Welcome to the second season of I Swear on My Mother’s Grave podcast. In this episode, we go back to my mom's former classroom at Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream, Illinois, where she taught honors biology for over 20 years. She retired in 1996, and trust me when I say that the room looked like a time capsule—completely the same as it was when she left. I'm not exaggerating!

My guest, Mandy Walsh, was one of my mom's students. Join us as we both see the classroom again for the first time in years, then sit in tiny classroom desks among test tubes and lab tables to talk with Deb Cartwright, one of the school’s assistant principals and a former mentee of my mom’s. We chat about my mother's fashion sense and what it's like to grapple with burnout and career identity as a woman. Plus: a poem written by Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins resurfaces (because my mom must have somehow known this particular student of hers would become famous)! And ... did my mom drink her own urine? It’s still a mystery.

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