More From My Career River

In 2002, after completing two photojournalism internships, I (with the guidance of News & Observer VP George McCanless) proposed my own job as a photocolumnist. I wanted to feature celebrations in order to highlight the increased diversity in the Triangle, as evidenced by the disaggregated data from the 2000 census. Below are the samples I compiled. The paper accepted my proposal and agreed to create the position for me. Plot twist: Instead, I accepted a role to elevate the photojournalism at three local papers under the N&O umbrella and execute the vision of a rebrand in which they would be combined into one: The Eastern Wake News.

In the first quarter of the 2008-2009 school year at the American School of Dubai, I decided to do an experiment: I would do yoga with one of my AP Language & Composition classes but not the other. At the end of the year, I’d compare their test scores to see if there was a difference. That lasted about a week. The other AP Lang class wanted yoga too, and the girls even brought shorts to put on under their uniforms for class. On the day of the test, both classes did yoga together on the schoolyard prior to the exam. The counselor said he’d never seen a group of students so calm before an AP test in all of his years. Result: At least 50 percent of my students scored 4s (very well qualified) and 5s (extremely well qualified) on the exam that spring. I was hired, apparently, to teach those kids to write. Seems like it worked.