Killing Mr. Griffin

It's only by facing things that you ever put them behind you. -Mrs. McConnell to Susan

The best things in life are simple. Simple things work. They don't foul up. It's the complicated things that get twisted around on you.

Many of the kids coming into my classes at the university are all but illiterate. You give them a page to read and they can't tell you what's on it. Try teaching them the classics, and they can't pronounce the words. Ask them to write about something, and they can't make complete sentences - much less spell anything over two syllables.

By the time they're in college, it's gone too far. They've had twelve years without disciplined learning and they don't know how to apply themselves. They haven't learned to study or to pace their work so that projects get completed on time. They fall asleep in lectures because they expect to be entertained not educated.

I am not Susan any longer, she thought. I am not the person they know as their daughter and their sister. I am a stranger who has lived through things they could not even imagine and who has changed into someone foreign to them all. They look at me and call me "Sue," and I speak back to them, and they never guess how far away from them I am and how much I miss them.

Anything worth doing is worth striving to perfect. If you are able to do it well, why should you do it halfway?