A year and a half ago a friend asked if
I'd be a mentor to a granddaughter interested in the news business.Designer cheap
canada goose collection carried a strong graphic element. She was a high
school junior at the time, and without giving this request too much thought, I
said yes.
Afterward, I realized these arrangements sometimes are fraught with peril, but all things considered, saying “no” was quite out of the question. The grandfather is someone for whom I have high regard, and without his knowing it he has been a mentor to me for years.Tiny wisps of men canada goose parka for cheap covered a cocktail dress with sequined flowers. I agreed. Not to do so would have been the definition of ingratitude.
And so it came to pass that his granddaughter and I worked together from time to time during the next year and a half. The granddaughter, Isabelle Stillman, came into the office to observe what goes on (and what doesn't!) in a growing news operation such as ours and listened carefully to my explanations and pontifications. One day I rode out to her house on my bike to deliver some books. I met her parents, and we had a good time around the breakfast table talking about all sorts of things, interesting things.
After spending time as an observer of news folks and finding us interesting, she asked if she could come to work for the Beacon to fulfill the requirements of the May project at her school, John Burroughs. We said, “Sure.” She hit the ground at a sprint when she came to work, and didn't stop until her project time was up.
I shouldn't have been surprised. Isabelle and her friend and fellow journalist, Caroline Ludeman, were co-editors of Burroughs' newspaper, The World, and this winter the two of them traveled to The Hague International Model United Nations (THIMUN), where they served as editors-in-chief of the official newspaper of the meeting, the THIMUN Tribune. Isabelle brought back copies of the paper for me, and they were uniformly impressive.
Sometime in recent years, Burroughs changed its commencement ceremony policy. In the past, someone from outside the school was invited to speak. Now, the commencement-address spotlight is on students. The speakers are chosen through a blind competition, and Isabelle and her classmate Samuel McHugh Schnabel were the winners.
Sam Schnabel's speech was commendable. Quite to the point of commencement, he talked about dealing with change and with coming to terms with losses great and small. Ceremonies such as this remind all of us of changes that press upon us, and how they can either confound us or serve to animate our lives one way or another. Losses can affect us deeply, some much more than others.
Thus, Schnabel's speech could be taken entirely personally, especially when a loss had been experienced quite recently, and represented more than just leaving a beloved school. So congratulations are in order for Schnabel, and good wishes to him as he goes forth.
Graduation at Burroughs is clothed in hallows, and is conducted in a grassy amphitheater in the early hours of the evening. The preferred atmospheric aesthetic is a soft and luminous twilight, with gentle zephyrs caressing the trees. There was no such meteorological magic for the class of '12. Graduation was chilly -- cold some would say. Isabelle's grandmother fussed at me for showing up in a summer suit. Gray skies spit rain. Winds blew. School-colors blankets were distributed. There was grumbling.
But all of a sudden there was some magic, and that unpleasant situation seemed to change. The resplendent graduates entered, leaving in their wake a special brilliance that served to challenge the gloom and to send it packing. Boys no more, the young men stood tall in sporty white dinner jackets. The girls-no-more young women moved gracefully in white gowns of varying degrees of sophistication.
In my 18 months of so association with Isabelle I'd come to expect the extraordinary. She didn't need my instruction. Besides, I think it is impossible to teach someone to write with grace and facility and inspiration. Although I can give writing lessons having to do with technique, I could no more teach someone to write with genuine grace and facility and inspiration than I could be taught to take a swing at Pierre de Fermat's “Last Theorem.”
Afterward, I realized these arrangements sometimes are fraught with peril, but all things considered, saying “no” was quite out of the question. The grandfather is someone for whom I have high regard, and without his knowing it he has been a mentor to me for years.Tiny wisps of men canada goose parka for cheap covered a cocktail dress with sequined flowers. I agreed. Not to do so would have been the definition of ingratitude.
And so it came to pass that his granddaughter and I worked together from time to time during the next year and a half. The granddaughter, Isabelle Stillman, came into the office to observe what goes on (and what doesn't!) in a growing news operation such as ours and listened carefully to my explanations and pontifications. One day I rode out to her house on my bike to deliver some books. I met her parents, and we had a good time around the breakfast table talking about all sorts of things, interesting things.
After spending time as an observer of news folks and finding us interesting, she asked if she could come to work for the Beacon to fulfill the requirements of the May project at her school, John Burroughs. We said, “Sure.” She hit the ground at a sprint when she came to work, and didn't stop until her project time was up.
I shouldn't have been surprised. Isabelle and her friend and fellow journalist, Caroline Ludeman, were co-editors of Burroughs' newspaper, The World, and this winter the two of them traveled to The Hague International Model United Nations (THIMUN), where they served as editors-in-chief of the official newspaper of the meeting, the THIMUN Tribune. Isabelle brought back copies of the paper for me, and they were uniformly impressive.
Sometime in recent years, Burroughs changed its commencement ceremony policy. In the past, someone from outside the school was invited to speak. Now, the commencement-address spotlight is on students. The speakers are chosen through a blind competition, and Isabelle and her classmate Samuel McHugh Schnabel were the winners.
Sam Schnabel's speech was commendable. Quite to the point of commencement, he talked about dealing with change and with coming to terms with losses great and small. Ceremonies such as this remind all of us of changes that press upon us, and how they can either confound us or serve to animate our lives one way or another. Losses can affect us deeply, some much more than others.
Thus, Schnabel's speech could be taken entirely personally, especially when a loss had been experienced quite recently, and represented more than just leaving a beloved school. So congratulations are in order for Schnabel, and good wishes to him as he goes forth.
Graduation at Burroughs is clothed in hallows, and is conducted in a grassy amphitheater in the early hours of the evening. The preferred atmospheric aesthetic is a soft and luminous twilight, with gentle zephyrs caressing the trees. There was no such meteorological magic for the class of '12. Graduation was chilly -- cold some would say. Isabelle's grandmother fussed at me for showing up in a summer suit. Gray skies spit rain. Winds blew. School-colors blankets were distributed. There was grumbling.
But all of a sudden there was some magic, and that unpleasant situation seemed to change. The resplendent graduates entered, leaving in their wake a special brilliance that served to challenge the gloom and to send it packing. Boys no more, the young men stood tall in sporty white dinner jackets. The girls-no-more young women moved gracefully in white gowns of varying degrees of sophistication.
In my 18 months of so association with Isabelle I'd come to expect the extraordinary. She didn't need my instruction. Besides, I think it is impossible to teach someone to write with grace and facility and inspiration. Although I can give writing lessons having to do with technique, I could no more teach someone to write with genuine grace and facility and inspiration than I could be taught to take a swing at Pierre de Fermat's “Last Theorem.”
没有评论:
发表评论