Just before I graduated from college I applied for a position with Teach for America. I had to present a mock lesson as part of my interview. After some thinking, I spent hours preparing exaggerated, colorful pictures of bird legs (think Big Bird) and used the countercurrent multiplier theory from my animal physiology class to explain how birds kept their skinny little legs warm. I was hoping for a high school science position. I did get hired, but to teach kindergarten in rural Louisiana. For many reasons I decided not to take the job. I did save those bird pictures, though, and a part of me will always wonder what life could have been had I taught kindergarten deep in the impoverished south.
Month / October 2010
Porches
I recently returned from a conference in Georgia, about 30 miles outside of Atlanta, and it wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. I was expecting a flat, brown suburban landscape bisected by packed superhighways. And there was a little of that but to my surprise as we drove south from the airport long rolling hills rippled out of the lush trees. Georgia was, in a word, pretty! Most of my time at this conference was indoors, breathing cool, dry, controlled air. The day before I left, though, I was able to get out, walk and even run.
Ginger Mouse 