And now for something completely different…

I’m nine months into learning hand lettering, and in the last few weeks I’ve moved from modern calligraphy to blackletter calligraphy. I don’t typically post any of that here because it’s not book related. But…

…It’s my blog and I’ll post what I want to. Not that anyone is complaining, I imagine.

So to help myself practice Fraktur today, I used a random word generator. As I practiced the letters for the word below, I thought about a number of advantages I have, just on the regular. A subset of that is advantages I have had as a reader over the years.

I have the advantage of spending so much time reading with teenagers. It’s given me a perspective on young adult literature that’s informed by the conversations I had with them.

I had the opportunity to travel to a convention last year for work and I made friends with English teachers from other states who I’m excited to get to present with (at that same conference) this year.

There’s more, but I’m going to stop there. I spent my evening reflecting on how thankful I am for the advantages I’ve had over the past year. It helps to remember that while life is challenging in so many ways, there are small pockets of that which does not suck. It’s important to me, because I have a tendency to get stuck in my own head, to remember what’s good.

If you made it this far, thank you. Feel free to leave your own reflection on “advantages” in the comments.