The atmosphere shifts when someone hears that I’m majoring in English. Without fail, the next words to cascade from their lips are, “Why would you willingly choose to read so much for class?”
Their reasoning is that reading is not entertaining – at least not to the degree it was when our books had pictures.

This post was updated Feb. 6 at 6:57 p.m.
Sleep slips away on nights when the Santa Ana winds arrive.
The rosebush thorns outside my bedroom window scrape against the glass like claws, and dust storms dangerously dance above my house.

The California Supreme Court will soon decide the scope of two education data privacy laws.
An appellate court ruled in July that the case J.M. v.