Kathy Cook:  

Life Hi. I am still in the area where I was reared and consider myself to be lucky for many reasons. I am the English Department "chair" at a family-owned after-school Enrichment Center 5 min. from my condo. Believe it or not (?), I live alone with my companion birds, Charlie and Lucy. I write poetry and am getting back into my music (guitar and keyboard, tho not at the same time...yet?) My mother passed away in 1972 while I was living and working in Yosemite, backpacking, writing poetry, playing my guitar, and taking pictures. I doubt she could understand why I was not pursuing a teaching career more aggressively after graduating from Berkeley. After many relationships and experiences and losses, I was able to find a niche of sorts back in L.A., first as an office temp, then as a substitute teacher, then as an ESL instructor during the Amnesty program. It seemed like whenever I found a position I liked as a teacher of sorts, the funding got cut, so I worked as a sub for many of the local school districts and found it not only challenging much of the time but impossible (to control behavior) most of the time. My father followed my mother 20 years later, so I returned to Fullerton College to learn the computer and started studying law during the O.J. trial. I eventually attained a degree in Paralegal Studies, but found tutoring t...Expand for more