I'm grateful for good friends and neighbors who watch my house and get my mail and newspapers while I am gone. :)
I'm also grateful for the week-long trip that I took with my American Foundations team to Washington, DC this past week. It was amazing and I loved the interesting intellectual and not-so-intellectual discussions that we had all week long. Here we are on the steps of the Supreme Court.
 |
| Steps in front of Supreme Court, Washington, DC, October 22, 2014 |
I really appreciated the talks that I had with my seatmates on my two separate flights. I normally spend the time reading a book, but this time I just struck up some really interesting conversations. One woman, Cindy, worked for/with Samsung and I learned some cool new things about my phone from her as well as some of their other products (did you know that they did ultrasound?). But we also talked about books and apps and games for our tablets and all sorts of interesting things.
On my second flight, I talked to Hal, who has had an amazing and interesting life. He has invented some revolutionary techniques for discovering hidden print on old or damaged manuscripts or even things in photographs. He has actually invented quite a few things. He even came up with an idea for something new while we were talking! He had brought a project with him that he intended to spend the 3.5 hours on the plane doing, but we spent nearly 3 hours talking. However, he said that our conversation was so mentally stimulating that it made the words and creative juices flow that he was able to finish his work much more quickly even though he only had just over 30 minutes to work on it! It was really interesting talking to him about his life and how he ended up involved in the various projects that he was doing and how, despite an undiagnosed learning disability (ADD), he was able to become a doctor and an inventor in various fields, including his hobbies. It was actually his interests in so many fields that has helped him to invent things as he uses cross-overs from the various fields to inspire applications in a completely different field. With my background in physics and economics, we actually had a great opportunity to talk about a large variety of topics, some with overlapping knowledge or familiarity with the topic. I also talked a little bit about my research with gap year students and he was able to apply it to his personal life and to his son who is trying his best to decide what to do after high school and is considering taking a gap year. Anyway, it is hard to describe, but it was a great conversation that flowed fluidly for several hours. I hope to be able to share his story of success with some of my students who struggle and don't always get As in their classes, but to know that doesn't mean anything or even dictate their fate.
I'm also grateful to my Primary class. I love those guys. They are just so great! Several of them have told me that they are planning to stop by my place on Halloween night for trick-or-treating and I am excited because I didn't get very many trick-or-treaters last year!
I'm grateful to my great home teachers who invited me over for lunch today. It was delicious and the conversation and company was great.
I'm grateful to my friend Julie who also came by. It was great to chat with her for an hour and to catch up with each other's lives a little bit. It's good to have some familiar faces here in Rexburg that also know my life in Ithaca.
I'm grateful for the midsingles group here in Rexburg that gets together to do fun things - not that I have done any, but tomorrow night we will have FHE. Last time I went a couple weeks ago, there were only 5 of us there, but we had such fun and we laughed and laughed. Laughter is a good thing.
Okay, that's enough for now, but I hope to share more tomorrow or very soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment