ideally move from a confused, agitated state of mind to a calmer and more focused one. Together, through talking, we would work out what is really at stake. But, in reality, this tends not to happen because few of us are sufficiently aware of how to achieve this clarity from our conversation. There aren’t enough good listeners. People tend to assert rather than analyse. They restate in many different ways the fact that they are worried, excited, sad or hopeful, and their interlocutor listens but does not help them to discover more. Good listeners fight against this with a range of conversational gambits. They hover as the other speaks; they offer encouraging remarks; they make gentle positive gestures: a sigh of sympathy, a nod of encouragement, a strategic ‘hmm’ of interest. All the time, they are egging the other to go deeper into issues. They love saying: ‘Tell me more about…’; ‘I was fascinated when you said…’; ‘Why did that happen, do you think?’ or ‘How did you feel about that?

So they spread the paintings on the lawn, and the boy explained each of them. "This is the school, and this is the playground, and these are my friends." He stared at the paintings for a long time and then shook his head in discouragement. "In my mind, they were a whole lot better." Isn't that the truth? Every morning, I go to my desk and reread yesterday's pages, only to be discouraged that the prose isn't as good as it seemed during the excitement of composition. In my mind, it was a whole lot better. Don't give in to doubt. Never be discouraged if your first draft isn't what you thought it would be. Given skill and a story that compels you, muster your determination and make what's on the page closer to what you have in your mind.

It's an old story," Julia says, leaning back in her chair. "Only for me, it's new. I went to school for industrial design. All my life I've been fascinated by chairs - I know it sounds silly, but it's true. Form meets purpose in a chair. My parents thought I was crazy, but somehow I convinced them to pay my way to California. To study furniture design. I was all excited at first. It was totally unlike me to go so far away from home. But I was sick of the cold and sick of the snow. I figured a little sun might change my life. So I headed down to L.A. and roomed with a friend of an ex-girlfriend of my brother's. She was an aspiring radio actress, which meant she was home a lot. At first, I loved it. I didn't even let the summer go by. I dove right into my classes. Soon enough, I learned I couldn't just focus on chairs. I had to design spoons and toilet-bowl cleaners and thermostats. The math never bothered me, but the professors did. They could demolish you in a second without giving you a clue if how to rebuild. I spent more and more time in the studio, with other crazed students who guarded their projects like toy-jealous kids. I started to go for walks. Long walks. I couldn't go home because my roommate was always there. The sun was too much for me, so I'd stay indoors. I spent hours in supermarkets, walking aisle to aisle, picking up groceries and then putting them back. I went to bowling alleys and pharmacies. I rode buses that kept their lights on all night. I sat in Laundromats because once upon a time Laundromats made me happy. But now the hum of the machines sounded like life going past. Finally, one night I sat too long in the laundry. The woman who folded in the back - Alma - walked over to me and said, 'What are you doing here, girl?' And I knew that there wasn't any answer. There couldn't be any answer. And that's when I knew it was time to go.

The people at the top in high school get into the best colleges, get the best jobs, go on to run the country, and win Nobel prizes. The rest end up with dead end jobs, heart failure, and then have to start an affair with their assistant to create some excitement in their otherwise dull lives. And it's all because they weren't willing to put in the work to make it in high school.

I explored the literature of tree-climbing, not extensive, but so exciting. John Muir had swarmed up a hundred-foot Douglas Spruce during a Californian windstorm, and looked out over a forest, 'the whole mass of which was kindled into one continuous blaze of white sun-fire!' Italo Calvino had written his The Baron in the Trees, Italian editionmagical novel, The Baron in the Trees, whose young hero, Cosimo, in an adolescent huff, climbs a tree on his father's forested estate and vows never to set foot on the ground again. He keeps his impetuous word, and ends up living and even marrying in the canopy, moving for miles between olive, cherry, elm, and holm oak. There were the boys in B.B.'s Brendan Chase, who go feral in an English forest rather than return to boarding-school, and climb a 'Scotch pine' in order to reach a honey buzzard's nest scrimmed with beech leaves. And of course there was the realm of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin: Pooh floating on his sky-blue balloon up to the oak-top bee's nest, in order to poach some honey; Christopher ready with his pop-gun to shoot Pooh's balloon down once the honey had been poached....

Jay showed up after school with a bouquet of flowers and an armful of DVDs, although Violet couldn’t have cared less about either . . . he was all she wanted. She couldn’t help the electric thrill of excitement she felt when he came strolling in, grinning at her foolishly as if he hadn’t seen her in weeks rather than hours. He scooped her up from the couch and dropped her onto his lap as he sat down where she had been just a moment before. He was careful to arrange her ankle on a neatly stacked pile of pillows beside him. He stubbornly refused to hide his affection for her, and if Violet hadn’t known better she would have sword that he was going out of his way to make her self-conscious in her own home. Fortunately her parents were giving them some space for the time being, and they were left by themselves most of the time. “Did you miss me?” he asked arrogantly as he gently brushed his lips over hers, not bothering to wait for an answer. She smiled while she kissed him back, loving the topsy-turvy feeling that her stomach always got when he was so close to her. She wound her arms around his neck, forgetting that she was in the middle of the family room and not hidden away in the privacy of her bedroom. He pulled away from her, suddenly serious. “You know, we didn’t get much time alone yesterday. And I didn’t get a chance to tell you . . .” Violet was mesmerized by the thick timbre of his deep voice. She barely heard his words but rather concentrated on the fluid masculinity of his tone. “I feel like I’ve waited too long to finally have you, and then yesterday . . . when . . .” He stopped, seemingly at a loss, and he tried another approach. His hand stroked her cheek, igniting a response from deep within her. “I can’t imagine living without you,” he said, tenderly kissing her forehead, his warm breath fanning her brow. He paused thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again. “I love you, Violet. More than I ever could have imagined. And I don’t want to lose you . . . I can’t lose you.” It was her turn to look arrogant as she glanced up at him. “I know,” she stated smugly, shrugging her shoulder. He shoved her playfully but held on to her tightly so that she never really went anywhere. “What do you mean, ‘I know’? What kind of response is that?” His righteous indignation bordered on comical. He pulled her down into his arms so that his face was directly above hers. “Say it!” he commanded. She shook her head, pretending not to understand him. “What? What do you want me to say?” But then she giggled and ruined her baffled façade. He teased her with his mouth, leaning down to kiss her and then pulling away before his lips ever reached hers. He nuzzled her neck tantalizingly, only to stop once she responded. She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to pull him closer, frustrated by his mocking ambush of her senses. “Sat it,” he whispered, his breath warm against her neck. She groaned, wanting him to put her out of her misery. “I love you too,” she rasped as she clung to him. “I love you so much . . .” His mouth moved to cover hers in an exhausting kiss that left them both breathless and craving more than they could have. Violet collapsed into his arms, gathering her wits and hoping that no one walking in on them anytime soon.

This wasn’t the first time Maureen encountered fellow white people who assumed she shared their racial fears. She recalls with overwhelming fondness her years teaching at Sacramento High, the public charter school whose students were all from working-class backgrounds and mostly African American, with a small percentage of Hmong and Latinx kids. “These were the best students of my career,” she said. “If I gave the students something to read, they read it in three days. I would sometimes plan a lesson [unit] to go on for four or five weeks, and they were done in two weeks and wanted to write the paper because they were excited.” Yet the most frequent question Maureen received from her white friends about the school and its students was “Are you scared?” Her response: “Scared of what? Don’t be scared of Black kids. Be scared for them.

Then the bandit turned tail and broke for the open. Greeley hit the sidewalk only seconds after him, big as he was and with a panic-stricken woman to detour around. A slice of hindmost heel was all he saw of the man. The store entrance adjoined a corner; that gave the fugitive a few added seconds of shelter, and as Greeley flashed around it in turn, again the breaks were the lawbreaker's. There was a school midway up the street toward the next avenue. It was a couple of minutes past three now, and a torrent of young humanity came pouring out of the building by every staircase and exit, flooding the street. In through them the sprinting man plunged, knocking over right and left the ones that didn't get out of his way quickly enough. If it had been hazardous to take a shot at him in the store, it would have been criminal out here. The kids parted, screaming in delighted excitement, as Greeley tore through them after the bandit with uptilted gun, but he couldn't just callously knock them flat like the man before him had. He sidestepped, got out of their way as often as they did his, and he began to fall behind the other, lose ground. The kids weren't just on that one street - they had dispersed over the entire vicinity by now, for a radius of a block or more in every direction, in frisky, milling, homeward-bound groups. Through them the quarry zigzagged, pulling slowly but surely away. He kept going in a straight line, because it was to his advantage to do so - the presence of these kids made for greater safety - but he was already far enough in the lead so that when he should finally decide to turn off - the answer was pretty obvious; a taxi or a doorway or a basement. Any of them would do. ("Detective William Brown")

Those who live in retirement, whose lives have fallen amid the seclusion of schools or of other walled-in and guarded dwellings, are liable to be suddenly and for a long while dropped out of the memory of their friends, the denizens of a freer world. Unaccountably, perhaps, and close upon some space of unusually frequent intercourse—some congeries of rather exciting little circumstances, whose natural sequel would rather seem to be the quickening than the suspension of communication—there falls a stilly pause, a wordless silence, a long blank of oblivion. Unbroken always is this blank; alike entire and unexplained. The letter, the message once frequent, are cut off; the visit, formerly periodical, ceases to occur; the book, paper, or other token that indicated remembrance, comes no more. Always there are excellent reasons for these lapses, if the hermit but knew them. Though he is stagnant in his cell, his connections without are whirling in the very vortex of life. That void interval which passes for him so slowly that the very clocks seem at a stand, and the wingless hours plod by in the likeness of tired tramps prone to rest at milestones—that same interval, perhaps, teems with events, and pants with hurry for his friends. The hermit—if he be a sensible hermit—will swallow his own thoughts, and lock up his own emotions during these weeks of inward winter. He will know that Destiny designed him to imitate, on occasion, the dormouse, and he will be conformable: make a tidy ball of himself, creep into a hole of life's wall, and submit decently to the drift which blows in and soon blocks him up, preserving him in ice for the season. Let him say, "It is quite right: it ought to be so, since so it is." And, perhaps, one day his snow-sepulchre will open, spring's softness will return, the sun and south-wind will reach him; the budding of hedges, and carolling of birds and singing of liberated streams will call him to kindly resurrection. Perhaps this may be the case, perhaps not: the frost may get into his heart and never thaw more; when spring comes, a crow or a pie may pick out of the wall only his dormouse-bones. Well, even in that case, all will be right: it is to be supposed he knew from the first he was mortal, and must one day go the way of all flesh, As well soon as syne.

Whenever there is something planned in my life—either meeting a friend, going on a school or uni trip, going for a walk, or, like today, starting an internship—when it actually comes to the day I have to go through with the plan, it goes from being something I’m excited about to something I dread. If I arrange to go to the cinema in a week’s time, for instance, when the time to go comes around, it becomes the last thing I want to do. My instinct, always, is to stay in.

Prior to my second stint in Perpignan, I was a fine diner and as I saw it, food was art. At vocational school, I was being taught how to cook, but I was frustrated by how basic the dishes were. I was like a kid who had grown up listening to Chopin, then showed up at music school, never having actually played an instrument. I mean, when you listen to Chopin all the time, you want to become Chopin. And then you go to music school and all you're doing is plunking out do...re... mi for hours at a time. It's boring as hell, and not why you enrolled. I was impatient to create great meals and not so excited about starting with the basics. Why were we spending hours learning how to hold a knife or mine a shallot when we could be making nouvelle cuisine? True, I didn't know how to cut a chicken in eight pieces or make a bechamel. But in the two- and three-start restaurants I had been to, they were way over the bechamel. Still, there I was, in school, making the most basic of dishes--salade Nicoise, potato-leek soup, an omelette.

People are saying she might go to a Division I school on a basketball scholarship. Isn’t that wonderful for her?” Then Dorothy added, “Of course, I suppose you don’t want to get too excited yet—I know she’s only a sophomore. But very few girls make headlines at fifteen.” It was on the tip of Lila’s tongue to say that Dotty had made a mistake: Clint didn’t have a brother and Lila didn’t have a niece. But Dorothy Harper was at the age where names often got mixed up. She wished the old lady a nice day and drove home.

I wanted to come back the minute I’d Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn’t go anywhere!” “A gang of what?” asked Harry, as Hermione threw herself down into a chair with her arms and legs crossed so tightly it seemed unlikely that she would unravel them for several years. “Snatchers,” said Ron. “They’re everywhere--gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there’s a reward from the Ministry for everyone captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age; they got really excited, thought I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to the Ministry.” “What did you say to them?” “Told them I was Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of.” “And they believed that?” “They weren’t the brightest. One of them was definitely part troll, the smell off him…” Ron glanced at Hermione, clearly hopeful she might soften at this small instance of humor, but her expression remained stony above her tightly knotted limbs.

My Fellow Non-American Blacks: In America, You Are Black, Baby Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t “black” in your country? You’re in America now. We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. And admit it—you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that. Don’t deny now. What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say “Don’t call me black, I’m from Trinidad”? I didn’t think so. So you’re black, baby. And here’s the deal with becoming black: You must show that you are offended when such words as “watermelon” or “tar baby” are used in jokes, even if you don’t know what the hell is being talked about—and since you are a Non-American Black, the chances are that you won’t know. (In undergrad a white classmate asks if I like watermelon, I say yes, and another classmate says, Oh my God that is so racist, and I’m confused. “Wait, how?”) You must nod back when a black person nods at you in a heavily white area. It is called the black nod. It is a way for black people to say “You are not alone, I am here too.” In describing black women you admire, always use the word “STRONG” because that is what black women are supposed to be in America. If you are a woman, please do not speak your mind as you are used to doing in your country. Because in America, strong-minded black women are SCARY. And if you are a man, be hyper-mellow, never get too excited, or somebody will worry that you’re about to pull a gun. When you watch television and hear that a “racist slur” was used, you must immediately become offended. Even though you are thinking “But why won’t they tell me exactly what was said?” Even though you would like to be able to decide for yourself how offended to be, or whether to be offended at all, you must nevertheless be very offended. When a crime is reported, pray that it was not committed by a black person, and if it turns out to have been committed by a black person, stay well away from the crime area for weeks, or you might be stopped for fitting the profile. If a black cashier gives poor service to the non-black person in front of you, compliment that person’s shoes or something, to make up for the bad service, because you’re just as guilty for the cashier’s crimes. If you are in an Ivy League college and a Young Republican tells you that you got in only because of Affirmative Action, do not whip out your perfect grades from high school. Instead, gently point out that the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are white women. If you go to eat in a restaurant, please tip generously. Otherwise the next black person who comes in will get awful service, because waiters groan when they get a black table. You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, so please overpower that gene. If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion.

Imagine you live on a planet where the dominant species is far more intellectually sophisticated than human beings but often keeps humans as companion animals. They are called the Gorns. They communicate with each other via a complex combination of telepathy, eye movements & high-pitched squeaks, all completely unintelligible & unlearnable by humans, whose brains are prepared for verbal language acquisition only. Humans sometimes learn the meaning of individual sounds by repeated association with things of relevance to them. The Gorns & humans bond strongly but there are many Gorn rules that humans must try to assimilate with limited information & usually high stakes. You are one of the lucky humans who lives with the Gorns in their dwelling. Many other humans are chained to small cabanas in the yard or kept in outdoor pens of varying size. They are so socially starved they cannot control their emotions when a Gorn goes near them. The Gorns agree that they could never be House-Humans. The dwelling you share with your Gorn family is filled with water-filled porcelain bowls.Every time you try to urinate in one,nearby Gorn attack you. You learn to only use the toilet when there are no Gorns present. Sometimes they come home & stuff your head down the toilet for no apparent reason. You hate this & start sucking up to the Gorns when they come home to try & stave this off but they view this as evidence of your guilt. You are also punished for watching videos, reading books, talking to other human beings, eating pizza or cheesecake, & writing letters. These are all considered behavior problems by the Gorns. To avoid going crazy, once again you wait until they are not around to try doing anything you wish to do. While they are around, you sit quietly, staring straight ahead. Because they witness this good behavior you are so obviously capable of, they attribute to “spite” the video watching & other transgressions that occur when you are alone. Obviously you resent being left alone, they figure. You are walked several times a day and left crossword puzzle books to do. You have never used them because you hate crosswords; the Gorns think you’re ignoring them out of revenge. Worst of all, you like them. They are, after all, often nice to you. But when you smile at them, they punish you, likewise for shaking hands. If you apologize they punish you again. You have not seen another human since you were a small child. When you see one you are curious, excited & afraid. You really don’t know how to act. So, the Gorn you live with keeps you away from other humans. Your social skills never develop. Finally, you are brought to “training” school. A large part of the training consists of having your air briefly cut off by a metal chain around your neck. They are sure you understand every squeak & telepathic communication they make because sometimes you get it right. You are guessing & hate the training. You feel pretty stressed out a lot of the time. One day, you see a Gorn approaching with the training collar in hand. You have PMS, a sore neck & you just don’t feel up to the baffling coercion about to ensue. You tell them in your sternest voice to please leave you alone & go away. The Gorns are shocked by this unprovoked aggressive behavior. They thought you had a good temperament. They put you in one of their vehicles & take you for a drive. You watch the attractive planetary landscape going by & wonder where you are going. You are led into a building filled with the smell of human sweat & excrement. Humans are everywhere in small cages. Some are nervous, some depressed, most watch the goings on on from their prisons. Your Gorns, with whom you have lived your entire life, hand you over to strangers who drag you to a small room. You are terrified & yell for your Gorn family to help you. They turn & walk away.You are held down & given a lethal injection. It is, after all, the humane way to do it.

But there’s never been anyone? Really?” Sarah shrugs. “Penny and I were tutored at home when we were young . . . but in year ten, there was this one boy.” I rub my hands together. “Here we go—tell me everything. I want all the sick, lurid details. Was he a footballer? Big and strong, captain of the team, the most popular boy in school?” I could see it. Sarah’s delicate, long and lithe, but dainty, beautiful—any young man would’ve been desperate to have her on his arm. In his lap. In his bed, on the hood of his car, riding his face . . . all of the above. “He was captain of the chess team.” I cover my eyes with my hand. “His name was Davey. He wore these adorable tweed jackets and bow ties, he had blond hair, and was a bit pale because of the asthma. He had the same glasses as I and he had a different pair of argyle socks for every day of the year.” “You’re messing with me, right?” She shakes her head. “Argyle socks, Sarah? I am so disappointed in you right now.” “He was nice,” she chides. “You leave my Davey alone.” Then she laughs again—delighted and free. My cock reacts hard and fast, emphasis on hard. It’s like sodding granite. “So what happened to old Davey boy?” “I was alone in the library one day and he came up and started to ask me to the spring social. And I was so excited and nervous I could barely breathe.” I picture how she must’ve looked then. But in my mind’s eyes she’s really not any different than she is right now. Innocent, sweet, and so real she couldn’t deceive someone if her life depended on it. “And then before he could finish the question, I . . .” I don’t realize I’m leaning toward her until she stops talking and I almost fall over. “You . . . what?” Sarah hides behind her hands. “I threw up on him.” And I try not to laugh. I swear I try . . . but I’m only human. So I end up laughing so hard the car shakes and I can’t speak for several minutes. “Christ almighty.” “And I’d had fish and chips for lunch.” Sarah’s laughing too. “It was awful.” “Oh you poor thing.” I shake my head, still chuckling. “And poor Davey.” “Yes.” She wipes under her eyes with her finger. “Poor Davey. He never came near me again after that.” “Coward—he didn’t deserve you. I would’ve swam through a whole lake of puke to take a girl like you to the social.” She smiles so brightly at me, her cheeks maroon and round like two shiny apples. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” I wiggle my eyebrows. “I’m all about the compliments.

Every Saturday I would go to the library and choose my books for the week. One late-autumn morning, despite menacing clouds, I bundled up and walked as always, past the peach orchards, the pig farm and the skating rink to the fork in the road that led to our sole library. The sight of so many books never failed to excite me, rows and rows of books with multicolored spines. I’d spent an inordinate amount of time choosing my stack of books that day, with the sky growing more ominous. At first, I wasn’t worried as I had long legs and was a pretty fast walker, but then it became apparent that there was no way I was going to beat the impending storm. It grew colder, the winds picked up, followed by heavy rains, then pelting hail. I slid the books under my coat to protect them, I had a long way to go; I stepped in puddles and could feel the icy water permeate my ankle socks. When I finally reached home my mother shook her head with sympathetic exasperation, prepared a hot bath and made me go to bed. I came down with bronchitis and missed several days of school. But it had been worth it, for I had my books, among them The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, Half Magic and The Dog of Flanders. Wonderful books that I read over and over, only accessible to me through our library.

Since we do not know how the job market would look in 2030 or 2040, already today we have no idea what to teach our kids. Most of what they currently learn at school will probably be irrelevant by the time they are forty. Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. Very soon this traditional model will become utterly obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives, and to reinvent themselves repeatedly. Many if not most humans may be unable to do so. The coming technological bonanza will probably make it feasible to feed and support these useless masses even without any effort from their side. But what will keep them occupied and content? People must do something, or they go crazy. What will they do all day? One answer might be drugs and computer games. Unnecessary people might spend increasing amounts of time within 3D virtual-reality worlds that would provide them with far more excitement and emotional engagement than the drab reality outside. Yet such a development would deal a mortal blow to the liberal belief in the sacredness of human life and of human experiences. What’s so sacred about useless bums who pass their days devouring artificial experiences in La La Land?

Tell me something else instead. Tell me what you’re looking forward to most about going to school here.” “You go first. What are you most excited about?” Right away, Peter says, “That’s easy. Streaking the lawn with you.” “That’s what you’re looking forward to more than anything? Running around naked?” Hastily I add, “I’m never doing that, by the way.” He laughs. “It’s a UVA tradition. I thought you were all about UVA traditions.” “Peter!” “I’m just kidding.” He leans forward and puts his arms around my shoulders, rubbing his nose in my neck the way he likes to do. “Your turn.” I let myself dream about it for a minute. If I get in, what am I most looking forward to? There are so many things, I can hardly name them all. I’m looking forward to eating waffles every day with Peter in the dining hall. To us sledding down O-Hill when it snows. To picnics when it’s warm. To staying up all night talking and then waking up and talking some more. To late-night laundry and last-minute road trips. To…everything. Finally I say, “I don’t want to jinx it.” “Come on!” “Okay, okay…I guess I’m most looking forward to…to going to the McGregor Room whenever I want.” People call it the Harry Potter room, because of the rugs and chandeliers and leather chairs and the portraits on the wall. The bookshelves go from the floor to the ceiling, and all of the books are behind metal grates, protected like the precious objects they are. It’s a room from a different time. It’s very hushed--reverential, even. There was this one summer--I must have been five or six, because it was before Kitty was born--my mom took a class at UVA, and she used to study in the McGregor Room. Margot and I would color, or read. My mom called it the magic library, because Margot and I never fought inside of it. We were both quiet as church mice; we were so in awe of all the books, and of the older kids studying. Peter looks disappointed. I’m sure it’s because he thought I would name something having to do with him. With us. But for some reason, I want to keep those hopes just for me for now. “You can come with me to the McGregor Room,” I say. “But you have to promise to be quiet.” Affectionately Peter says, “Lara Jean, only you would look forward to hanging out in a library.

What is stealing?When is it excusable? When is it a crime?' Thomas looked uncomfortable as he read. Christian perked up. Belle saw Christian listening with interest and looked down at her shoes. 'An action becomes stealing when one of two conditions are met. First, when there is harm to the victim. Second, when the act is done for personal gain.' Thomas looked up and smiled. He seemed happy with where the speech was going, and Belle breathed a sigh of relief. Christian's face had gone white. He stood frozen in his spot. Belle smiled as if to say that things were different with him. That stealing was different in their world. She was torn between excitement for Thomas and embarasment for Christian. 'If both these criteria are met, there is no question where society stands. When of two criteria is in question, society begins to debate. For example, is it wrong when someone takes something that has been thrown away? Perhaps not, since there is no detriment to the victim. Is it wrong when someone takes a loaf of bread to feed a starving baby or taxes the rich to help the poor? Perhaps not, since the motive is unselfish.' Victoria wasn't even looking at Thomas anymore. She was glaring at Belle. She looked like she was about to lunge at her. Belle signaled to her that perhaps she should take notes. But Victoria wasn't used to preparing rebuttals without advanced notice. 'When neither of the criteria is met, however, I propose that there is no crime against ethics. Is it wrong to take a syringe from a drug addict? Of course not.

Richie Royal, age 15, is an up-and-coming young teen idol in China who has a hit record and many endorsements. He is considered the ideal idol for many young people in China as he is handsome, talented, comes from a good family, and smart. Born in the United States of America and went to school in Arcadia, California until he was 10 years old. He and his family relocated to China and established one of the largest beauty and fashion companies in Asia. “Okay!” I said. “I should be excited to see an actual teen idol here, but I’m not,” I said, looking at Mom, Dad, Auntabelle and Trent. “I don’t know how long this traffic jam is going to be, but we have to make it to Grandpa’s house before the birthday, don’t we, Dad?” - Amazon Lee Adventures in China by Kira G. and Kailin Gow

I remember, in no particular order: —a shiny inner wrist; —steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it; —gouts of sperm circling a plughole, before being sluiced down the full length of a tall house; —a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams; —another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface; —bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door. This last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed. We live in time—it holds us and moulds us—but I’ve never felt I understood it very well. And I’m not referring to theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing—until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return. I’m not very interested in my schooldays, and don’t feel any nostalgia for them. But school is where it all began, so I need to return briefly to a few incidents that have grown into anecdotes, to some approximate memories which time has deformed into certainty. If I can’t be sure of the actual events any more, I can at least be true to the impressions those facts left. That’s the best I can manage.

I hope you'll make mistakes. If you make mistakes, it means you're out there doing something. I escaped from school as soon as I could, when the prospect of four more years of enforced learning before I could become the writer I wanted to be, seemed stifling. I got out into the world, I wrote, and I became a better writer the more I wrote, and I wrote some more, and nobody ever seemed to mind that I was making it all up as I went along. They just read what I wrote and they paid me for it or they didn't. The nearest thing I had, was a list I made when I was about 15, of everything I wanted to do. I wanted to write an adult novel, a children's book, a comic, a movie, record an audio-book, write an episode of Doctor Who, and so on. I didn't have a career, I just did the next thing on the list. When you start out in the arts, you have no idea what you're doing. This is great. People who know what they're doing, know the rules, and they know what is possible and what is impossible. You do not, and you should not. The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts, were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible, by going beyond them, and you can. If you don't know it's impossible, it's easier to do, and because nobody's done it before, they haven't made up rules to stop anyone doing that particular thing again. That's much harder than it sounds, and sometimes, in the end, so much easier than you might imagine, because normally, there are things you have to do before you can get to the place you want to be. When you start out, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thick-skinned. The things I did because I was excited and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I've never regretted the time I spent on any of them. If you have an idea of what you want to make, what you were put here to do, then just go and do that, whether you're a musician or a photographer, a fine artist, or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, singer, a designer, whatever you do, you have one thing that's unique, you have the ability to make art. For me, for so many of the people I've known, that's been a lifesaver the ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times, and it gets you through the other ones. The one thing that you have, that nobody else has, is you! Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw, and build, and play, and dance and live, as only you can. Do what only you can do best, make good art.

Suppose you had said to my hypothetical family of 1800, eating their gristly stew in front of a log fire, that in two centuries their descendants would need to fetch no logs or water, and carry out no sewage, because water, gas, and a magic form of invisible power called electricity would come into their home through pipes and wires. They would jump at the chance to have such a home, but they would warily ask ho they could possibly afford it. Suppose that you then told them that to earn such a home, they need only ensure that father and mother both have to go to work for eight hours in an office, travelling roughly forty minutes each way in a horseless carriage, and that the children need not work at all, but should go to school to be sure of getting such jobs when they start to work at twenty. They would be more than dumbfounded; they would be delirious with excitement.

Graduation (Friends Forever)" And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives Where we're gonna be when we turn 25 I keep thinking times will never change Keep on thinking things will always be the same But when we leave this year we won't be coming back No more hanging out cause we're on a different track And if you got something that you need to say You better say it right now cause you don't have another day Cause we're moving on and we can't slow down These memories are playing like a film without sound And I keep thinking of that night in June I didn't know much of love But it came too soon And there was me and you And then we got real blue Stay at home talking on the telephone And we would get so excited and we'd get so scared Laughing at ourselves thinking life's not fair And this is how it feels As we go on We remember All the times we Had together And as our lives change Come whatever We will still be Friends Forever So if we get the big jobs And we make the big money When we look back now Will our jokes still be funny? Will we still remember everything we learned in school? Still be trying to break every single rule Will little brainy Bobby be the stockbroker man? Can Heather find a job that won't interfere with her tan? I keep, keep thinking that it's not goodbye Keep on thinking it's a time to fly And this is how it feels La, la, la, la: Yeah, yeah, yeah La, la, la, la: We will still be friends forever Will we think about tomorrow like we think about now? Can we survive it out there? Can we make it somehow? I guess I thought that this would never end And suddenly it's like we're women and men Will the past be a shadow that will follow us around? Will these memories fade when I leave this town I keep, keep thinking that it's not goodbye Keep on thinking it's a time to fly

I can hardly believe that our nation’s policy is to seek peace by going to war. It seems that President Donald J. Trump has done everything in his power to divert our attention away from the fact that the FBI is investigating his association with Russia during his campaign for office. For several weeks now he has been sabre rattling and taking an extremely controversial stance, first with Syria and Afghanistan and now with North Korea. The rhetoric has been the same, accusing others for our failed policy and threatening to take autonomous military action to attain peace in our time. This gunboat diplomacy is wrong. There is no doubt that Secretaries Kelly, Mattis, and other retired military personnel in the Trump Administration are personally tough. However, most people who have served in the military are not eager to send our young men and women to fight, if it is not necessary. Despite what may have been said to the contrary, our military leaders, active or retired, are most often the ones most respectful of international law. Although the military is the tip of the spear for our country, and the forces of civilization, it should not be the first tool to be used. Bloodshed should only be considered as a last resort and definitely never used as the first option. As the leader of the free world, we should stand our ground but be prepared to seek peace through restraint. This is not the time to exercise false pride! Unfortunately the Trump administration informed four top State Department management officials that their services were no longer needed as part of an effort to "clean house." Patrick Kennedy, served for nine years as the “Undersecretary for Management,” “Assistant Secretaries for Administration and Consular Affairs” Joyce Anne Barr and Michele Bond, as well as “Ambassador” Gentry Smith, director of the Office for Foreign Missions. Most of the United States Ambassadors to foreign countries have also been dismissed, including the ones to South Korea and Japan. This leaves the United States without the means of exercising diplomacy rapidly, when needed. These positions are political appointments, and require the President’s nomination and the Senate’s confirmation. This has not happened! Moreover, diplomatically our country is severely handicapped at a time when tensions are as hot as any time since the Cold War. Without following expert advice or consent and the necessary input from the Unites States Congress, the decisions are all being made by a man who claims to know more than the generals do, yet he has only the military experience of a cadet at “New York Military Academy.” A private school he attended as a high school student, from 1959 to 1964. At that time, he received educational and medical deferments from the Vietnam War draft. Trump said that the school provided him with “more training than a lot of the guys that go into the military.” His counterpart the unhinged Kim Jong-un has played with what he considers his country’s military toys, since April 11th of 2012. To think that these are the two world leaders, protecting the planet from a nuclear holocaust….

She knows she should feel excited about her acceptance to Emory and the promise of spring break. She should feel infinite and hopeful, like the growing earth around her. Like the sunlight, which stretches longer each day, asking for one more minute, one more oak tree to shimmer on. Like the late March mornings, which arrive carrying a gentle heat, rocking it back and forth over the pavement in the parking lot, letting it crawl forth over the grass and the tree roots, nurturing it while it is still nascent and tender, before it turns into swollen summer. But while the whole earth prepares for spring, Hannah feels a great anxiety in her heart, for something dangerous has grown in her, something she never planted or even wanted to plant. It’s there. She knows it’s there. If she’s truthful with herself, she’s probably known it all along. But now, as the days grow longer and the Garden District grows greener, she can actually see it. It has sprung up at last, and it refuses to be unseen. She tells herself it’s passing. It’s temporary. It’s intensified only because she’s a senior and all of her emotions are heightened. It’s innocent. It’s typical for a girl her age. It’s no more or less of a feeling than everyone else has had at 17. But deep down, deep below the topsoil of her heart, she knows it’s not. Still, she pushes it down inside of her, buries it as far as it can go, suffocates it in the space between her stomach and her heart. She tells herself that she is stronger, that she can fight it, that she has control. That no one else has to know. I can ignore it, she thinks. I can refuse to look at it. I can stomp on it every time it springs up within me. So she lies to herself that everything is normal. That she is normal. She carries herself through the end of the school week by refusing to acknowledge it. By refusing to align her heart with the growing sunlight and the nurturing heat and the flowering plants and the tall, proud trees. ‘You alright?’ Baker asks, when Hannah says goodbye to her after school on Friday. Hannah stomps, buries, suffocates, wishes for death. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I’m good.

When we have to pay a lot for something nice, we appreciate it to the full. Yet as its price in the market falls, passion has a habit of fading away. Why, then, do we associate a cheap price with lack of value? Our response is a hangover from our long preindustrial past. For most of human history, there truly was a strong correlation between cost and value: The higher the price, the better things tended to be, because there was simply no way both for prices to be low and for quality to be high. It is not that we refuse to buy inexpensive or cheap things. It's just that getting excited over cheap things has come to seem a little bizarre. How do we reverse this? The answer lies in a slightly unexpected area: the mind of a four-year-old. Children have two advantages: They don't know what they're supposed to like and they don't understand money, so price is never a guide to value for them. We buy them a costly wooden toy made by Swedish artisans who hope to teach lessons in symmetry and find that they prefer the cardboard box that it came in. If asked to put a price on things, children tend to answer by the utility and charm of an object, not its manufacturing costs. We have been looking at prices the wrong way. We have fetishised them as tokens of intrinsic value; we have allowed them to set how much excitement we are allowed to have in given areas, how much joy is to be mined in particular places. But prices were never meant to be like this: We are breathing too much life into them and thereby dulling too many of our responses to the inexpensive world. At a certain age, something very debilitating happens to children. They start to learn about "expensive" and "cheap" and absorb the view that the more expensive something is, the better it may be. They are encouraged to think well of saving up pocket money and to see the "big" toy they are given as much better than the "cheaper" one. We can't directly go backwards; we can't forget what we know of prices. However, we can pay less attention to what things cost and more to our own responses. We need to rethink our relationship to prices. The price of something is principally determined by what it cost to make, not how much human value is potentially to be derived from it.

She had several books she'd been wanting to read, but instead she sprawled out on the couch surrounded by pillows and blankets, and spent the hours flipping channels between Judge Judy, The People's Court, Maury, and Jerry Springer, and rounded out her afternoon with Dr. Phil and Oprah. All in all, it was a complete waste of a day. At least until school got out. Jay showed up after school with a bouquet of flowers and an armful of DVDs, although Violet couldn't have card less about either...he was all she wanted. She couldn't help the electric thrill of excitement she felt when he came strolling in, grinning at her foolishly as if he hadn't seen her in weeks rather than hours. He scooped her up from the couch and dropped her onto his lap as he sat down where she had been just a moment before. He was careful to arrange her ankle on a neatly stacked pile of pillows beside him. He stubbornly refused to hide his affection for her, and if Violet hadn't known better she would have sworn that he was going out of his way to make her self-conscious in her own home. Fortunately her parents were giving them some space for the time being, and they were left by themselves most of the time. "Did you miss me?" he asked arrogantly as he gently brushed his lips over hers, not bothering to wait for an answer. She smiled while she kissed him back, loving the topsy-turvy feeling that her stomach always got when he was so close to her. She wound her arms around his neck, forgetting that she was in the middle of the family room and not hidden away in the privacy of her bedroom. He pulled away from her, suddenly serious. "You know, we didn't get much time alone yesterday. And I didn't get a chance to tell you..." Violet was mesmerized by the thick timbre of his deep voice. She barely heard his words but rather concentrated on the fluid masculinity of his tone. "I feel like I've waited too long to finally have you, and then yesterday...when..." He stopped, seemingly at a loss, and then he tried another approach. His hand stroked her cheek, igniting a response from deep within her. "I can't imagine living without you," he said, tenderly kissing her forehead, his warm breath fanning her brow. He paused thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again. "I love you, Violet. More than I ever could have imagined. And I don't want to lose you...I can't lose you." It was her turn to look arrogant as she glanced up at him. "I know," she stated smugly, shrugging her shoulder. He shoved her playfully but held on to her tightly so that she never really went anywhere. "What do you mean, 'I know'? What kind of response is that?" His righteous indignation bordered on comical. He pulled her down into his arms so that his face was directly above hers. "Say it!" he commanded. She shook her head, pretending not to understand him. "What? What do you want me to say?" But then she giggled and ruined her baffled façade. He teased her with his mouth, leaning down to kiss her and then pulling away before his lips ever reached hers. He nuzzled her neck tantalizingly, only to stop once she responded. She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to pull him closer, frustrated by his mocking ambush of her senses. "Say it," he whispered, his breath warm against her neck. She groaned, wanting him to put her out of her misery. "I love you too," she rasped as she clung to him. "I love you so much..." His mouth moved to cover hers in an exhausting kiss that left them broth breathless and craving more than they could have. Violet collapsed into his arms, gathering her wits and hoping that no one walked in on them anytime soon.

Do you know, I was rather excited about this whole weekend, and now I can't wait to get home. Feed the cats, write school papers. That sort of thing." Tabitha said nothing. She had no home to return to. "Don't you want to go home? That's right, though, you said you would be leaving the country." "Just my parents are leaving. I'm orphanage bound," Tabitha told him, studying the kitchen tiles. "I'm to be a washer girl at Augustus Home." "A washer girl?" Oliver blinked, incredulous. "You can't mean it." Tabitha kept her eyes focused on the red squares, observing how they fit neatly together to form a single unit of floor. Her parents had taken away her ability to fit in anywhere. She felt the boiling sensation in her belly again, and she finally recognized it. It wasn't sadness or fear or guilt. It was anger, and it wanted very badly to be released. "No, I don't believe you." Oliver shook his head. "Nobody is that horrible." "They are," Tabitha affirmed quietly. "They are horrible, horrible people and even worse parents." She stared at him in wonder, letting a hot rush course through her. "Do you know that's the first time I've said that aloud?" Her heartbeat quickened. "And I think perhaps they deserve my disfavor. They've earned it, the same way I tried for years to earn their love.

Korie: Willie and I dated for about eight months, and then I was getting ready to leave for school at Harding University. Willie was still attending seminary school, and I wanted him to go to Harding University with me. But Willie said he wasn’t leaving West Monroe. He wanted me to stay in West Monroe with him. We broke up before I left for school in August, and I’m sure he thought I’d find someone else at college, because that’s what typically happens when you leave home. Willie called me one night in September 1991 after I had been gone a few weeks and said, “Let’s get back together.” I knew I loved him, but I told him I wasn’t sure about it. He was trying to change my life, and it was really his way or no way. I just didn’t know what to do. “Let me think about it,” I said. “I’ll call you back tomorrow.” I was convinced she’d found someone else. I was telling all my buddies that it was over between us, and I was gathering other girls’ phone numbers to prepare myself to move on. I just knew it was over, and I wasn’t waiting to hear it from her the next day. I was convinced she wanted to end our relationship but couldn’t muster the courage to tell me. Korie called me the next day, and I was ready to tell her that I didn’t want to get back together anymore and that our relationship was over. I was certainly going to end it before she ended it. I just knew she already had a new boyfriend at Harding. “I’ve got something I want to tell you,” Korie told me. “What do you want to say?” I asked her, deciding I’d better hear her out first. “Let’s get back together,” she said. My ears started buzzing. I threw all the girls’ phone numbers in the trash can. About a month later, Korie and I decided we were going to get married. Korie: I had turned eighteen in October 1991, so legally I was allowed to do whatever I wanted. But I knew I had to call my parents, Johnny and Chrys, to get their permission. We had had some discussions about my getting married that summer that had not gone so well, so I knew they were not going to be excited about it. I mustered up the courage to make the phone call. “Look, I’m legal, so I’m just going to say it,” I told them. “I’m getting married, and you’re going to have to be behind me or not.” Of course, my parents told me it was the worst idea ever, and they were naturally worried that I was going to leave school and come home. They asked me to at least wait until I’d finished college. I hung up the phone and called Willie immediately. “I just told them and it didn’t go so well,” I blurted out. “They’ve already called me and they’re on their way over here,” he said.

I will always be grateful to have been the Democratic Party’s nominee and to have earned 65,844,610 votes from my fellow Americans. That number—more votes than any candidate for President has ever received, other than Barack Obama—is proof that the ugliness we faced in 2016 does not define our country. I want to thank everyone who welcomed me into their homes, businesses, schools, and churches over those two long, crazy years; every little girl and boy who ran into my arms at full speed or high-fived me with all their might; and the long chain of brave, adventurous people, stretching back generations, whose love and strength made it possible for me to lead such a rewarding life in the country I love. Thanks to them, despite everything else, my heart is full. I started this book with some words attributed to one of those pathbreakers, Harriet Tubman. Twenty years ago, I watched a group of children perform a play about her life at her former homestead in Auburn, New York. They were so excited about this courageous, determined woman who led slaves to freedom against all odds. Despite everything she faced, she never lost her faith in a simple but powerful motto: Keep going. That’s what we have to do now, too. In 2016, the U.S. government announced that Harriet Tubman will become the face of the $20 bill. If you need proof that America can still get it right, there it is.

Strong underneath, though!’ decided Julian. ‘There’s no softness there, if you ask me. I think Emma’s got authority but it’s the best sort. It’s quiet authority . . .’ ‘Rita wasn’t exactly loud, Martin!’ Elizabeth pointed out, rather impatiently. ‘I bet Rita was very like Emma before she was elected head girl. Was she, Belinda? You must have been at Whyteleafe then.’ Belinda had been at Whyteleafe longer than the others. She had joined in the junior class. She frowned now, deep in thought. ‘Why, Elizabeth, I do believe you’re right! I remember overhearing some of the teachers say that Rita was a bit too young and as quiet as a mouse and might not be able to keep order! But they were proved wrong. Rita was nervous at the first Meeting or two. But after that she was such a success she stayed on as head girl for two years running.’ ‘There, Martin!’ said Elizabeth. ‘Lucky the teachers don’t have any say in it then, isn’t it?’ laughed Julian. ‘I think all schools should be run by the pupils, the way ours is.’ ‘What about Nora?’ asked Jenny, suddenly. ‘She wouldn’t be nervous of going on the platform.’ ‘She’d be good in some ways,’ said Belinda, her mind now made up, ‘but I don’t think she’d be as good as Emma . . .’ They discussed it further. By the end, Elizabeth felt well satisfied. Everyone seemed to agree that Thomas was the right choice for head boy. And apart from Martin, who didn’t know who he wanted, and Jenny, who still favoured Nora, everyone seemed to agree with her about Emma. Because of the way that Whyteleafe School was run, in Elizabeth’s opinion it was extremely important to get the right head boy and head girl. And she’d set her heart on Thomas and Emma. She felt that this discussion was a promising start. Then suddenly, near the end of the train journey, Belinda raised something which made Elizabeth’s scalp prickle with excitement. ‘We haven’t even talked about our own election! For a monitor to replace Susan. Now she’s going up into the third form, we’ll need someone new. We’ve got Joan, of course, but the second form always has two.’ She was looking straight at Elizabeth! ‘We all think you should be the other monitor, Elizabeth,’ explained Jenny. ‘We talked amongst ourselves at the end of last term and everyone agreed. Would you be willing to stand?’ ‘I – I—’ Elizabeth was quite lost for words. Speechless with pleasure! She had already been a monitor once and William and Rita had promised that her chance to be a monitor would surely come again. But she’d never expected it to come so soon! ‘You see, Elizabeth,’ Joan said gently, having been in on the secret, ‘everyone thinks it was very fine the way you stood down in favour of Susan last term. And that it’s only fair you should take her place now she’s going up.’ ‘Not to mention all the things you’ve done for the school. Even if we do always think of you as the Naughtiest Girl!’ laughed Kathleen. ‘We were really proud of you last term, Elizabeth. We were proud that you were in our form!’ ‘So would you be willing to stand?’ repeated Jenny. ‘Oh, yes, please!’ exclaimed Elizabeth, glancing across at Joan in delight. Their classmates wanted her to be a monitor again, with her best friend Joan! The two of them would be second form monitors together. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better!’ she added. What a wonderful surprise. What a marvellous term this was going to be! They all piled off at the station and watched their luggage being loaded on to the school coach. Julian gave Elizabeth’s back a pat. There was an amused gleam in his eyes. ‘Well, well. It looks as though the Naughtiest Girl is going to be made a monitor again. At the first Meeting. When will that be? This Saturday? Can she last that long without misbehaving?’ ‘Of course I can, Julian,’ replied Elizabeth, refusing to be amused. ‘I’m going to jolly well make certain of that!’ That, at least, was her intention.

My wife and I have had the joy of working with thousands of college students and have engaged in countless conversations with them about what they’re going to do as they approach graduation. Up to that point, they had felt safe and secure knowing they were simply coming back to campus for another year of school. But now that they were being kicked out of the nest, they felt a strong need to pray, get counsel, pursue options, and make decisions. As I chat with these twenty-one to twenty-five-year olds, I love to pose an unusual question. “If you could do anything with your life, what would you want to do? Just for a moment, free your mind from school loans or parents’ wishes or boyfriend pressure. Put no constraints or parameters on it. Write down what you would love to do with your life if you got to choose.” There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those! Most have never allowed their mind or heart to think that broadly or freely. They’ve been conditioned to operate under some set of exterior expectations or self-imposed limitations. A few have sat there so long staring at that blank sheet, I thought they might pass out! They finally get an inspirational thought, and begin enthusiastically scribbling something. They finish with a smile, pass it over to me, and I take a look. Nine out of ten times I pass it back to them, look deep into their eyes and quietly say, “Go do this.” There is a reason they feel so excited about the specific direction, cause, or vocation they wrote down. It’s because God is the One who put it in their heart. “Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). “Are you delighting yourself in the Lord?” I ask the graduating senior. “I am certainly seeking to,” they reply. “Well then,” I respond, “you’ve just written down the desires of your heart. So, go for it.” Too simplistic or idealistic? I probably do have a more “wide-open” view of helping a person discover God’s direction for their life, but I believe this exercise strikes at the core of understanding what each of us were designed to do.

I took the stairs two at a time, excited to have company today. When I opened the door I gasped and stood there in shock a moment before saying, “Patti, it’s awesome!” She had decorated with my school colors. Royal blue and gold streamers crisscrossed the ceiling, and balloons were everywhere. I heard her and the twins come up behind me, Patti giggling and Marna oohing. I was about to hug Patti, when a movement on the other side of the room caught my eye through the dangling balloon ribbons. I cursed my stupid body whose first reaction was to scream. Midshriek, I realized it was my dad, but my startled system couldn’t stop its initial reaction. A chain reaction started as Patti, then both the twins screamed, too. Dad parted the balloons and slunk forward, chuckling. We all shut up and caught our breaths. “Do you give all your guests such a warm welcome?” Patti’s hand was on her heart. “Geez, John! A little warning next time?” “I bet you’re wishing you’d never given me that key,” Dad said to Patti with his most charming, frightening grin. He stared at her long enough to make her face redden and her aura sputter. She rolled her eyes and went past him to the kitchen. “We’re about to grill,” she said without looking up from the food prep. “You’re welcome to stay.” Her aura was a strange blend of yellow and light gray annoyance. “Can’t stay long. Just wanted to see my little girl on her graduation day.” Dad nodded a greeting at the twins and they slunk back against the two barstools at the counter. My heart rate was still rapid when he came forward and embraced me. “Thanks for coming,” I whispered into his black T-shirt. I breathed in his clean, zesty scent and didn’t want to let him go. “I came to give you a gift.” I looked up at him with expectancy. “But not yet,” he said. I made a face. Patti came toward the door with a platter of chicken in her hands, a bottle of BBQ sauce and grilling utensils under her arm, and a pack of matches between her teeth. Dad and I both moved to take something from her at the same time. He held up a hand toward me and said, “I got it.” He took the platter and she removed the matches from her mouth. “I can do it,” she insisted. He grinned as I opened the door for them. “Yeah,” he said over his shoulder. “I know you can.” And together they left for the commons area to be domesticated. Weird.

I’m the kind of patriot whom people on the Acela corridor laugh at. I choke up when I hear Lee Greenwood’s cheesy anthem “Proud to Be an American.” When I was sixteen, I vowed that every time I met a veteran, I would go out of my way to shake his or her hand, even if I had to awkwardly interject to do so. To this day, I refuse to watch Saving Private Ryan around anyone but my closest friends, because I can’t stop from crying during the final scene. Mamaw and Papaw taught me that we live in the best and greatest country on earth. This fact gave meaning to my childhood. Whenever times were tough—when I felt overwhelmed by the drama and the tumult of my youth—I knew that better days were ahead because I lived in a country that allowed me to make the good choices that others hadn’t. When I think today about my life and how genuinely incredible it is—a gorgeous, kind, brilliant life partner; the financial security that I dreamed about as a child; great friends and exciting new experiences—I feel overwhelming appreciation for these United States. I know it’s corny, but it’s the way I feel. If Mamaw’s second God was the United States of America, then many people in my community were losing something akin to a religion. The tie that bound them to their neighbors, that inspired them in the way my patriotism had always inspired me, had seemingly vanished. The symptoms are all around us. Significant percentages of white conservative voters—about one-third—believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. In one poll, 32 percent of conservatives said that they believed Obama was foreign-born and another 19 percent said they were unsure—which means that a majority of white conservatives aren’t certain that Obama is even an American. I regularly hear from acquaintances or distant family members that Obama has ties to Islamic extremists, or is a traitor, or was born in some far-flung corner of the world. Many of my new friends blame racism for this perception of the president. But the president feels like an alien to many Middletonians for reasons that have nothing to do with skin color. Recall that not a single one of my high school classmates attended an Ivy League school. Barack Obama attended two of them and excelled at both. He is brilliant, wealthy, and speaks like a constitutional law professor—which, of course, he is. Nothing about him bears any resemblance to the people I admired growing up: His accent—clean, perfect, neutral—is foreign; his credentials are so impressive that they’re frightening; he made his life in Chicago, a dense metropolis; and he conducts himself with a confidence that comes from knowing that the modern American meritocracy was built for him. Of course, Obama overcame adversity in his own right—adversity familiar to many of us—but that was long before any of us knew him. President Obama came on the scene right as so many people in my community began to believe that the modern American meritocracy was not built for them. We know we’re not doing well. We see it every day: in the obituaries for teenage kids that conspicuously omit the cause of death (reading between the lines: overdose), in the deadbeats we watch our daughters waste their time with. Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it—not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right.

… The most important contribution you can make now is taking pride in your treasured home state. Because nobody else is. Study and cherish her history, even if you have to do it on your own time. I did. Don’t know what they’re teaching today, but when I was a kid, American history was the exact same every year: Christopher Columbus, Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims, Thomas Paine, John Hancock, Sons of Liberty, tea party. I’m thinking, ‘Okay, we have to start somewhere— we’ll get to Florida soon enough.’…Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks, Paul Revere, the North Church, ‘Redcoats are coming,’ one if by land, two if by sea, three makes a crowd, and I’m sitting in a tiny desk, rolling my eyes at the ceiling. Hello! Did we order the wrong books? Were these supposed to go to Massachusetts?…Then things showed hope, moving south now: Washington crosses the Delaware, down through original colonies, Carolinas, Georgia. Finally! Here we go! Florida’s next! Wait. What’s this? No more pages in the book. School’s out? Then I had to wait all summer, and the first day back the next grade: Christopher Columbus, Plymouth Rock…Know who the first modern Floridians were? Seminoles! Only unconquered group in the country! These are your peeps, the rugged stock you come from. Not genetically descended, but bound by geographical experience like a subtropical Ellis Island. Because who’s really from Florida? Not the flamingos, or even the Seminoles for that matter. They arrived when the government began rounding up tribes, but the Seminoles said, ‘Naw, we prefer waterfront,’ and the white man chased them but got freaked out in the Everglades and let ’em have slot machines…I see you glancing over at the cupcakes and ice cream, so I’ll limit my remaining remarks to distilled wisdom: “Respect your parents. And respect them even more after you find out they were wrong about a bunch of stuff. Their love and hard work got you to the point where you could realize this. “Don’t make fun of people who are different. Unless they have more money and influence. Then you must. “If someone isn’t kind to animals, ignore anything they have to say. “Your best teachers are sacrificing their comfort to ensure yours; show gratitude. Your worst are jealous of your future; rub it in. “Don’t talk to strangers, don’t play with matches, don’t eat the yellow snow, don’t pull your uncle’s finger. “Skip down the street when you’re happy. It’s one of those carefree little things we lose as we get older. If you skip as an adult, people talk, but I don’t mind. “Don’t follow the leader. “Don’t try to be different—that will make you different. “Don’t try to be popular. If you’re already popular, you’ve peaked too soon. “Always walk away from a fight. Then ambush. “Read everything. Doubt everything. Appreciate everything. “When you’re feeling down, make a silly noise. “Go fly a kite—seriously. “Always say ‘thank you,’ don’t forget to floss, put the lime in the coconut. “Each new year of school, look for the kid nobody’s talking to— and talk to him. “Look forward to the wonderment of growing up, raising a family and driving by the gas station where the popular kids now work. “Cherish freedom of religion: Protect it from religion. “Remember that a smile is your umbrella. It’s also your sixteen-in-one reversible ratchet set. “ ‘I am rubber, you are glue’ carries no weight in a knife fight. “Hang on to your dreams with everything you’ve got. Because the best life is when your dreams come true. The second-best is when they don’t but you never stop chasing them. So never let the authority jade your youthful enthusiasm. Stay excited about dinosaurs, keep looking up at the stars, become an archaeologist, classical pianist, police officer or veterinarian. And, above all else, question everything I’ve just said. Now get out there, class of 2020, and take back our state!

These mega-churches are springing up all over the country—especially in the suburbs of large cities. And they all follow the same formula: A charismatic, self-anointed pastor starts a church by holding services in a home, then in a school. He targets the young professionals, who make good salaries—although the poorer folks are welcome too, as long as they’re willing to pay their fair share. When there are enough members, the pastor proposes buying land, then buildings, then more buildings, asking the people to give sacrificially to do God’s work. The pastor uses outrageous gimmicks in the worship services to create a massive word-of-mouth campaign for the church. Everybody’s excited about going to the big show on Sundays. For the children and youth, church is like going to a theme park. And what kid wouldn’t want to do that? A local TV ministry is added. Then it goes national. Then global. Services are streamed live to the internet. A satellite campus is opened, then another, and so on. Ministries are established in foreign countries. But whose church is it? The pastor’s. Whose ministry is it? The pastor’s. What is everything built on? The pastor. It is his church. His ministry. His empire. -- Hal, the mega-church blogger

Let's say that you're sitting with your son or daughter and you have a couple of minutes to give them the best advice you can about how to succeed in the law school admission process. What would you tell them? ...think in terms of your passion, your interests, and then apply yourself completely to those things without reference to where you think it is going to lead you because you can't possibly know that, and even if you did, you probably couldn't control it. You know what you like, you know what gets you excited--pursue those interests and do it with all the vigor that you can possibly muster.

Ralph Gomory, the President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, proposes a tripartite division of science: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable. The known is taught in the schools and universities and is exhibited in the science museums. But scientists are excited by the unknown. Parenthetically, artists go to art museums to learn; scientists do not go to science museums because those museums act as if it's all known and preordained. That may be changing; exemplars are the Exploratorium in San Francisco and the American Museum of Natural History. Gomory's tripartite division proposes three distinct areas: the known, the unknown which may someday become known, and the unknowable, which will never be known. The unknown and the unknowable form the boundary of science. Here are examples of questions for which the answers are today unknown.

Ralph Gomory, the President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, proposes a tripartite division of science: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable. The known is taught in the schools and universities and is exhibited in the science museums. But scientists are excited by the unknown. Parenthetically, artists go to art museums to learn; scientists do not go to science museums because those museums act as if it's all known and preordained. That may be changing; exemplars are the Exploratorium in San Francisco and the American Museum of Natural History. Gomory's tripartite division proposes three distinct areas: the known, the unknown which may someday become known, and the unknowable, which will never be known. The unknown and the unknowable form the boundary of science. Here are examples of questions for which the answers are today unknown.

It’s tempting to go it alone when leading a change initiative. There’s no one to dilute your ideas or share the glory, and it’s often just plain exciting. It’s also foolish. You need to recruit partners, people who can help protect you from attacks and who can point out potentially fatal flaws in your strategy or initiative. Moreover, you are far less vulnerable when you are out on the point with a bunch of folks rather than alone. You also need to keep the opposition close. Knowing what your opponents are thinking can help you challenge them more effectively and thwart their attempts to upset your agenda—or allow you to borrow ideas that will improve your initiative. Have coffee once a week with the person most dedicated to seeing you fail.

Wait a minute. Will this get you in trouble with the operators’ school? To be seen with me?” She dropped her gaze to the sidewalk. “Not anymore.” His excitement crumbled. “No, it can’t be. Hannah, what happened?” She tried to maintain her somber expression, but a smile exploded on her face. “I graduated today. The first one in my class to be promoted to the real switchboard.” Lincoln grabbed her waist and hoisted her in the air. She squealed, and he lowered her back to the ground. One woman glared her disapproval, but an older couple approaching them chuckled. Hannah’s cheeks flamed, both from the public spectacle and from the electricity that surged through her at Lincoln’s touch. He, however, didn’t seem to notice her reaction or that of any onlookers. “We need to celebrate!” He slipped his fingers under her elbow and led her toward the car. “After we see the fire marshal, we’re going for ice cream, and I won’t take no for an answer this time.

From the Bridge” by Captain Hank Bracker Behind “The Exciting Story of Cuba” It was on a rainy evening in January of 2013, after Captain Hank and his wife Ursula returned by ship from a cruise in the Mediterranean, that Captain Hank was pondering on how to market his book, Seawater One. Some years prior he had published the book “Suppressed I Rise.” But lacking a good marketing plan the book floundered. Locally it was well received and the newspapers gave it great reviews, but Ursula was battling allergies and, unfortunately, the timing was off, as was the economy. Captain Hank has the ability to see sunshine when it’s raining and he’s not one easily deterred. Perhaps the timing was off for a novel or a textbook, like the Scramble Book he wrote years before computers made the scene. The history of West Africa was an option, however such a book would have limited public interest and besides, he had written a section regarding this topic for the second Seawater book. No, what he was embarking on would have to be steeped in history and be intertwined with true-life adventures that people could identify with. Out of the blue, his friend Jorge suggested that he write about Cuba. “You were there prior to the Revolution when Fidel Castro was in jail,” he ventured. Laughing, Captain Hank told a story of Mardi Gras in Havana. “Half of the Miami Police Department was there and the Coca-Cola cost more than the rum. Havana was one hell of a place!” Hank said. “I’ll tell you what I could do. I could write a pamphlet about the history of the island. It doesn’t have to be very long… 25 to 30 pages would do it.” His idea was to test the waters for public interest and then later add it to his book Seawater One. Writing is a passion surpassed only by his love for telling stories. It is true that Captain Hank had visited Cuba prior to the Revolution, but back then he was interested more in the beauty of the Latino girls than the history or politics of the country. “You don’t have to be Greek to appreciate Greek history,” Hank once said. “History is not owned solely by historians. It is a part of everyone’s heritage.” And so it was that he started to write about Cuba. When asked about why he wasn’t footnoting his work, he replied that the pamphlet, which grew into a book over 600 pages long, was a book for the people. “I’m not writing this to be a history book or an academic paper. I’m writing this book, so that by knowing Cuba’s past, people would understand it’s present.” He added that unless you lived it, you got it from somewhere else anyway, and footnoting just identifies where it came from. Aside from having been a ship’s captain and harbor pilot, Captain Hank was a high school math and science teacher and was once awarded the status of “Teacher of the Month” by the Connecticut State Board of Education. He has done extensive graduate work, was a union leader and the attendance officer at a vocational technical school. He was also an officer in the Naval Reserve and an officer in the U.S. Army for a total of over 40 years. He once said that “Life is to be lived,” and he certainly has. Active with Military Intelligence he returned to Europe, and when I asked what he did there, he jokingly said that if he had told me he would have to kill me. The Exciting Story of Cuba has the exhilaration of a novel. It is packed full of interesting details and, with the normalizing of the United States and Cuba, it belongs on everyone’s bookshelf, or at least in the bathroom if that’s where you do your reading. Captain Hank is not someone you can hold down and after having read a Proof Copy I know that it will be universally received as the book to go to, if you want to know anything about Cuba! Excerpts from a conversation with Chief Warrant Officer Peter Rommel, USA Retired, Military Intelligence Corps, Winter of 2014.

Yet, as Brandon explained with a mixture of bitterness and regret, college proved to be the start of a long series of disappointments. Unable to pass calculus or physics, he switched his major from engineering to criminal justice. Still optimistic, he applied to several police departments upon graduation, excited about a future of “catching crooks.” The first department used a bewildering lottery system for hiring, and he didn’t make the cut. The second informed him that he had failed a mandatory spelling test (“I had a degree!”) and refused to consider his application. Finally, he became “completely turned off to this idea” when the third department disqualified him because of a minor incident in college in which he and his roommate “borrowed” a school-owned buffing machine as a harmless prank. Because he “could have been charged with a felony,” the department informed him, he was ineligible for police duty. Regrettably, his college had no record of the incident. Brandon had volunteered the information out of a desire to illustrate his honest and upstanding character and improve his odds of getting the job. With “two dreams deferred,”2 Brandon took a job as the nightshift manager of a clothing chain, hoping it would be temporary. Eleven years later, he describes his typical day, which consists of unloading shipments, steaming and pricing garments, and restocking the floor, as “not challenging at all. I don’t get to solve problems or be creative. I don’t get to work with numbers, and I am a numbers guy. I basically babysit a team and deal with personnel.” When his loans came out of deferment, he couldn’t afford the monthly payments and decided to get a master’s degree—partly to increase his earning potential and partly to put his loans back into deferment. After all, it had been “hammered into his head” that higher education was the key to success. He put on twenty-five pounds while working and going to school full-time for three years. He finally earned a master’s degree in government, paid for with more loans from “that mean lady Sallie Mae.”3 So far, Brandon has still not found a job that will pay him enough to cover his monthly loan and living expenses. He has managed to keep the loans in deferment by continually consolidating—a strategy that costs him $5,000 a year in interest. Taking

Dax has fallen out with his best mate Gideon and as if that wasn’t bad enough, everyone at school has started acting weirdly. Is Dax just paranoid or is there something more sinister going on? Dax’s fox instincts have never let him down before—he has to trust them. But before he can help Gideon and the others, he must first overcome his own rising panic and learn more about his shapeshifting powers … The second title from the exciting Shapeshifter series. Strange things are happening—unbelievable occurrences that seem to be following Dax and his friends wherever they go.

But today, for some reason, Ella’s words sting a little. Perhaps it’s the fact that since she first conquered the route up the rope climbing frame on Monday with Mum watching, Dad, Alex and even Otis have all seen her repeat the feat. Or maybe it’s the fact that today is her last weekday of freedom. Ella starts school on Monday. And although she is excited about it now, I am well aware that when she realises she also has to go to school on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, not just the first week but every week from now on, she will be furious at being denied the chance of spending her afternoons in the park, as she has this week.

Tuesday Today, Creepy was telling me all about how excited he was about going to camp. He told me that they were going to have a big talent show this year, and he was going to be part of a band. “I didn’t know you could play an instrument,” I said to Creepy. “Yeah, I play a mean set of drums,” Creepy said. Now, I was going to ask him how he plays drums without arms, but I think some things are best left alone. I

Thursday My parents took me to “The Woking Dead” Chinese restaurant to celebrate me winning the science fair. “We’re so proud of you, son,” Dad said. “You’re a chip off the old block.” “Maybe he can work with you at the Nuclear Waste Plant for the summer,” Mom said. “That way he’ll be able to develop his scientific talent.” I just tried to bury my sorrow in my Zombie egg roll. “So, son,” Dad said. “I just put another non-refundable deposit for another week at camp for you. I don’t know how we’re going to afford it. But you’re worth it.” “Maybe we should send him to science camp too, this summer,” Mom said. I threw up my egg roll. “Wow, look how excited he is,” Mom said.

home only to pine over an ex-girlfriend, so he stopped. He apologized, saying a few more things that Catherine once again just nodded her head to, smiling, and before she knew it, she had plans to go see a movie with Dickie the following Friday. It was a date, the first of many. It went like this for two months: Friday night dates. Rides home from school while other girls looked on in jealousy. Long nights parked up at The Point, the low rumble of his car idling away while they made out with the heat blowing on her legs. Him sliding his hands up her skirt. Under her shirt. Her moaning. Her face flushing red. Her toes curling. The Rolling Stones on the radio. Why did he taste so good? Never sex, though. Even when he begged for it, she would refuse. She knew what their relationship really was. It was great and fun and wild and exciting, but she knew it wouldn’t last; he was off to college soon, and she remembered how he felt about being tethered to something familiar. That conversation never left her mind for the duration of their relationship, always reminding her to be ready to lose him. At the time, she was still a virgin, and as much as she loved Dickie she did not wish to give herself fully to someone who would more than likely forget about her within months, if not weeks, of leaving. Catherine was young, but never stupid or naive. She knew how the world worked… even Dickie’s world. What she felt and experienced with him may have been real by her definition, but she understood that that did not make the relationship everlasting or meant-to-be. Their time together had been great and fun and had changed her in ways she would never be able to put into words. She would forever cherish their moments together. Or at least, that’s what she’d thought at the time, before these cherished memories soured. Everything changed the night of the dance. The night he changed. The night she changed, too. It was Dickie’s senior prom. He invited her to go and she happily accepted. She even bought a new dress with the money she’d saved working shifts down at Woolworth’s. The dance was fine and good. They had a blast. They’d even kissed in the middle of the gymnasium during the last slow dance. It had been so romantic. But afterward was a different sort of time. Dickie and some of his friends rented a few rooms at the Heartsridge Motel for a place to hang out after the dance. But it was more than just a place to hang out. It was a place to party, a place to drink alcohol purchased illegally, a place for some of the looser girls to sleep with their dates. She had been to parties with Dickie before, parties with drinking and drugs and where there were rooms dedicated to fooling around. She wasn’t a square. But this was different. This place made her skin crawl. There was a raw energy in the air. She remembered feeling it on her skin. And the fact that it was a motel made the whole scene seem depraved. It just felt off, and she wanted to beg him to go somewhere else. But instead she held her tongue and went along with Dickie. He was leaving soon, after all. Why not appease him? He seemed excited about going. A few of them—all friends of Dickie’s—ended up together in one room, drinking Schnapps, smoking cigarettes, having

I asked my daughter how many kids would come to her birthday party if all we offered was cake. No games, no entertainment. They could come to the house to spend time with her and bring gifts to celebrate her, but we wouldn’t have anything else for them. She thought for a minute and said, “Maybe just a couple.” Then I asked her how many would come if I rented out Dave & Buster’s and let them have unlimited tokens, food, and prizes. She laughed and said confidently that the whole school would show up. So let’s say that for her birthday party I rent out the arcade and her whole school comes. They’re all going nuts, having the time of their lives. Imagine if I pulled her aside during the party, put my arm around her, and said, “Look at all the people who came to be with you!” Would she actually believe those people were there because they love her and want to spend time with her? Or would my comment actually be insulting? Isn’t this basically what we do with God? We have learned that we can fill church buildings if we bring in the right speaker or band. Make things exciting enough and people will come. We say, “God, look how many people are coming because they love being with You!” But do we really think God is fooled by this? Do we think God is pleased? He knows how many would show up if it was just Him. He knows there might be only a few if all we offered was Communion or prayer.

John Ruskin did not go to school. Nor did Queen Victoria, nor John Stuart Mill, George Eliot or Harriet Martineau. It would be absurd to suggest that Disraeli, Dickens, Newman or Darwin, to name four very different figures, who attended various schools for short spells in their boyhood, owed very much to their schooling. Had they been born in a later generation, school would have loomed much larger in their psychological stories, if only because they would have spent so much longer there, and found themselves preparing for public examinations. It is hard not to feel that a strong ‘syllabus’, or a school ethos, might have cramped the style of all four and that in their different ways – Disraeli, comparatively rich, anarchically foppish, indiscriminately bookish; Darwin, considered a dunce, but clearly – as he excitedly learned to shoot, to fish and to bird-watch – beginning his revolutionary relationship with the natural world; Newman, imagining himself an angel; Dickens, escaping the ignominy of his circumstances through theatrical and comedic internalized role-play – they were lucky to have been born before the Age of Control. For the well-meaning educational reforms of the 1860s were the ultimate extension of those Benthamite exercises in control which had begun in the 1820s and 1830s. Having exercised their sway over the poor, the criminals, the agricultural and industrial classes, the civil service and – this was next – the military, the controllers had turned to the last free spirits left, the last potential anarchists: the children.

Trying to change yourself—that is, who you are—will inevitably lead you to fail and feel hopeless. But if you instead focus on changing your actions without worrying about how it changes you as a person, real change becomes much simpler. There's an old joke where a man says, "I want to go to medical school, but it takes at least seven years--and I'll be 50 in seven years!" A wise friend replies, "And how old will you be in seven years if you don't go?" If you're not where you want to be in your career--or, for that matter, in your life--never let yourself believe change is impossible. Don't allow your future to be limited by your age or your situation; stop being afraid of what might go wrong and start getting excited about what could go right. ------------------------------------------------------------- "If you want to change yourself, take actions and take it now.

I COME BEFORE DAWN Muhammad says, “I come before dawn to chain you and drag you off.” It’s amazing, and funny, that you have to be pulled away from being tortured, pulled out into this Spring garden, but that’s the way it is. Almost everyone must be bound and dragged here. Only a few come on their own. Children have to be made to go to school at first. Then some of them begin to like it. They run to school. They expand with the learning. Later, they receive money because of something they’ve learned at school, and they get really excited. They stay up all night, as watchful and alive as thieves! Remember the rewards you get for being obedient! There are two types on the path. Those who come against their will, the blindly religious people, and those who obey out of love. The former have ulterior motives. They want the midwife near, because she gives them milk. The others love the beauty of the nurse. The former memorize the prooftexts of conformity, and repeat them. The latter disappear into whatever draws them to God. Both are drawn from the source. Any movings from the mover. Any love from the beloved.

And I’m excited to get out there and finally ski,” Jessica went on. “This is going to be more fun than a bucket of weasels!” “Bucket of weasels?” I repeated. Jessica frowned. “Oh, shoot. I got that wrong, didn’t I? I always have trouble with your idioms. They’re so strange.” Understanding came to me. “You meant ‘more fun than a barrel of monkeys.’ ” “Yes! That’s it!” Jessica agreed brightly. “See what I mean? Honestly, would a barrel of monkeys be that much fun?” “More fun than a bucket of weasels,” I pointed out. “No way. Have you ever been around monkeys? They smell and they throw poo at you.” “Are you two talking about monkeys?” Erica asked, slipping in between us. “I loooove monkeys! They’re so cute! Especially lemur-monkeys!

Harper, I love you more than I could ever explain. Meeting you changed my world. Even when I thought you would never be mine, I couldn’t continue to live a life I knew you hated. The night you told me you loved me was the best night of my life, up until tonight. I never want to let you go again, I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want to marry you someday Harper.” He paused and searched my eyes, “I would do anything for you. I don’t know what to do to make you believe me, but I’ll spend forever trying to show you.” “You want to marry me?” “You have no idea how much.” He brought me back so I was half laying his chest. “Not just because I’m pregnant?” He kissed me softly, “Not at all. I gotta admit, it’s a little bit of a shock, but I’ve always thought about being with you and starting a family. And even though it’s sooner than I thought it would be, I’m so freaking excited that it’s happening. When should we be expecting him?” “Him?” “Yep, it’s gonna be a boy.” I laughed and ran a hand through his hair, “I’m due October fourth.” He mentally counted the months and smiled widely when he was done. “So six months, huh? Do you want to take next year off from classes?” “I can’t go back to school.” “Of course you can, I’ll help you.” “No,

Thing is, I’ve decided what I’m going to do next. I have to go back to the university, of course. Next semester, I’m cutting back my schedule. I need more freedom. I’m going to transition out, sneak up on retirement. I’m going to get myself one of these!” he exclaimed, smacking the steering wheel. “Mary’s sons are married and have children—they’re great kids, superior stepsons. One lives in Texas, one in Florida. I’m going to put my house on the market and retire by the end of school, just in time to begin traveling. I’m going to see this country one state at a time, and I’m going to drop in on those boys. They both have amazing wives. One has three children, one has two—and even though I’m a stepfather, they call me Papa instead of Grandpa. I’m going to visit them occasionally while I’m traveling, then move on to other sights, then check back in. What do you think of that idea?” Her smile was alive. “It sounds wonderful. You’ll enjoy that. Maybe I’ll even see you now and then in Virgin River.” “Or, you could come along,” he said. “You have all those military boys all over the place. We could check on them, as well. And believe me, once a couple of them get married and have children, the others fall in line. I’ve seen it a million times. As soon as I get an offer on the house—which is a good house and should bring a nice price even in a depressed economy—I’m going to start shopping for a quality RV. I’ve been looking at pictures online. Maureen, you have no idea how high tech these things have become! They now come with expandable sides, two people showers, freezers, big screens in the living room and bedroom, Whirlpool tubs—you name it! How’d you like to have a hot tub on wheels, Maureen?” She looked over at him. He was so excited by his idea, he was actually a little flushed, and she found herself hoping it wasn’t high blood pressure. If the moment ever presented itself, she’d ask about that. But after all his rambling about his future RV, all she could say was, “Come along?” “A perfect solution for both of us,” he said. “We’d have time together, we’d have fun together. We’d see the families, travel…” “George, that’s outrageous. We’ve had a few lunches—” “And we’ll have a few more! We’ll also e-mail, talk on the phone, get together occasionally—in Virgin River, but also in Phoenix and Seattle. We’ll spend the next six months figuring out if we fit as well as it seems we do.” “Long distance? Occasional visits?” she asked doubtfully. “It’ll give you time to look over my accounts to be sure you’re not getting conned out of your retirement.” He laughed at his own joke, slapping his knee. “Of course, with five brawny, overprotective sons you’re relatively safe from a dangerous guy like me.” He glanced at her and his expression was playful. “We’re not young, Maureen. We should be sure we’re attracted to each other and that we get along, but we shouldn’t waste a lot of time. Every day is precious.

Smart entrepreneurs have grabbed this opportunity with a vengeance. Now online lesson-plan marketplaces such as Gooru Learning, Teachers Pay Teachers, and Share My Lesson allow teachers who want to devote more of their time to other tasks the ability to purchase high-quality (and many lesser-quality) lesson plans, ready to go. With sensors, data, and A.I., we can begin, even today, testing for the learning efficacy of different lectures, styles, and more. And, because humans do a poor job of incorporating massive amounts of information to make iterative decisions, in the very near future, computers will start doing more and more of the lesson planning. They will write the basic lessons and learn what works and what doesn’t for specific students. Creative teachers will continue, though, to be incredibly valuable: they will learn how to steer and curate algorithmic and heuristically updated lesson creation in ways that computers could not necessarily imagine. All of this is, of course, a somewhat bittersweet development. Teaching is an idealistic profession. You probably remember a special teacher who shaped your life, encouraged your interests, and made school exciting. The movies and pop culture are filled with paeans to unselfish, underpaid teachers fighting the good fight and helping their charges. But it is becoming clearer that teaching, like many other white-collar jobs that have resisted robots, is something that robots can do—possibly, in structured curricula, better than humans can. The

that everyone else has probably completely forgotten the incident, but I think it’s going to take quite a while for me to get over it. For some reason though, I suspect that one particular girl in our class had something to do with it all. Call it gut instinct or intuition, but I have a sneaking suspicion that somehow she was involved. Thinking back before that doomed day, life had been pretty good. My best friend, Millie and I had auditioned for the school musical and we were both selected for major roles. Being in grade seven gave us an advantage over the younger kids, that and of course the fact that we were both dancers. The best part was that we’d also been asked to choreograph sections of the performance and this was a huge honor. Miss Sheldon, the performing arts teacher who was in charge of the production, had given us the responsibility of coming up with some routines and teaching the other kids the dance moves they needed to learn. We were so excited about this, especially because we’d been left in charge. Miss Sheldon is the coolest teacher ever!

Josie said. “We almost gave up several times,” Dora admitted, shaking her head.  “But maybe the quilt did keep us from going home earlier than we had planned.” “I like the name Rolling Stones,” Josie commented. “Hey, that’s kind of like us. We didn’t use wagons, but we managed to tour part of the country.” “You’re right. I believe we should just keep the quilt.” “Won’t it remind us of all the anxious moments?” “Maybe, but we showed courage and persevered,” Dora said, soundly.  “Hey, where’s the bonus they promised us?” “Well, I don’t know.” Dora searched the box and held up a blue envelope. “Let’s see.” Josie whipped it out of her hand. She broke the seal and took out two airplane tickets. “Airplane tickets?” Dora asked in disbelief. “What do we do with tickets?” “Here’s a note between the tickets.” Josie opened it.  “It says the tickets are for a quilt show in Philadelphia. Milton wants us to attend.  He says he will meet us there and answer more questions for us.” “But we’re afraid to fly,” Dora protested. “Could we send the tickets back?” Josie suggested. “I don’t think so. Milton will be out his money.” “When is it?” Dora took the tickets and examined them. “In September. Only a month away.” Josie tapped her chin in thought. “If we decided to do more touring, we could extend our trip from there to the New England States.” “We could see the autumn leaves,” Dora said, excitement rising in her voice. “Anthony wanted us to visit him in Iowa,” Josie reminded Dora. “How are we going to work all this in?” “I have no idea. Why does traveling have to be so complicated and so full of surprises?”   ______   MDora looped a bright red scarf around her neck while glancing out her bedroom  window. The wind swirled bits of trash down the sidewalk of their Hedge City, Nebraska, home. She sighed, wishing she could stay at home today and read.  Buzzie looked up at her and meowed, expressing the same sentiments. She reached down and patted her softly.  But she didn’t have that luxury today. She had agreed to substitute teach for the current English teacher who would be out for at least a week.  Josie called from the kitchen. “Want more coffee?” “Yes, please.  Fill my mug.  I’ll drink it on my way to school.” She reached into the closet and pulled out a beige sweater. A glance in the mirror confirmed the bright red scarf did wonders for the nondescript sweater’s color. Josie joined her at the door dressed in russet slacks and matching jacket and handed Dora her mug.  “A little blustery today.” “For sure.” Dora eyed Josie, wishing she had the sense of style Josie displayed. The sisters would walk together and then would split to their separate ways, Josie to fill in at the

You don’t sound too happy about going tonight. Did Eddie say something again? I thought he got the message that you weren’t really interested in him.” “No.” I untangled the phone cord. “I was just missing being home. And as for Eddie, I don’t know anymore. He is nice.” “Wait. Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That you like Eddie? The boy who has had a crush on you from the first day of school, and who you’ve basically ignored all this time?” I could hear the excitement in Jennifer’s voice. I started to blush. “He’s just so sweet and funny.” “Uh-huh . . . a-a-a-and?” “And nothing. Eddie and I are just friends. Plus, neither you or I can date until we’re sixteen, remember?” “But would you date him in November?” “I don’t know.” I giggled. “Ooh, this is so good!” she squealed. “Does Eddie suspect that you like him?” “NO! I’m not sure what I feel. Besides, I’d die if he found out, so don’t say anything.” Jennifer laughed. “You know I wouldn’t. But how great it would be if you and I could double-date next year! You with Eddie and me with Nathan. They’re best friends and we’re best friends.” “I thought you said Nathan Dixon was a moron?” “But he’s a very cute moron!

A couple of weeks after Mia’s bone graft surgery in January 2014, she received a letter from Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona on official United States congressional letterhead. Mia was so excited about the letter that she stood on the fireplace hearth (the living room stage) and proceeded to read it to the entire family. In the letter, Congressman Franks told Mia that he, too, was born with a cleft lip and palate and underwent many surgeries as a child. He told her he understood how she felt and told her not to get discouraged because he recognized how she is helping so many people. He invited her to Washington, DC, to receive an award from Congress for service to her community. As soon as she had finished reading it to us, she exclaimed, “Can we go?” Knowing how Jase puts little value on earthly awards and how he likes to travel even less, I responded with a phrase that most parents can understand and appreciate: “We’ll see.” Mia immediately ran upstairs and tacked the letter to her bulletin board, full of hope and optimism. How could Jase say no to this? Oh, she knew her daddy well. He couldn’t, and he didn’t. That summer, Mia, Jase, Reed, Cole, and I spent a few days together visiting monuments and historical sites in Washington before meeting Congressman Franks on July 8 in his office on Capitol Hill. Mia’s favorite monument was the Lincoln Memorial because she had learned about it in school, so it was cool to see it “for real.” It was really crowded there, and people were taking pictures of us while we were trying to read about the monument and take photographs ourselves. Getting Jase out of there took a while because of so many fans wanting pictures--he’s very accommodating. That’s why it surprised me that this was Mia’s favorite site. I’m glad she remembers the impact of the monument and didn’t allow the circus of activity from the fans to put a damper on her experience. Congressman Franks presented Mia with a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for “outstanding and invaluable service to the community” at a press conference held at the foot of the Capitol steps. Both he and Mia made speeches that day to numerous cameras and reporters. Hearing my ten-year-old daughter speak about her condition and how she hopes people will look to God to help them get through their own problems was an unbelievably proud moment for me, Jase, and her brothers. After the press conference, Congressman Franks took us into the House chamber where Congress was voting on a new bill. He took Mia down to the floor, introduced her to some of his colleagues, and let her push his voting button for him. When some of the other members of Congress saw this, they also asked her to push their voting buttons for them. Of course, Mia wasn’t going to push any buttons without quizzing these representatives about what exactly she was voting for. She needed to know what was in the bill before she pushed the buttons. Once she realized she agreed with the bill and saw that some members were voting “no,” she commented, “That’s just rude.” Mia was thrilled with the experience and told us all how she helped make history. Little does she know just how much history she has made and continues to make.

I rolled my eyes. “I know Isla told you.” “Told me what?” He reached for his seatbelt and clicked it into place. As if he didn’t know. I stared at him, refusing to play his game. “Oh, c’mon, third date. Fifth date. Does it matter?” He tossed me a smile then reversed out of his spot. “It’s bound to happen eventually.” Even though I was excited about the inevitable kiss, I’d be damned if he’d have the last word in this. He didn’t get to make a decision like that on his own. “You’re a little overly confident there. Who’s to say I’m going to let you kiss me at the end of the night?” I crossed my arms. We rolled to a stop at the lot’s exit. “Who says it will be the end of the night?” He flashed me a little smirk then turned onto the main road of Port Lucia. “Maybe it’ll happen when you least expect it. Maybe you won’t see it coming.” His tone was all too amused and I kind of hated the way it made my stomach bubble with anticipation. But I schooled my expression. “And what if I’m not interested in this ninja-kiss?” He laughed. “Knee me in the nuts or something. I’ll get the hint.” “You’re either very brave or very stupid.” He shrugged. “Probably a little of both.

You’d think I’d be excited to get into shape, but I wasn’t. I don’t like to exercise, but not because it’s painful or tiring. I’ve climbed mountains in Peru and ridden my bike across America. I’m willing. The reason I don’t like exercise is because somewhere, in the deep recesses of my brain I’ve become convinced no amount of work is enough. I never leave a workout satisfied or proud of myself. And for that matter, I never quit a writing session thinking I’ve worked hard enough either. Or a teaching gig or a business meeting or anything else. I’m so bad about this I used to mow my lawn then crawl around on the grass with a pair of scissors, cutting uneven blades of grass. No kidding. I might have a problem. There are really only two things a person can do when they’re that much of a perfectionist. They can either live in the torture and push themselves to excel, or they can quit. I tend to go back and forth between the torture of working too hard and the sloth of quitting. The reason I bring this up has nothing to do with exercise or writing. I bring it up because it’s a symptom of a bigger problem, a problem that is going to affect mine and Betsy’s relationship. The problem is this: those of us who are never satisfied with our accomplishments secretly believe nobody will love us unless we’re perfect. In the outer ring Bill was talking about, the ring that covers shame, we write the word perfect and attempt to use perfection to cover our shame. I had a friend once who used to mumble curse words every time she drove by her high school algebra teacher’s house because, years before, the teacher had given her a B-.

Helen, a junior high math teacher in Minnesota, spent most of the school week teaching a difficult “new math” lesson. She could tell her students were frustrated and restless by week’s end. They were becoming rowdy so she told them to put their books away. She then instructed the class to take out clean sheets of paper. She gave each of them this assignment: Write down every one of your classmates’ names on the left, and then, on the right, put down one thing you like about that student. The tense and rowdy mood subsided and the room quieted when the students went to work. Their moods lifted as they dug into the assignment. There was frequent laughter and giggling. They looked around the room, sharing quips about one another. Helen’s class was a much happier group when the bell signaled the end of the school day. She took their lists home over the weekend and spent both days off recording what was said about each student on separate sheets of paper so she could pass on all the nice things said about each person without giving away who said what. The next Monday she handed out the lists she’d made for each student. The room buzzed with excitement and laughter. “Wow. Thanks! This is the coolest!” “I didn’t think anyone even noticed me!” “Someone thinks I’m beautiful?” Helen had come up with the exercise just to settle down her class, but it ended up giving them a big boost. They grew closer as classmates and more confident as individuals. She could tell they all seemed more relaxed and joyful. About ten years later, Helen learned that one of her favorite students in that class, a charming boy named Mark, had been killed while serving in Vietnam. She received an invitation to the funeral from Mark’s parents, who included a note saying they wanted to be sure she came to their farmhouse after the services to speak with them. Helen arrived and the grieving parents took her aside. The father showed her Mark’s billfold and then from it he removed two worn pieces of lined paper that had been taped, folded, and refolded many times over the years. Helen recognized her handwriting on the paper and tears came to her eyes. Mark’s parents said he’d always carried the list of nice things written by his classmates. “Thank you so much for doing that,” his mother said. “He treasured it, as you can see.” Still teary-eyed, Helen walked into the kitchen where many of Mark’s former junior high classmates were assembled. They saw that Mark’s parents had his list from that class. One by one, they either produced their own copies from wallets and purses or they confessed to keeping theirs in an album, drawer, diary, or file at home. Helen the teacher was a “people builder.” She instinctively found ways to build up her students. Being a people builder means you consistently find ways to invest in and bring out the best in others. You give without asking for anything in return. You offer advice, speak faith into them, build their confidence, and challenge them to go higher. I’ve found that all most people need is a boost. All they need is a little push, a little encouragement, to become what God has created them to be. The fact is, none of us will reach our highest potential by ourselves. We need one another. You can be the one to tip the scales for someone else. You can be the one to stir up their seeds of greatness.

Mustaine and Hetfield were like two brothers that didn’t get on, each pushing the other out of the way, but it was so exciting. There’s certain bands where the minute you see them, you just know they’re going to go all the way.’ In the early hours of October 19, Russell placed a phone call to his bosses at Kerrang! ‘In ten years’ time,’ he told them, ‘this will be the biggest band on the planet.

My name is Jewels Jones, but for the purpose of this diary, I think I would like to go by Detective Jones. I’ve never written a diary before, but I heard that it’s a good way to get all of a person’s thoughts and secrets out on paper. I’m only ten, so I don’t have all that many secrets yet, but by the time that I fill up this diary’s pages, I’m sure that I’ll have more than a couple of things that I’d like to keep between myself and these pages. I also heard that a person can be whoever they want to be in a diary, but I think that I’ll just be myself. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to show this to anyone or anything like that; there’s no need to lie about it. Now that I’m writing this down, the detective thing I mentioned earlier might seem like a little bit of a lie, but let me explain. Ever since I learned how to read, which wasn’t actually that long ago, I have loved detective stories. I love that there’s some mystery to the world. I mean, there isn’t all that much mystery at my elementary school. Everyone knows that Robby ate Tory’s cookie, everyone saw it. Even though there’s not much excitement in my life, I like to read about the fairytale-like mysteries that involve my favorite characters.

Frank Fiorini, better known as Frank Sturgis, had an interesting career that started when he quit high school during his senior year to join the United States Marine Corps as an enlisted man. During World War II he served in the Pacific Theater of Operations with Edson’s Raiders, of the First Marine Raiders Battalion under Colonel “Red Mike.” In 1945 at the end of World War II, he received an honorable discharge and the following year joined the Norfolk, Virginia Police Department. Getting involved in an altercation with his sergeant, he resigned and found employment as the manager of the local Havana-Madrid Tavern, known to have had a clientele consisting primarily of Cuban seamen. In 1947 while still working at the tavern, he joined the U.S. Navy’s Flight Program. A year later, he received an honorable discharge and joined the U.S. Army as an Intelligence Officer. Again, in 1949, he received an honorable discharge, this time from the U.S. Army. Then in 1957, he moved to Miami where he met former Cuban President Carlos Prío, following which he joined a Cuban group opposing the Cuban dictator Batista. After this, Frank Sturgis went to Cuba and set up a training camp in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, teaching guerrilla warfare to Castro’s forces. He was appointed a Captain in Castro’s M 26 7 Brigade, and as such, he made use of some CIA connections that he apparently had cultivated, to supply Castro with weapons and ammunition. After they entered Havana as victors of the revolution, Sturgis was appointed to a high security, intelligence position within the reorganized Cuban air force. Strangely, Frank Sturgis returned to the United States after the Cuban Revolution, and mysteriously turned up as one of the Watergate burglars who were caught installing listening devices in the National Democratic Campaign offices. In 1973 Frank A. Sturgis, E. Howard Hunt, Eugenio R. Martínez, G. Gordon Liddy, Virgilio R. “Villo” González, Bernard L. Barker and James W. McCord, Jr. were convicted of conspiracy. While in prison, Sturgis feared for his life if anything he had done, regarding his associations and contacts, became public knowledge. In 1975, Sturgis admitted to being a spy, stating that he was involved in assassinations and plots to overthrow undisclosed foreign governments. However, at the Rockefeller Commission hearings in 1975, their concluding report stated that he was never a part of the CIA…. Go figure! In 1979, Sturgis surfaced in Angola where he trained and helped the rebels fight the Cuban-supported communists. Following this, he went to Honduras to train the Contras in their fight against the communist-supported Sandinista government. He also met with Yasser Arafat in Tunis, following which he was debriefed by the CIA. Furthermore, it is documented that he met and talked to the Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, or Carlos the Jackal, who is now serving a life sentence for murdering two French counter intelligence agents. On December 4, 1993, Sturgis suddenly died of lung cancer at the Veterans Hospital in Miami, Florida. He was buried in an unmarked grave south of Miami…. Or was he? In this murky underworld, anything is possible.

Abrams voice cut in over the comm. “My God, this place is breath-taking!” “It is a palace for the gods,” added Brock. The group stood gawking at the magnificence of the hall surrounding them. Delanda went to the table, placed her helmet and pack on it, and began pulling tablets, scanners, and other accessories out. She wrestled off her gloves, but had trouble with the suit torso so Wilson had to intervene and help. Without a thought to the revealing fit of the white stretch suit liner, she escaped the spacesuit bottom and placed it on the table. Then, with still no self-consciousness at all, she stripped the suit liner off down to athletic bra and slim panties and pulled her pink, rolled up vacuum-packed flight coveralls and cloth boots from the suit pack. After excitedly dressing, she hurriedly grabbed a scanner from her pack and began investigating the hall. Show over, one by one we all removed our suits and became visitors in white suit liners. Wilson gave his fatherly warning. “Everyone be very careful removing and folding those liners. If you tear or damage the thermal control system in any way you could have an unpleasant trip back to the ship. Also, be careful to tuck in your suit communicator since we’ll all be using wrist coms from now on. That is if they actually work here.” Delanda ignored his comments and headed for the far end of the hall. Wilson pulled on black coveralls, R.J.’s were farmhouse blue, Brock and Wen light green, Abrams in hospital scrubs green, and Sharma’s and Ansara’s in tan. Mine were captain’s blue. As we studied our celestial surroundings, Delanda returned and spoke in a commanding voice. “Gentlemen, if you would grab your tablets and gather around me here at this magnificent table we should get started.” For the first time there was a unanimous look of annoyance, although everyone quickly complied. R.J. and I stood opposite her feeling like two school kids being ushered around on a field trip. Delanda checked to be sure everyone was paying attention. “Okay, I’m assuming our intranet will work in here even though we’re out of contact with the ship. Let’s try it. All of you use your tablets to access mine and copy the file titled: Translations. Let me know if anyone has trouble.” Delanda’s tablet appeared on our screens. As she had guessed, there were no problems getting in. Once copied, I opened the file and found dozens of Altair symbols, some highlighted, most grayed-out. “Okay, everyone got in? Right? Okay, the symbols you see highlighted are the ones I believe I have a rudimentary translation for. Those that are in gray, your guess is as good as mine.” “How do you propose we proceed?” asked Brock. “Speaking as an experienced field researcher, I would suggest one of us photographs and documents this first chamber thoroughly while the rest of us split up and do the same with other chambers, periodically reporting back here after each excursion. We should have one central person remain here to monitor the progress of everyone in the event they get into trouble. I would think that would be you, Commander Mirtos, since you are the best at rescue. Does anyone have any objections?” R.J. leaned over. “I believe this is a non-hostile takeover. Are you going to step in?” “Not until she says something I disagree with.” Delanda continued. “So, if no one has any objections the first order of business will be to photograph every wall symbol we find along with any artifacts possibly associated

I remember driving there in the afternoon, and I remember getting there and loading the gear in. I don’t remember the sound check. We had one, I think, but we had no idea what to do because we’d never done one before. No one had the foggiest. Not knowing what to do made it exciting, though. Like, now, everybody’s got a stage manager and a sound guy, lights, and so on. The bands know all about sound checks and levels, equipment and all that. Now they even have music schools to teach you that kind of stuff. Back then you knew fuck-all. You didn’t have anyone professional, just your mates, who, like you, were clueless; you had a disco PA and a sleepy barmaid. It’s something I find quite sad about groups today, funnily enough, the careerism of it all. I saw this program once, a “battle of the bands” sort of thing. It had Alex James from Blur on it and Lauren Laverne and some twat from a record company, and they’d sit there saying what they thought of the band: “Your bass player’s shit and your image needs work; lose the harmonica player.” All the bands just stood there and took it, going, “Cheers, man, we’ll go off and do that.” I couldn’t believe it. I joined a band to tell everyone to fuck off, and if somebody said to me, “Your image is shit,” I’d have gone, “Fuck off, knob head!” And if someone had said, “Your music’s shit,” I would have nutted them. That to me is what’s lacking in groups. They’ve missed out that growing-up stage of being bloody-minded and fucking clueless. You have to have ultimate self-belief. You have to believe right from the word go that you’re great and that the rest of the world has to catch up with you. Of us lot, Ian was the best at that. He believed in Joy Division completely. If any of us got downhearted it was always him who would cheer us up and get us going again. He’d put you back on track.

And I believe you have to go back to Miss Daisy’s class.” Then he climbed up the ladder and into the tree house. Michael was disappointed that he didn’t get Neil Armstrong’s fingerprints. When we got back to class, I told Miss Daisy all about Neil Armstrong stepping on the surface of the moon for the first time. “Wow, that sounds exciting!” Miss Daisy said. “Do you still think books are boring, A.J.?” “Yes,” I

In the rein of ignorance, the constant state of war which lasted for twenty years did not stop a certain amount of rationality that allowed this writings. pg200 And young men are accustomed from the first to idleness, effeminacy and frivolity, coming eventually to the business of life with empty heads and hearts crammed with false ideals…less credit and wealth, less dignity and prestige. They display vanity, but legitimate pride never. The men of pleasure are well received in society because they are light-hearted, gay, witty, dissipated, easy-going, amateurs of every pleasure. Pg224 The fair dames of the period resorted to every means to stimulate their sensibilities. They seek excitement in dissecting dead bodies. “The young Contesse de Coigny was so passionately fond of this dreadful study (Anatomy), that she would never start on a journey without taking in the boot of her traveling carriage a corpse to dissect, just as one takes with one a book to read.” – Mme. de Gengis, Mémoires, vol I. This mania for dissection was for some time extremely fashionable with ladies of quality. Pg226 On these ridiculous types was built up the whole school of impotent and despairing lovers, who under a nauseous pretence of being so romantic and interesting, prolonged for half a century longer the silly affectation of sentimental melancholy, in other words, a green-sickness of skepticism complicated with pulmonary consumption! Pg227 A familiar axiom of economic science declares that “every vicious act is followed by diminution of force.” Pg229 The Mousquetaires had began by displaying a most laudable zeal, but it was soon discovered that these gentlemen were better at noise than real work. Pg230 “The deterioration of type among noble families,” says Moreau de Tours, “is noted in numerous writers; Pope remarks to Spencer on the sorry looks of members of the English aristocracy in his day; and in the same way physiologists had even earlier noted the short stature of the Spanish grandees at the court of Philip V.” As for Frenchmen, long before 1789, they were amongst the poorest specimens of humanity, according to the testimony of many witnesses. Pg237 The practices of the man of pleasure, the libertine modes, in full completeness, count at most only some forty years of life, – after which the reign of hypocrisy sets in. Thus ends the Sword. A progress of degradation with glowing phraseology, cajoleries and falsity. They put on exaggerated airs of mock-modesty, and assume a scornful pose before their admirers, all the time longing to be noticed. The old punctilious sense of honor have ceased to exist while finally the practices of the man of pleasure, the libertine modes, in full completeness, count at most only some forty years of life, – after which the reign of hypocrisy sets in.

You think our great-great-grandkids will go to this school?” I said, excited at the thought. “Sure, why not?” Zoe said nonchalantly. “You think this will even be a school still? In the year 2099?” I asked.

Oh, not too long,” Orion replied. “Do you folks want some breakfast while you wait? I’ve only got frozen waffles, but I’ve got a couple thousand of them, so there’s plenty to go around.” “I could go for some waffles!” exclaimed Murray, who always thought with his stomach. He hurried into the house excitedly. Erica caught him by the collar. “We’re not here for breakfast. We’re just here for the decryption.” “Oh,” Orion and Murray said at once. Both sounded equally sad about it.

Holy cow,” he said. “You’re into typography?” Zoe turned to him, her eyes flashing with excitement. “Into it? I love it.” “Me too!” Mike exclaimed. “How has this not come up before?” “I don’t know!” Zoe said. “I was going to try to start a typography club at school last month, but then Ben got wrongfully accused of trying to assassinate the president, and that kind of sucked up all my spare time.… ” “Whoa,” I said. “Hold on. What’s typography?” “The art and technique of arranging and designing type to make written language and numbers more legible, readable, and appealing,” Mike said. “People who study it are called typophiles—although I prefer the term ‘font-natic.’ 

this.' Alice nodded but didn't move. Miss Dread stepped in front of her and walked up the ladder. 'Follow me,' she held out her hand, which Alice promptly took, and they both stepped onto the dragon's belly together. Leading Alice towards the center of Dexter's belly, Miss Dread grasped both her hands and they jumped, gradually going higher and higher until Alice's shrieks turned into giggles and her frown turned into a smile. 'Darling, I knew you could do it,' she gave Alice a congratulatory grin, as she helped her down off the ladder. 'Now my darlings, who is next?' Miss Dread looked warmly at the girls. All the girls had a turn, and they were all forced to admit that it was the funniest and most enjoyable fitness lesson they had ever had. A few days earlier, Charlotte would never have believed that using a dragon's belly as a trampoline was possible, but now she knew differently. This Academy had opened a door into a new world, one where anything seemed possible, and Charlotte was excited to see what would happen next. 'Darlings, darlings, fantastic, you were all fantastic!' Miss Dread pulled out her wand and made a gold medallion with a long white ribbon appear. 'I give medals out to those who I feel might deserve them the most. Today, I have a certain girl in mind.' She looked directly at Alice. 'You, darling, you have shown us all that it's okay to be scared and that overlooking fear is a triumph that should be