tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3100630131091788042.post6033192815315712632..comments2023-11-21T20:39:42.060-08:00Comments on Kate Considers Just About Everything: Finally, A Writing LifeKate Fritz Leonardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314142438718202272noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3100630131091788042.post-76879075298354668632011-12-25T14:49:17.223-08:002011-12-25T14:49:17.223-08:00Ah, you are stirring up those old "writer&quo...Ah, you are stirring up those old "writer" feelings in me...the day to day grind of the office sure gets to me!Jen J.http://www.cutlergrp.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3100630131091788042.post-65539857441989808382011-12-02T09:02:37.367-08:002011-12-02T09:02:37.367-08:00One of my high school friends (she was our valedic...One of my high school friends (she was our valedictorian) wanted to be a doctor. But the high school counselors convinced her that she was too delicate to be a doctor--there were too many hard decisions and difficult situations for a girl to cope with. So by the time she graduated, she had decided to be a nurse. I lost track of her after high school, but have always wondered about the outcome.JThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04772572574204408585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3100630131091788042.post-52655311849073467202011-12-02T03:32:44.286-08:002011-12-02T03:32:44.286-08:00Kate, What an amazing essay of survival and the po...Kate, What an amazing essay of survival and the power of the written word! While I grew up in what some would call a "rareified environment" at home and with a huge "extended family" made up of my parents' friends and their kids, many of them my age, and who became life-long friends. The courage you displayed as a youngster wanting to read and write, made me think of my childhood and its clinical depression, which I sublimated with pen and paper, and later typewriter and paper! <br /><br />I, too grew up with a love of science, and a woman who was my mentor until her demise in 2005 was the first woman on the faculty at CalTech. "Private field trips" to CalTech to see early "atom smashers", plus my dad's encouragement led me to become a physics major. What happened? My professor in my first physics class told me and my best friend (who was from Brooklyn, a far away and "exotic" place in my mind)that "there was no future in scientific fields for GIRLS!" I was mortified, and changed my major to journalism, one of the top schools being right there at the Grady School of Journalism at the Univeristy of Georgia, where I was attending.<br />It is so sad to think back at how my professor was such a bully! (Which you discuss in your next essay.) I wish I'd had more of a backbone in those days! But during all that "turmoil" of a 17-year-old college freshman, I never put down my pen and paper, or my typewriter...I just kept writing on, even though I didn't have a scrap of paper with the autograph of a famous 20th Century playwright! Kate, you're nothing short of amazing! SusieAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3100630131091788042.post-80547310928988287232011-12-01T20:05:42.566-08:002011-12-01T20:05:42.566-08:00Miss Copeland has always been my ideal of a teache...Miss Copeland has always been my ideal of a teacher--the one I remember when I think of the very concept of "teacher". God bless her!<br />I think you should write a play next.<br />JaneJThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04772572574204408585noreply@blogger.com