Returning to normal...

After spending Friday, February 10th at the NASA Ames Research Center it has taken me several days to "return to normal."  I'm reminded of when I first heard the audio version of "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" -- there is a spot where the space ship's abnormalities affect the crew and after a correction has been made, the ship's computer announces, that "all systems have been returned to normal, any abnormalities from this point forward are merely your own."

That's how I felt as the day at NASA progressed. I was so excited about all of the people that I met that were among the 72 attendees; but also, the people from NASA Ames that were our presenters. These were specialists in their fields and they were spening their precious time to explain to us about their discoveries and their missions. These were the top in their field.

As we sat in the visitor's center for Ames, surrounded by examples and exhibits of the vast accomplishments of NASA centers around the globe, then a screen filled with the information from the Keplar; SOFIA and other missions that we had been allowed to come together for the details and information. It was truly what one person labelled, "a geek fest". But never had a "tweetup" geek fest occureda t this location. We were the first. (There had been previous "tweetup's at NASA, Florida; but this was the first one for Ames!)

After listening to not only the science behind Keplar, Astrobiology and SOFIA; when heard the passion that each of these scientists offered us about their mission or their whole body of work. This excitement in their voices and their presentations as well as their body language carried over to their teams as well. As we travelled by bus after lunch to the various mission offices, we saw and heard this same excitement and passion from the team members. They were excited in what they were doing. They were excited that we were there to hear their story and could have possibly talked for hours on end to us, but the day was packed full of hands-on demonstrations, presentations and visual effects that for this writer overwhelmed me with not only the amount of information and data that I was receiving but the quality of the visual, emotional and instructional informaiton. For the first time in a very long time, my brain was full!

I was experiencing such an overwhelming amount that it was hard at first to digest and compartamentalize the information for later retrieval. My whole purpose in going was to bring back to my classroom the information and excitement so that they could see how exciting science and technology is and how pertinent and important this is in their world, now and beyond.

Now that it's almost been a week, I'm just now working on the several hundred photos, hours of video and returning to "normal" -- but I'm still excited to spread the passion and the excitement to not only  my students, but throughout my school and even farther to make sure that we get students today to experience that science, technology, engineering and mathemathics are NOT boring, but where they can do more than reach for the stars, they can hunt and find new planets!

Thanks, NASA Ames for such a great mind-strectching event!

Don