But I Just Did One

I am currently reading a hilarious and dead-on book by Bill Bryson, an American travel writer who lived in England for 20 years before moving back to the United States with his British wife and kids. “I’m a Stranger Here Myself” is a compilation of brief and hilarious reflections on his return to America, including Americans’ puzzling affinity for injuring themselves with their bedsheets and pillows and our dazzling array of deliciously unhealthy breakfast cereals like Cookie Crisp. These reflections were originally published as part of a weekly column in a British newspaper, on which he writes,

“The thing about a weekly column, I discovered, is that it comes up weekly. Now this may seem a selfevident fact, but in two years there never came a week when it did not strike me as both profound and startling. Another column? Already? But I just did one.”

This self-evident fact is precisely why my interest in a journalism career was born and promptly died with my work as an inconsistent student journalist for the West Linn Tidings. It also explains why my blog posts are so few and far between. And, finally, it is the principle reason I will never become a teacher.

“Another lesson plan? Already? But I just did one.”