Picture yourself in a restaurant. The server hands you a menu and lets you know they’ll check back in a few minutes to see if you’ve decided on what to eat. You look over the available options and make a choice. When the server returns… Read More
All posts by “Chris Csont”
On not passing on your fears and failures
My daughter loves getting in the pool, except for one thing: Getting water in her face. I know this problem well. When I was a kid, I hated being in the water. Hated it with a passion. Needed to be bribed, heavily, in order to… Read More
Why I grade writing students on respect and empathy
A story about a difficult office hours meeting, and how it lead me to change the way I grade student writing.
The kind of person who owns grapefruit spoons
One day, my wife and I made the decision in a Crate & Barrel to buy grapefruit spoons. We even went and bought several grapefruits and ate them with those grapefruit spoons. But it never became a habit. We moved several times after that, and… Read More
Professionalism and Style
While listening to the latest episode of The West Wing Weekly, there was a great comment from presidential candidate and mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg that “Your job is to decide how much you’re willing to conform to [what’s expected of you]. It’s… Read More
Talking to My Daughter About Death
I didn’t realize how far the thoughts had gotten in my daughter’s mind until we were playing a game of hide-and-seek at home. My daughter (I call her Sprout online), reminded me about a game we had played the other week where she got upset… Read More
Battling Impostor Syndrome
A student came up to me after class and asked about impostor syndrome. I had mentioned in class that one of the main causes of things like plagiarism or bloated writing is insecurity: People are afraid that their writing will be found lacking, and that… Read More
