Kendall Defoe
Bio
Teacher, reader, writer, dreamer... I am a college instructor who cannot stop letting his thoughts end up on the page. No AI. No Fake Work. It's all me...
And I did this:
Stories (824)
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Why You Don’t Need to Watch the News
It is soon to be summer again, our third one since the lockdown and arrival of Covid-19, and we all feel the need to relax, stretch and take time off from work and responsibilities if we can. We need to step away from the noise of our lives and consider what is real and what matters.
By Kendall Defoe 4 years ago in FYI
The End of a Semester
I am very grateful for my job. It allows me to make many mistakes with my schedules and course plans, feel dread at the prospect of seeing certain faces in my classes (more than once a week, sometimes), and combat the narrow thoughts of other teachers who make my comments feel like timid dancers in a verbal minefield. These are very rare gifts, and the fact that I am paid for all of these privileges is sugar thrown on honey. A part of me knows that I do not deserve any of it, but I cannot stay away. I need the benefits.
By Kendall Defoe 4 years ago in Confessions
A Trip to California
There was one thing we did on the road that still surprises me. The white nurse in our van was sitting in the front passenger side and noticed a black hitchhiker. This was in the Midwest and it made me wonder how he ended up in an area where he could have been picked up and jailed as a vagrant. There was some argument about stopping the car for him (not a general vote, but not much support on the nay side). There were six of us, if I consider myself as a potential combatant (Natalie alone could have talked him to death), and that was also on mind. But we still wondered about what would happen for the rest of our trip.
By Kendall Defoe 4 years ago in Wander
Ten Reasons Why Literature Is Better Than Music
1. Formats It is very easy to sit back and open up an old paperback or a hardcover book and enjoy it. It is not so easy to do the same with old technology. It demands constant updating. To wear an old orange-foam headset plugged into an original tape-only Sony Walkman and expect to be treated fairly in a world of iPods and various other shrunken portable devices is a sad dream. The humiliation of not being up to date with your technology is immediate and palpable.
By Kendall Defoe 4 years ago in Confessions
A Trip to California
I felt it when we crossed the border. That sounds ridiculous, but I did feel something when we crossed the Peace Bridge into New York. It may have been the heat or the thrill of being in a strange vehicle on a road trip to a place I did not know, but I remember a sensation of pressure in my head and on my body, like I was changing atmospheres. I know now that this was also a sensation of fear. What would the trip in this van, with at least four people I did not know, involve? Would we be safe in America (a concern that would be a real problem for me in California, as I will explain eventually)? Did they have the food I liked to eat, the TV shows I liked to watch? I only half understood my own feelings at the time.
By Kendall Defoe 4 years ago in Wander
A Trip to California
Note: these entries originally appeared on a blog that I had many years ago (it was called In My Head). I have decided to (re)introduce these pieces to the public on this page. Maybe some of you will be amused, shocked, or at least moved by my story.
By Kendall Defoe 4 years ago in Wander
Early Morning
Note: This particular poem refers to a very difficult period in my life. I lost my father when I was ten years old - two days before Christmas on the very day when he was to be released - and we returned to the Caribbean to bury him. I thought about those dogs, the heat, and the general oddity of myself as neither a West Indian nor a Canadian during my time there.
By Kendall Defoe 4 years ago in Poets
Mask Pretty
I have noticed an interesting phenomenon with our new normal. For those of you who have stubbornly refused to wear a mask once during the last two years of Covid restrictions, you might have missed out something that began to notice at least one year into things. So, your loss...and maybe my gain?
By Kendall Defoe 4 years ago in Confessions
The End of an Error
It has been some time since I have written here. I look back at my ninety-plus stories here and wonder what it all will lead to; how far I can go with these ideas and basic brain droppings. There are other pages I contribute to, and I have other responsibilities and ideas in front of me. But I cannot ignore something that has happened recently at my place of work. I cannot just sit here and head into another weekend with papers to mark, laundry to clean and my general routine when I have free time.
By Kendall Defoe 4 years ago in Confessions
