It was 7:00 a.m. and snowing hard. I was dressed for work in my tall boots and long wool skirt and sweater. The car was warming up, and I had my go-cup of coffee filled. The phone-tree person was supposed to call by 7:15 if school was cancelled for the day. I stood around drinking… Continue reading Worst Snow Day Ever
Category: teaching
Worst Chaperone Ever
After two years of teaching high school Spanish in Ashland, Nebraska, I wanted to do for my students what my high school teacher had done for me – take them to Mexico. This wasn’t a trip over the border to Tijuana. This was a ten-day trip to Mexico City, including Aztec ruins. I recruited four… Continue reading Worst Chaperone Ever
You Can Take the Girl Out of Iowa . . .
At the end of my ten-week student teaching in Venezuela, one of the teachers said that I could interview to come back to teach at Campo Alegre the following year. She said they were always looking for American teachers. “You can stay with me during the summer,” she said, “until you get your apartment.” The… Continue reading You Can Take the Girl Out of Iowa . . .
Peace Corps Fail
It was in the spring of my first year of teaching when the call came. I was at Greenwood Elementary in Greenwood, Nebraska. I had applied to the Peace Corps the year before. They had just seen my application. They wanted to fly me to Chicago for an interview that weekend. They gave me 24… Continue reading Peace Corps Fail
Me Too
He was one of five professors in the tiny Spanish department at Iowa State. I had him for both semesters of Spanish Two, and I’d just landed a summer job, selling books door to door in a mystery state after a week’s training in Nashville. The bus for me and the other recruits was leaving… Continue reading Me Too
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 