I’ve had a stressful and unhappy year. My oldest daughter barely survived seventh grade. There were enough tears to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and there were many nights spent worrying over her. There were also many evenings of stressing over homework and grades and friends and boys and teachers and clothes and gym class.... Continue Reading →
I just realized that I may not live to see a female president in the United States. I just realized that the America I live in is not the America I thought I lived in. I’m part of a religious community that often laments the state of “the world.” I often hear peple say... Continue Reading →
I recently gave a lesson to the youth in my church and to get their attention, I asked them if they liked a good mystery. I showed them a slide with some of my favorite mystery novels. However, when I created this slide, I realized that I haven't read many mysteries lately. I voraciously read... Continue Reading →
American Housewife (2016), a collection of short stories by Helen Ellis, is the Literary Wives bloggers' pick for this month. It is witty, poignant, hilarious, dark, timely, and accessible. Please see more of the Literary Wives discussion at the following blogs. Naomi of Consumed by Ink Kay of What Me Read Lynn of Smoke & Mirrors Ariel of One... Continue Reading →
I don’t usually like or use foul language, but I must share with you the fact that Breeanne described our travels yesterday as a “shitshow,” a term now used to also describe the Republican National Convention because of norovirus. But I digress. We woke up at 4:30 yesterday morning to leave Pune, India, where we... Continue Reading →
We arrived in Pune, India, late last night from Chennai. Today's adventure consisted of a three-hour nap, followed by a buffet lunch. Once we gathered ourselves and overcame some of the travel tiredness, we headed out to see the Aga Khan Palace, built in 1892. It is the place where Mahatma Gandhi, his wife Kasturba Gandhi,... Continue Reading →
I wrote my dissertation about women's experiences as practitioners of technical and professional writing in the workplace. I graduated earlier this month, but I'm still working on getting the formatting of the final document approved by the graduate school. It turns out that formatting a dissertation is more tedious than writing one! As I've gone... Continue Reading →
I recently heard that I was living a "feminist lifestyle." I'm not sure what that means. The comment wasn't meant to be derogatory, but it came off that way, given that my "feminist lifestyle" is something that had to be approved of. I would like to think that most women in the United States these... Continue Reading →
I love and admire many people, too many to include in this one post. This is a list of my best friends' favorite books. I wanted to know what they love. (I may continue this series with more friends in the future.) Ron (my dad): Beach Music by Pat Conroy Nayeli: Utopia by Thomas Moore... Continue Reading →
In early January, I visited Austin, Texas, for a national conference in my field. I had a few job interviews for assistant professor positions while there, and I ate a lot of good food. But today I wanted to pose this question: should you rip the spines off of books? I saw this in a... Continue Reading →
The Bookshelf of Emily J. 