Week 1

Hello all!

So, I survived week one of my new job. It's hard to believe that means that I am already 1/8 of the way through this internship. This week we experienced the program as fifth graders and were taught all the lessons by our boss. It ended up being a lot of fun! It was definitely a stretch for my imagination after spending the last year in very science-oriented atmospheres but it was also a lot of fun. The Sunship Earth program is very based on teaching general and reinforcing them with activities. The kids are supposed to explore more specific examples on their own. This coming week we are practicing being the teacher. I am excited about learning this part of the program, but also nervous. I think I will learn a lot being a teacher here, but I am not sure that teaching is something that will come naturally for me.

Life in Ohio has been fairly busy. We are very close to Ohio Wesleyan University and Delaware has a nice downtown area with some cool shops/restaurants. On Friday night Gilda and I headed there for their First Friday festivities. It was mostly geared towards families but it was still nice to walk around downtown and see all the people.

Yesterday we were shown around Columbus by one of the ladies who is on the board and volunteers at Stratford. We visited the New Market, an indoor market that had lots of different food choices and a farmer's market. It was a very cool atmosphere. I have been impressed with the pride people take in their local community here, eating and buying local seems to be important to a lot of people. We saw a topiary garden in Columbus where the topiaries are designed to look like Seurat's famous painting (A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jette) and went to a book store with I think 39 rooms of books. We drove around OSU campus, it is enormous! The football stadium is massive and we drove past the fields where I played in Nationals for ultimate in 2009. It was a fun day and I could easily go back to Columbus each weekend and discover something new to do.

Today I am planning to play ultimate, last week it didn't work out because pick up is on Sunday not Wednesday. I am hoping the weather holds out because its supposed to rain today. Wish me luck!