Mom, Writer, TV/Event Producer, and Student of Math, Science and English, because it's never too late to punch mid-life in the gut
Suddenly a flood of my childhood washed over me – being alone with those books, moving them with me place to place for a lifetime, not having the opportunity to go to college at the right age, the struggle to survive, to build a career, to build a family, on my own since I was 17 – all to lead me to standing at the base of that library, with my family, a career behind me, and now, unbelievably, a student at this university.
Read More Full Circle MomentOn the last lap, we were running in the rain. Laughing. She’s faster than me. The rain quickened her pace. I ran, momentarily alone, the windblown rain pelting my face, soaking my clothes, squinting my eyes, until they closed. Running blind. I didn’t want to open them. I wanted to keep running, looking up, blind, rain weighting my hair down, dripping off my nose and chin. Nature. Is. Bigger. Than. Us.
This is not an injustice. It is a surrender.
Free.
Read More A Rainbow in the RainI wasn’t sure if I was annoyed by her or impressed by her. When I offered up that I was getting my degree in Astrophysics, as an obviously older student, her immediate response was, “Wow, don’t you have to be smart for that?”
It’s confirmed. I’m annoyed by her.
Read More Astrophysics? Don’t You Have to be Smart for That?You can prepare and train as much as possible, but you can never be totally ready for the hardest things you aim to achieve, especially when it’s a path you’ve never taken. That’s when you put your default anger setting to good use.
Read More The Angry OptimistWe have all noticed that everywhere we go today, people are staring at their phones. If you are not one of those people, maybe you’re the one that puts your phone away to try to be more present, only to leave you feeling like the sober person at the party, annoyed and alone in a room full of tech-drunk people.
Read More Are we hooked on our devices? Are we hooking our kids? Take the No Tech Challenge.Why is confirmation bias important? Because it can cause people to develop false beliefs, give more weight to information that supports their beliefs than is warranted by the evidence, and overlook or ignore evidence contrary to their beliefs. We see this at play day in and day out in all forms of our media consumption. The problem is, we can see other people’s biases, we just can’t see our own.
Read More Crumbling from Within: How Confirmation Bias is Defeating AmericaEverywhere we look in the universe, we are seeing reflections of ourselves. With one open eye, we are looking at where we came from and why we’re here. We are looking at our past and our future. Just as humankind across all origins, tones, ideals and cultures share love, hope, despair and fear, all the universe, including humankind, shares chemicals and evolution, existence and dying. The only thing that makes us different at all is that we exist now. It is our turn to be born, to live, to die, contributing to the only planet that has any life at all, so far, in the inconceivable vastness of the expanding universe. This is our chance, before we become just memories, and then just dust.
Read More One Open Eye: Seeing Saturn for the First TimeListen in on my radio interview in the “Parental Guidance” segment with Amy Bell, on CBC Radio One’s Early Edition with Stephen Quinn as we discuss how body image effects our kids. Read more on the topic in my Scary Mommy article, How to Talk to Your Girls About Body Image. (Segment starts at 10:56, ends at 18:22)
Read More My first ever radio interview! Listen in on CBC Radio One’s Parental Guidance segment with Amy Bell as we discuss body image.In my tears was a lesson it took me my whole life to learn. You don’t have to believe in yourself first to do anything you decide you want to do. You have to be willing to be scared and do it anyway. Believing in yourself is what happens once you see, behind all the fear and doubt, who you really are.
Read More When in Doubt, Do it Anyway: How to Overcome Your FearsThe truth is, I don’t know if I can do it. My subconscious has been regularly jolting me awake from deep sleeps in terrified heart-pounding panic, having to catch my breath just lying there. I don’t know if life will get in the way. I don’t know if the high-level math will be too hard, the physics beyond my comprehension level. I don’t know if I can afford it and endure over the long haul.
I do know that if I don’t try, I’ll end up, if I’m lucky, in some communications job in some office pushing some agenda that I don’t really care about wondering if I could have been a scientist.
Read More Mom Goes to College