From Jenny Offill’s Department of Speculation, Three things that no one has ever said about me: You make it look so easy. You are very mysterious. You need to take yourself more seriously. In 2003, when I was at Duke, the school released a study about the experience of women at all levels of the […]
Author: laurakornish
A Rather Fabulous Sense of Insouciance
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic, writing about her parents: They were responsible people. Taxpayers. Solid. Voted for Reagan. (Twice!) I learned how to be a rebel from them. Because—just beyond the reach of their basic good citizenship—my parents did whatever the hell they wanted to do with their lives, and they did it with a […]
Anniversary of Motherhood
Today is my anniversary of motherhood, otherwise known as my older child’s birthday. I’ve been thinking a lot about parenthood recently. The following warning has already been delivered to the relevant people: You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved […]
A Parent’s Job: Parents’ and a Count’s Thoughts
Fifteen years ago, I attended my mother’s retirement party. For thirty years, my mother worked in various staff roles at a large public university. She was a generous mentor to many junior colleagues, and she was a trusted confidante to academic administrators. At the party, people had the chance to say a few words about […]
How Do You Get Students to Read the Syllabus?
I sent some resources to the new instructors in my division. One of them wrote back with a question, “how do you get students to read the syllabus?” I tried googling it: how do you get students to read the syllabus? Apparently, I am not up the latest “Easter Egg” techniques: hide a request for […]
Is No a Complete Sentence?
My mother-in-law once told me, “No is a complete sentence.” At the time, I mentally filed this pronouncement with other Al-Anon maxims like One Day at a Time, Easy Does It, and I Cannot Give What I Do Not Have. Hard to argue with the helpful vibe, but not clear how to change my behavior […]
What’s Important to You is Important to Me. That’s Love.
A childhood friend posted a 40-minute video of a rebbetzin giving a public lecture about love. Let’s break down that sentence. Childhood friend = good. 40-minute video = not good! rebbetzin = what is that? The friend is an Orthodox Jew. Rebbetzin sounds religious. This is NOT going to be for me. public lecture = […]
Peggy Noonan’s Advice for Gentlepeople
I don’t study issues of gender, but I do think about them. Lately, I’ve had a new opportunity for thinking about gender and leadership because, for the first time in thirty years, my boss is a woman. Hers was an internal promotion, so she had been a peer. It’s been fascinating for me to observe […]
The Only Way to Learn Something! (or ?)
I saw this advice from James Altucher: The only way to learn something is to have a passionate interest in it, then learn it, then repeat it, then try to teach it to someone else. Altucher is a writer, podcaster, entrepreneur, Internet personality. He’s written self-help books. His Medium tag line is “For some reason, […]