West of the Moon

Archive for January, 2010

best practice.

(US History post in progress–y’all said such thoughtful things, I figure it needs a thoughtful response.  In the meantime, something else.) I first started this by saying something like “is it completely unreasonable of me to not want to do business with people who can’t write an adequate or competent email?” but I changed my [...]

on teaching u.s. history.

Dan asked for a syllabus post, I believe, and who am I to say no?  (I’ve mentioned before that teaching high school has made me much more cautious about what I say about my job, both for student privacy reasons and for general public-exposure reasons.  But I’m not going to say anything here that I [...]

correspondence.

Dear Susan-on-12/31/99: It’s going to get better.  I remember being where you are–the boring and frustrating computer job, the sense of being trapped and stir-crazy, the growing suspicion that your friends don’t even like you, feeling most days like you don’t even like yourself.  It’s going to get better.  In a couple of months, UC [...]