I became a teacher because… I got really lucky. My mother was a teacher, and I never really thought about it, but I am very fortunate because I really like teenagers. I also really like reading and writing and really like being at Clayton High School. I am just really lucky. I thought of being a teacher when I was in college.

I think that English is just as important as math or science is because… Just as important? I would say it is even more important because you can’t do math or science without English if you are in an English-speaking culture. I think math and science are fascinating and I would love to go to school here and study all the things that the students get to study here in math and science. But when you are doing a lab report, you are writing in English. Generally in this culture and when you are doing a math problem, you are reading it in English and if you had to write out your answer, you would be responding in English, so it is the basis of everything.

When I was in high school, I loved to… I had horses and I liked to ride horses. I like to go to basketball games and football games and cheer and stuff like that.

Now, I like to… I am an English country dancer, which is like Jane Austen dancing and I am a member of two groups. One group is a social group, and I am the president of that group, and we put on dances twice a month and two balls every year. I also dance with a performance group and we dance in all kind of places. This Sunday, we will be dancing at the History Museum, which is our second gig at the History Museum this year, and we are dancing for the Napoleon exit. And a week from Saturday, we will be dancing at downtown St. Charles for their historical days and we dance every year in St. Genevieve for their Felix Valley days. I think in the upcoming weeks we have probably four or five gigs. We go out and perform a lot in costume, but the social group is not in costume.

My greatest fear is… I don’t have too many fears. Well, sometimes I don’t like when our government overextends itself and pokes its nose in to other nations’ business. I really wonder about the no-fly zone in Libya right now because that is our third invasion of an Islamic country, which, if not disrespectful, is certainly questionable.

If I could go back to any time period, I would go back to… I would go back to the 18th century England because that is what I did my PHD dissertation on, the status of unmarried women and men in 18th century England.  I think it would be really interesting to go back there and just compare the way we live.  I think they lived an incredibly Spartan life, even the people who are really wealthy. It would be interesting to see how the time period lines up with the way it’s represented in the texts that I read.

If I could be any book character, it would be… I don’t know about character but there is a book that I am reading and I really admire the author. It’s a memoir and its called “The Grace of Silence” and it’s by Michele Norris, who is a national radio co-host of “All Things Considered.” She came to St. Louis on her book tour last fall, and she was so impressive that she really set a mark in my mind.

The most awesome thing I have done in my life is… I don’t tend to think my self in those terms but I really enjoyed living in Oregon. I was living in a look out tower in Oregon and I was up in the woods for several months living in a tower with my cats. I was in eastern Oregon and I was on Snow Mountain Ranger District and also I was on the Wall Wotman Ranger District in North East Oregon. I used to walk with my cats in the night, and it was just really beautiful to walk in the woods at night and there are no lights around. One time we were walking and we scared up a deer, and we probably scared that deer a lot, but that deer also scared us too because he came charging out of the woods and my cats were like “Aeeee!” So that was pretty fun.

My favorite quote is… my favorite passage from Macbeth. “Light thickens and the crow makes wings to the rookie wood.” I like this quote because I have been reading Macbeth since high school. I just think it is so beautiful, just lovely. I don’t think the quote has impacted my life but I certainly enjoy reading Shakespeare and reading it with my students. I think that we are really lucky to have Shakespeare.

The most important lesson I’ve learned is… not to fight with people. No point in fighting with people, especially the people you work with and people you live with,. It’s just pointless and it took me a long time to learn that. Some time you have to fight.  I am not a pacifist, but I think most of the time it is better to choose not to fight. It may happen that by the time you get over being mad, the other person is not over being mad.  You would like to make peace, but the other person is not ready or maybe the other person isn’t really that mad and you didn’t do what you thought. It doesn’t get you anywhere to fight with people.

When I stop teaching, I want to… I want to have more time to dance, which will be really fun. But I can imagine myself teaching part time some place like at a teaching gig in a university in the evening, you know, like one class. So I can’t imagine stopping teaching ever.