Today, the first digit on my age changes from a two to a three and I have one thing to say about it: Hell yes. It’s not that my twenties weren’t great, because they were. I did some pretty neat…
The Final Words.
“This must be how new parents feel,” I mumble to myself as I scrawl yet another set of awkward sounding words onto the lined paper. I didn’t think it would be this hard, naming a novel, but I’m convinced that…
“I’m not that scary.”
Every so often, I’ll have a student claim that they missed a class because they knew they’d be late and were “too scared” to show up after the bell. Or better yet, that they didn’t hand in a project because…

How dare you tell me that my life means nothing?
I’m one of those people. You know the type: the Facebook dependent. It’s how I send and receive invites to social gatherings, annoy friends with pictures of my dog, and yes, keep tabs on people I otherwise would have lost…

Go ahead. Taunt me.
I can stare at the end of my text for hours, flipping back and forth between Firefox and Word to break the monotony. The bright white of the page taunts me, daring me to fill it with double-spaced lines of…

This is everything I love about teaching.
“Ms. Mackenzie, he said that they banned turbans in Quebec! Is that true?” Probably two-thirds of the class turned to face me, waiting. Crap. That wasn’t on page 16 of their cahiers. My lesson on French parts of speech was…
The one about dirty kids.
Dear Students, I’m not quite sure when you think people stop having dirty minds and understanding innuendo, but it’s definitely not thirty. If anything, I understand more than you, and I often laugh to myself about accidentally dirty things students…
Ashley D. MacKenzie: Bond Girl
It’s no secret that I’m a James Bond fan. I own the full collector’s set on Blu-ray, plus the contentious Never Say Never Again. I can name all of the Bond actors in order, including George Lazenby, and the I…

Good riddance.
I guess it’s official now. Our divorce, that is. I should have seen it coming, but I honestly thought that we would be together forever. I’d never had eyes for another. You had always been my plan for the future,…
Harry Potter and the Rebellious Teenager
I was working at a kiosk in the mall – directly in front of a bookstore – the summer that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published, and I wasn’t impressed. I hated Harry Potter. I couldn’t stand it.…