essays on teaching, technology, quiet books, and the art of paying attention
There's a moment in every semester when the roles blur — when a student asks a deceptively simple question that makes you realize you had been repeating an explanation without truly understanding the core idea yourself.
Not the canonical textbooks or the ones everyone quotes on syllabi — but the quiet, unexpected volumes that shifted how I observe rooms, handle patience, and listen to questions before formulating an answer.
How do you cultivate genuine presence and warmth in a lecture hall full of glowing laptop lids and notification chimes? Notes on physical gestures, intentional pauses, and the quiet dignity of waiting for a student to find their words.
What six weeks of unhurried mornings, long walks through library aisles, and zero calendar alerts taught me about the restorative power of intellectual boredom.
Computer science often glorifies efficiency and speed at the cost of empathy. Here is an argument for readability as an act of kindness toward your future self and your collaborators.
more quiet observations in the notebook
read poetry watching & observations