Riding Out Hurricane Andrew: 25 Years Later

As I’m watching the media coverage of the impact of Hurricane Harvey, I keep flashing back to my experiences with Hurricane Andrew. In August 1992, I had just relocated to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for graduate school. I knew exactly one person, a classmate from undergrad. I wasn’t especially enamored of post-graduate work and not especially […]

One Day in the Life of Susan Kerr #NaBloPoMo

If you could redo one moment in your life, what would it be and why? How would it change who you are now? For me, regret isn’t tied up to one single pivotal moment. It is more a cascade of memories that starts perhaps with dropping out of graduate school (the first time around) and […]

Please Don’t Call Me A Writer

Pittsburgh Lesbian

I was not a kid who kept a journal or scribbled or longed to be a reporter. I was not a particularly strong writer until I started the graduate program in political philosophy at LSU where I was required to write – constantly. I was also required to read some pretty amazing writing. Somehow that […]

I Dropped Out of Grad School To Become a Missionary

Todd County Kentucky

 What’s the most crazy, outrageously impulsive thing you’ve ever done?  I was not an impulsive kid. I was unhappy and anxious, but I did what was expected of me for the most part. I also learned early on to carefully watch for opportunities – an extension of  a survival instinct. I rarely did the unexpected […]

We All Want To Go Back to Graduate School

Graduate_School, intellectual conversation

Daily Prompt: What’s your learning style? Do you prefer learning in a group and in an interactive setting? Or one-on-one? Do you retain information best through lectures, or visuals, or simply by reading books? I’m going to take the middle road and say “both.” I love to read. It’s fair to say I’ve learned more […]

I’m a Words With Friends Failure

Growing up, most of my friends refused to play Scrabble with me. Not only was I a “big word” person, I was obnoxious about winning and completely oblivious to how rude I could be. The only person who would consistently play with me was my Mum who not only wanted me to be a “big […]

A Long Time Ago In a Graduate School Far, Far Away

The Prompt: Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home. The furthest I’ve been distance wise has been Western Texas – it was part of a several week “road trip” we took in graduate school. That experience was almost surreal – being chased by a wild boar, riding in a row-boat across the […]