I started teaching at my new school just a couple of weeks before the end of the grading term, which means I needed books we could read fairly quickly. I’m also teaching eighth graders for the first time, and adjusting to younger students. When I found The Jungle Book in the supply room, I found…

I began this morning with this thought from Donald Miller: Leaders aren’t cynical. I found this song running through my head this afternoon, from Jackson Browne: Doctor, my eyes cannot see the skies –is this the price for having learned how not to cry And it’s been a long day. I’m going to sing myself…

Here in America we yell at each other as thoughanger were a pre-existing condition,and diatribe an anagram of democracy;but screaming doesn’t make it so:louder and truer are not synonyms —the same goes for rich and smart. Using poetry to talk politicsis like giving a homework assignmentto a gaggle of eighth graders:you can talk, but most…

Years ago – OK, many years ago, my father and I were at a country fair in Cleburne, Texas. We walked around, ate fried things, and I remember enjoying the evening for the way it let him tell stories of his life growing up that I had not heard before. One of the things they…

Thanks to a link from a friend, I sat down to these words after watching my NCAA Men’s Basketball Bracket go bust, thanks to the upsets of the day: The world is a confusing place. Correlation looks like causation; the signal sounds like the noise; randomness is everywhere. This raises the obvious question: How does…

Today was the first day of the week that I have not had to go from school to the Duke restaurant. Instead, I came home to cook dinner. OK, first I took a basketball nap, meaning I dozed off watching first round games of the NCAA Men’s Tournament, and then I went grocery shopping, and…

On my way from school to kitchen this afternoon, I had the misfortune of being on I-40 when they decided to block it because the Vice President was visiting somewhere nearby. He never came anywhere near the gang of terrorists parked around me. And I was thirty minutes late to work. I am puzzled once…

I started rereading A Passage to India today. One of the people I work with at the Durham restaurant was asking for books to read and I suggested my favorite of E. M. Forster’s novels. When she said she was going to read it, I decided I would go along for the ride. The flyleaf…

In the shadow of the chapel steeplewe’ve simmered and sautéed all evening, following the familiar patterns we know,trying a few new things, marking time bymaking dinners, passing plates, and,finally, taking out the trash. This morning, time was moved alongby turning pages, the clicking of keyboards,and restroom requests; the tools of thetrade are stored in backpacks…

I gave my notice to my chef who hired me for both the Duke and Durham restaurants. Though my exit will be somewhat gradual over the next five or six weeks, I am leaving my job as a professional chef to return to teaching, and specifically teaching English in a small private school made up…