As the sun sinks, my brow furrows and the jeans start to heat up my legs. I’m sitting at a large open window in bookbar of Denver. Their extended hours have lured me here from the loft. Occasionally my hand cramps and I get up to go to the bathroom to relieve my bladder and my knuckles from the stress of writing notes. I lower the shade; the sun eventually sinks; I raise the shade again.
The focus feels familiar. I remember studying and taking notes, furiously filling binders and engaging my more senior co workers in casual discussions about tool theory and science. These days, I’m taking notes on decision making, probabilities, resources, economics, and math problems. It’s a new world, but it’s not really. I took my first grad school exam today and felt alright about it. It dawned on me that I haven’t been studying after dark. This similar phenomenon occurred in Qatar- where I wouldn’t go out with friend or work out or leave my bed once the sun went down (which is at or before 6:30 all year long). In short, I decided to consciously force myself to study later in the day, and hence my new existence at this “book bar”. I’d almost forgotten the feeling of accomplishing something cool when I checked my email between taking notes.
I got promoted at my science teaching job! While teaching science is not my primary focus of being here, it feels good to know I am doing a good job. It’s not just a fun job where I play with kids, I believe getting kids into science is extremely important. This week, I taught my kids about mirrors and optical illusions. I let them draw on the board and demonstrate how convex and concave mirrors worked. Lately, the kids see me and want to remind me of what we learned earlier. Currently, 7 and 8 year olds are using words such as “sinusoidal”, “oxidation”, and “polymer”. It makes my heart float to hear them want to tell me how much they remember from each lesson.
Economics are great, but science is something else.
rigtales 