This blessedness of life sometimes brings me to my knees *
Life has been pretty kickass these last few days. I spent Thursday and Friday at a wetlands education workshop with my friend S, which was a blast. Learned lots of cool stuff, met some cool people, and spent some time outside on two beautiful days. I came back feeling really recharged.
Adding to the fabulousness, there was an earthquake on Friday morning. As it was going on and I was waking up, I thought, "Damn, S's house shakes a lot in the wind." Then, "No, that's gotta be a mine blast." Then, "No WAIT. EARTHQUAKE." As I came fully awake, my phone rang and it was the bibliophile, and as soon as I saw her number on the caller ID, I knew for certain it had been an earthquake. Why else would she be calling me at 5:30 AM (4:30 her time)??
On Saturday, I spent the whole work day in workshops with 15 extremely awesome 4th - 6th grade girls. We studied optical illusions and made silly putty and slime and wired circuits and built bridges out of straws and paperclips. The girls were amazing. They were enthusiastic, intelligent, and basically proved that inquiry-based learning can be fantastic. While making slime (glue + water + a spoonful of saturated borax solution), one of the girls asked why adding an additional liquid to the glue / water mix makes it less liquidy. Then, when one group got done assembling their circuit, they asked, "What would happen if we took our stuff and hooked it up to the other group's stuff?" So we let them hook two circuit kits together. By the end, they had hooked all seven circuit kits into a giant loop and got the buzzers to work.
After that they spent nearly an hour assembling their bridges, which were then tested to see how many marbles they could hold suspended in a bucket before collapsing. The winning bridge (prize: bragging rights) held 147 marbles -- all the marbles we had. The girls were ecstatic, and I left work remembering why I love my job and feeling inspired to keep looking for new programs and new ideas to keep kids engaged in this crazy world of ours.
Oh, and last night? Kitters came into the kitchen to sing for his supper, and Indy followed. He sat down about 12 inches away from the cat, and nobody tried to eat anybody else's face! Miracle!
Here's a semi-crappy video of Indy giving MB a high five and a handshake. He's been living with us for six days, people. My friends who have dogs tell me this means we're in trouble:
Wow that earthquake must have been something. I feel like I missed something cause I didnt feel it here in NYC.
ReplyDeleteI remember the last earthquake we had, about two Februaries ago. It was about 9 at night, and I'd just climbed into bed with the portable DVD player and Season One of Grey's Anatomy. I put the DVD in and started up the player and thought, "Damn, that's a powerful little motor on this thing, the whole bed's shaking." Then I realized it was an earthquake. Cool! I wanted to tell the girls that's what we just felt, but they were staying at their dad's that weekend. Bummer. When I got to work the next week, I saw the seismograph output for it. Amazing. (Science geeks, unite.)
ReplyDeletewere you up for the big aftershock the other night around 12:30? it was pretty impressive in it's own right.
ReplyDeleteI missed the aftershock :P So out of three earthquakes, I've only noticed one. Not very good for a geology major! ;)
ReplyDeleteOh yes, they're going to come take your diploma away any minute. ;) / :p
ReplyDeleteDon't feel too bad, I didn't feel them either. :P
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