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What do you want to be when you grow up? No-BS Brainstorming

February 2, 2023 by Sara Nolan Leave a Comment

What do you want to be when you grow up? No-BS Brainstorming "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is a cliche stock question of grown-ups everywhere, and a tacit question in many college essay prompts. My imagination still responds: whatever I want. The young physician’s assistant waved at my 4 year-old daughter with a fistful of tongue depressors. Black scrubs, thick black sneakers, and black mop of hair.  “I usually just do the paperwork here,” he said. He lowered her bright pink mask. “And by the way these strep tests are only 30% accurate! And they are not fun. We had to do them with each other in our training.” She pointed to his name tag, “It’s a D!” she crowed, as if she’d discovered a new species.  At her preschool, they romance one letter of the alphabet at a time. Each letter gets a day to be the center of everyone’s attention. To be noticed not just as part of something else, but as itself. “Wow,” he marveled, “She’s really good with her ABC’s.” This assistant, at best in his early 20’s, was already 98% grandpa. “At least with her D’s,” I agreed. “The ABC’s are my bread and butter.” He smiled in that I don’t know what you mean at all type of way. “Teach her another language, too, OK?” he suggested. “Not just English, OK? Everyone should learn at least two, OK?” “Languages are worlds,” I agreed. “It’s humbling to know more than one.” “Seriously,” he said. “I lost my Korean. I was fluent as a kid, but then I stopped speaking.” He paused. “Are you sure you don’t want the doctor to look at her throat first?” “No,” I said. “Am I ever sure?” He shook his head and swabbed my daughter, who was motionless until she gagged. “Wow she is very good,” he said, and stuck the test in its tube to marinate. It was inconclusively negative. “Keep being so happy,” he told her. Was she? Or had she just not yet unlearned being herself? Brainstorm for lost and future treasures: The next morning, I found this student piece: “To lose my  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Destiny, State of Mind, Teachers, Uncategorized Tagged With: brainstorming, college essay preparation, ideas, prewriting, the future

Listening to Teens

August 3, 2020 by Sara Nolan Leave a Comment

I love listening to teenagers. The more you listen, the more they tell you. And if you're only pretending you're listening, or listening with an agenda, they know it. In a recent session, a student showed me that if I really listened, we could travel into a different eco-system, where caring for each other was part of the ecology. Out of your element, or in it?  A student was telling me about his love of scuba diving. Newly certified, on one of his first group dives, he was daunted by the oxygen tank, and the thought of bumping loose a cartridge. How to parcel out the air? His nervousness made him a conservative in what he would explore. (The analogies to COVID life loom). But he was also, I think, awed by the power of being in a completely different element, the underwater ocean, that wasn't really meant for us. Not in a sustained way beyond the doing the crawl or getting rolled by a hook-shaped wave. The Sharks and the goofballs came On his wreck dive with his family (also a pandemic analogy, there?), a family of sharks--and I swear he called them nar-sharks, to which fact my five year old exclaimed LIKE NARWAL NARWAL SHARKS??-- swam by. A small flock. Other goofballs on the dive went out of their way to take a selfie  of themselves with the shark pod with a long selfie stick camera. Scrambling around for the money shot. Grinning, peace signs, oxygen burbles. They were posing with their stupid selfie stick IN FRONT OF  A FAMILY OF SHARKS, he said, like zero common sense. I mean, sure, try to get your picture, but stop behaving like such an idiot. His dad taught him to hang back, to see if you could get a photo without disrupting the balance and bothering the sharks. Because: BOTHERING SHARKS. Be humble, he said. These are sharks. They just want to hang out with their families. As I listened to him, he relaxed and grew funnier.  Once I had given him his writing prompts for the week and we hung up, all I could think about was goofballs who  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Questions, State of Mind, Stories, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: anecdotes, college essay writing, desires, ideas, Listening

Mix It Up

September 15, 2019 by Sara Nolan Leave a Comment

Mix it up, write well

My son Ro, who is four, just started in a soccer league. Four year-olds don't know attention is a thing that can have a span-- their coaches have to mix it up to keep them engaged. When their sweet Coach N explained, "Now I am a shark, and you are fish crossing my ocean, and if your ball gets away from you, I'll eat you!," they took him very seriously. They didn't want to get eaten on the first day of practice. Who does? Also four year-olds excel at being literal. When It Comes to Sports, Love (and Writing), Mix It Up! The lead coach, who has been coordinating community soccer leagues since I was four, watched from the sidelines, and played rapturously with my 1 year-old. He was chatty, and did not stop talking if you were within reaching distance. At the end of the clinic, while he watched Ro eat peanut butter and honey, he waxed on about the league he started in New Jersey for Orthodox Jewish (OJ) kids on Sundays. They couldn't play on Saturday, regular Soccer Day, because of observing the Sabbath. Turned out local Seventh Day Adventists (SDA) kids also couldn't play on Saturdays because THEY also observe the Sabbath. So eventually some SDA kids migrated onto the OJ team. Then parents showed up to watch. Turned out a number of the parents were widowed or otherwise single (the divorce scene is opaque). Slowly, mutual romantic interests developed--"mixing" between the adults. The kids didn't get eaten by sharks, made goals and dirtied knees across religious lines, and god didn't smite anyone. Meanwhile, the parents flirted and paired off. A Good Story is Still Good the Millionth Time! I could tell the coach had told this story a million times before. But Ro didn't mind, because he was eating ALL the peanut butter and honey and admiring his shin guards. And Aria didn't mind, because she was busy trying to pick up the cones that marked the sidelines and cigarette butts on the astroturf (really?). And I generally like people telling stories  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Parents, Stories, Uncategorized, Wisdom, Writing Tips Tagged With: college essay tips, college essay writing, connections, ideas, movement

November Essay-Writing Blues? Take a Shower!

November 23, 2013 by Sara Nolan

Blue over You You don’t like your current college essay—at all.  It revolts you: the written word should never have been invented.  It’s late November: you’re freaking out.  Your essay tastes like stale white bread instead of the perfection you could have said. Stop. Take a shower.  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: State of Mind, Uncategorized, Wisdom, Writing Tips Tagged With: Essay Writing, ideas, shower effect, trust

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