Living Extraordinary Lives

A friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to a political blog (I think) with a headline that blared:  ‘YOU’RE NOT SPECIAL’: WELLESLEY HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER GIVES THE MOST BLUNT COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS EVER. Intrigued with the blurb that the publication chose to quote, I followed the link to the complete text and formed my own opinion.

Erm . . . to be blunt, the headline missed the point.  The point of David Mccullough, Jr.'s speech was not that the 2012 graduating class of Wellesley High School were spoiled and coddled, but that they should go out and make their lives something special.  With kind words and a humorous approach, he managed to deliver his message and still leave his students feeling positive about themselves.  I suspect he is a favorite teacher at Wellesley High School, which explains his role as faculty speaker.

I felt it such a good speech, I wanted to share it.



Mr. McCullough (purportedly the son of David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian) summed it all up in his closing statement.

Two Down, One to Go

Wednesday marked another milestone for my family.  My #2 son left college campuses behind him for good, packed up his family and set out into the real world.  With his Master's in mechanical engineering in hand, in another couple of weeks he'll start work with his new employer, Samsung, in a bedroom community of Austin, Texas.

They moved only about 102 miles from their apartment in College Station, but in their change in circumstances, they're moving to the other side of the moon.  Instead of starving students relying on scholarships and student loans to keep body and soul together as they have done for the past four years of their married life, a well-paying job promises comfort, security, and elimination of their debt.  Instead of a two-bedroom apartment growing increasingly smaller the larger their toddler and two cats grow, they are renting a new-ish, clean and well-maintained four-bedroom home with 2½ baths and a two-car garage in a nice neighborhood.  Filling up those rooms with furniture will take some time, but they've already made their first installment with a new flat-pack dining table and chairs.

This Is It

Dear Reader,

How to begin? . . . . I originally started this particular blog to explore the whole process of creating/writing a novel. I got it started, then abandoned it because I couldn't make the nifty-keen-o template I found work, and then I abandoned it. It also didn't help that I wasn't writing anything.

Originally, I set out to write a sequel to Pride and Prejudice. That was back in 2001. Since then, I must have written millions of words, thousands of pages, and got at least seven sequels going in my head or in various stages of rough draft or outline or notes or something. But, my great book never produced itself because a: it was tooooooooooooooooooo long; b: in was scattered and confused because I tried to build in an element of mystery to it, and c: in the beginning, I was a totally wretched writer. I read my very first draft and cringed.