“Ut Italiam laeti Latiumque petamus”

“Beth, would you mind reading the next few lines and translating them for us?”

I first performed brain surgery before I learned how to drive. I vividly remember guiding a slender, metal scalpel and the thin trail of red that followed.

When I broke the news to my volunteer team, we were in a church basement, cleaning up after the final event of the summer. I tried to downplay it.

I was in 9th grade the first time I stumbled upon a copy of Newsweek.

0x=0. This expression of mathematical mockery tells me that I know nothing; ambiguity pervades my world.

I’m better at writing other people’s stories than I am at writing my own.

Languages have played a central role in my life.

The summer after my freshman year, I found myself in an old class- room holding a blue dry-erase marker, realizing what should have been obvious: I had no idea how to be a teacher.

Canvass the people who know me—friends, family, teammates—and I’m certain they would all agree on one description of me. I’m a good student. I’d offer that label up myself.