aeraustol
Helping your College-Bound High Schooler with the College App Process: What You CAN Do.
I am a college app essay coach, and I need to be reminded of this advice as much as anyone else. I have three children. One is in...
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aeraustol
- Mar 29
- 3 min
Values-Hunting: The Essence of You
Here I go again, preaching about college essays and how to approach them. Here I go again, trying to convince a teenager it's fun and...
30 views0 comments
aeraustol
- Mar 20
- 5 min
The Secret Self, Boring Questions, and College Prep Google Docs.
One of the questions adults often ask teenagers or even young children is "What do you want to do when you grow up?" And in the latter...
40 views0 comments
aeraustol
- Mar 12
- 2 min
I Love Runny Eggs: A College App Brainstorming Exercise
One of my favorite exercises to help ease my college app essay clients out of their heads and into a more safe, creative, authentic space...
40 views1 comment
aeraustol
- Mar 8
- 2 min
Ignore (some) Advice; Precede with Caution
If you google "college essay topics to avoid" you will find things like, personal tragedies, obstacles in sports, immigrant stories,...
51 views0 comments
aeraustol
- Feb 19
- 6 min
Teenage Date Nights and the Left-Behind Barbie
Parenting is one long goodbye. The college app process brings all the layers of this fact, the culmination of all the years of tiny,...
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aeraustol
- Jan 8
- 2 min
Back to Turnbow
I finally did the thing, though not legal yet. Life is so hard and complicated. Waiting for the right time to let go of my married name...
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aeraustol
- Aug 10, 2023
- 13 min
Neighborhood Haunt
“I think this is it,” I said, stopping in front of the door under a green awning. I squinted to be sure I was seeing the number...
59 views0 comments
aeraustol
- Jul 24, 2023
- 1 min
Emerge
I am yesterday. I am today. I am a piece of chocolate cake in the slimy mucus of my belly. I am a leaning-to-ward. A desire. I am hands....
49 views2 comments
aeraustol
- Jun 17, 2023
- 3 min
Broken Record
I woke up to a text from my daughter this morning. "here safe!" the text gleefully proclaimed. My three kids and their dad landed in...
273 views1 comment
aeraustol
- May 25, 2023
- 2 min
I Can't Stop Smiling
I can’t stop smiling when my son lands his side rails. When a whole room of boys cheer for one. One kid wears a flat billed hat and jeans...
47 views0 comments
aeraustol
- May 2, 2023
- 1 min
Don't Get Me Started
Don't get me started about orgasms organics plastics politics probiotics chickens chattel chill out. Don’t get me started about those who...
71 views1 comment
aeraustol
- Apr 3, 2023
- 1 min
Exit 21 Maple
Yesterday when I drove off Exit 21, the Maple that had been deep red had faded into the color of rust. For weeks, I have loved her...
42 views0 comments
aeraustol
- Jan 15, 2023
- 3 min
Speaking of Trees
Sometimes my brother and I pressed our foreheads against the window in our mother's office and watched the college students in the...
79 views0 comments
aeraustol
- Oct 18, 2022
- 1 min
Cario, Egypt
Something about the Islamic prayer Reverberating in the dusty boney dog and cat infested sweet potato food cart courtyard outside the...
60 views3 comments
aeraustol
- Aug 30, 2022
- 1 min
YOU WOULDN'T KNOW
If I didn’t write this poem, you wouldn’t know the hum of my dishwasher, the way one dish clinks against another, the strum of my son’s...
93 views1 comment
aeraustol
- Jun 3, 2022
- 7 min
An Old Story Told By A Magical Boy
The Looking Tree Originally Published in Rock and Sling in 2015 A little boy sits in a tree, waiting for the bus to bring his sister...
132 views1 comment
aeraustol
- Feb 3, 2021
- 6 min
Teenage Writers, Poetry Readings and What Matters
Mona, my high school senior AP English teacher, used to say that her dog was smarter than her students. She described how her dog would...
50 views0 comments
aeraustol
- Dec 7, 2020
- 3 min
A Swirl of Truth and Fiction
Lately, I'm trying to lean into what is rather than what I want. I wish I could make that a very active, confident sentence. "I am...
80 views1 comment
aeraustol
- Oct 15, 2020
- 2 min
Help with The Next Right Step
Let me just get right to the point. Do you know someone who needs help with college application essays? Are they stressed about writing...
72 views0 comments
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