Liza

r I don’t know if it is because we have entered the month of May, with all the undue end-of-the-school-year stress that suddenly rushes in at 10:01 pm on April 30th. I don’t know if it is the added layer of a senior prom and graduation profiled on the horizon. I don’t know if it is the effects of perimenopause and the bad case of ADHD that seems to have befallen me since we moved back from France. Whatever the reasons, I have found myself shaking my head in disbelief and ranting about “those...

Well, it’s been a hell of a month, again. When is it not? There is always a good reason not to sit down and start typing. I was complaining about my attention span a few months ago, but it has gotten so much worse. And I blame the American college application process. It has sucked up all my energy and turned my brain into a constant hamster wheel of fruitless analysis and speculation. As a European mother who can’t even remember sending an application anywhere on her own behalf,...

There is an expression in French, derived, it would seem, from a government and administration-centric culture, prone to strikes and work disruptions of all kinds. “Le service minimum”, or “faire le service minimum”, whose meaning is quite transparent, obviously. Maintaining a bare-minimum level of service that doesn’t give an extra inch of time or commitment to the institution you report to, or its customers for that matter.And I’m afraid this is exactly where I am these days, folks....