I received my BA in Literature from the University of California at San Diego with a minor in Chemistry and French and then joined the air force.  They trained me as a Communications-Electronics officer down in Biloxi, Mississippi for nine months and sent me to Sacramento, California.  I ‘retired’ as a Captain, and then moved with my family to Italy and Germany where I where I substituted for seven years.  When we returned to Virginia, I attended Christopher Newport University where I received my teaching certificate in 1992.  I started my full-time teaching career at Warwick High School in Newport News as a pre-IB 9^th grade teacher.  I attended the Eastern Virginia Writing Project at William and Mary the summer of 1995, to extend my writing experience as both a teacher and a writer.  We moved to Tucson, AZ in 1996 where I taught advanced juniors, freshmen, and seniors for three years and started my Master’s Degree in rhetoric and composition at the University of Arizona.  I moved back to Virginia in 1999 and have been teaching at York High School ever since.  I went to New York in 2001 for International Baccalaureate training and taught York’s first junior and senior IB class.  I have been teaching the 12IB for five years.  I finished up my masters at ODU in 2004, and I’m currently in the PhD program in rhetoric and literature that ODU started in 2006.  I’ve taught all grades, and I’ve been teaching the 11Adv. 10 Adv, and 12IB for several years now. I also teach freshman English at Thomas Nelson Community College and have done so for two years.  I will enjoy 11 AP English this year.