Emma M.

“Even in okay times, there is a subterranean river of melancholy in me, and sometimes a productive afternoon is comprised of using YouTube videos of varying qualities like divining rods.”
― R. Eric Thomas, Congratulations, The Best Is Over!: Essays

“In every office I’ve worked, word of complimentary cake races through the ranks of the cubicle class like it’s a rumor about the Wells Fargo wagon showing up in River City, Iowa. Free break room cake is a blessing, a gift from some benevolent force that asks nothing of you in return. Free break room cake offers you an opportunity to share a portion of some other person’s joy, both literally and figuratively. In a space built on capitalist power structures, free break room cake reminds you that you don’t need to produce anything to be deserving of a little sweetness.”
― R. Eric Thomas, Congratulations, The Best Is Over!: Essays

“Oh God, to return. To find a way back to yourself, the version of yourself that wanted nothing more than what you have, the version of yourself paralyzed by the fear of living through what you've lived through, the stranger in your story who had just enough hope to make a path for you. But if we could go back, we'd never move forward.”
― R. Eric Thomas, Congratulations, the Best is Over!

“Teachers deserve a well-defined, realistic job description and enough protected school day planning time to fulfill that job within their paid contracted hours.”
― Alexandra Robbins, The Teachers: A Year Inside America's Most Vulnerable, Important Profession