A Wandering WeyrCat...

While on vacation in Apalachicola my family visited the "ice machine museum", according to the sign outside. While that doesn't sound very thrilling, what's inside is way more interesting. Sign first: The Florida Heritage Landmark reads: Dr. John Gorrie (1803-1855) was an early pioneer in the invention of the artificial manufacture of ice, refrigeration, and air conditioning. He was granted the first U.S. patent for mechanical refrigeration on May 6, 1851 (U.S. Patent No. 8080). Dr. Gorrie moved to Apalachicola in 1833 after the completion of his education at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District of New York in Fairfield, New York. Motivated by a severe yellow fever epidemic in the summer of 1841, Dr. Gorrie and his predecessors felt the fever was caused by heat, humidity and decaying vegetation. He sought to effect a cure by introducing and element of cold in the form of refrigeration. Dr. Gorrie noted, "Nature would terminate...

We interrupt this regularly scheduled school-night for this news: Lindsey Stirling totally rocks in concert. If you have no idea who this is, take a moment to educate yourself: We just got back from seeing her in Fort Lauderdale, and it was awesome. She's so cool. I didn't take any photographs or video, since I knew anything I would have taken would be crud compared to what I could find, and besides that I'd SEEN photos and videos of her, I wanted to see her in concert! So I did. Absolutely must share this outfit she wore for the first "set" though. White satin asymmetric riding jacket with white feather trim on one flank and black sequins elsewhere. Just a fantastic piece. It was buttoned up the left abs with a huge black brooch. Absolutely adored it. She also wore a white dress for Song of the Caged Bird, and the bustle was made of feathers! Way pretty. It was so lovely hearing her sing in person. She also wore a brocade hood an...

Today was my first “Field Observation” day at * High School. It was very cool to be placed at the same school I did the internship at, AND get to go back to the science department. The school doesn't have to let me observe in my field. When I saw Ms. C (who I interned with) she yelled “YAY! OUR INTERN'S BACK!” She's so funny! I had been trying to sneak in to not disturb the class, and she'd seen me earlier and knew I was coming. The kids seemed to think my being back was pretty cool. “Took you long enough!” I think maybe they think I was on semester break or something. Too bad I'll only be here three days this time. I got to observe in Mrs. R's class too. She's a dedicated Earth-Space Science teacher and the classes I saw were only regular (not honors). She was busy preparing Data Chats with the students in a one-on-one setting, which of course left the students to be as wild as they could get away with, even though R has a Co-teacher. Neither co-teacher ...

SO BUSY! Ok, this year might be a "once a month" year! I'm taking 18 credits (that's six classes) so I'm REALLY busy. My life is consumed with that shelf of books in the photo (and the two I added in because they're digital or weren't present). One of the books I had to read for school was Longitude by Dava Sobel. Absolutely loved it. Story of John Harrison, the man who solved "the longitude problem" by designing a non-spring wound pocketwatch immune to the elements at sea, all while being hounded and harassed by astronomers. It's a riveting book and I really recommend it. I plan on stealing time to read a book by the same author on Galileo . If you get really curious what I've been up to, I have a "teaching blog" now that I update for school every Sunday. Currently the articles are works I did for my Intro to Ed class last semester, but I think next week might be when this semesters posts start going up. Mainly informa...