I may not be a rocket scientist...

But at least I got to meet some! Rocket scientists, that is. It's a pretty neat opportunity that I'm getting, actually.

Because of my G.A. position, I was offered the option to attend a workshop that was a joint project between ETSU's Center for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Education, the International Storytelling Center, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on integrating storytelling into science curriculum. Although I'm not actually planning to become a science teacher (economics is my specialty), I accepted the invitation to attend. And I am sooooo glad I did!

Today was the first day of the two-day workshop. It began with resident storyteller Donald Davis opening with a story about his fourth-grade teacher, who took his class on an unforgettable journey around the world. What a way to start the day!

We were soon meeting the NASA scientists who'd journeyed from California to share their stories and information about what they are doing to search for answers about our universe. They spoke about their ongoing project, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft. I'll freely admit that much of the scientific information was over my head, but that fact did not make it any less fascinating (or impressive). We participated in some activities, and were even given a small homework assignment to complete before tomorrow's session.

Definitely, the highlight of my day was eating lunch with a female scientist, Trina, whose passion is one of Saturn's moons, Titan. In addition to being absolutely brilliant, (Of course she is, she works for NASA!) she was a great conversationalist and incredibly friendly. During her portion of the presentation today, she talked about the women who are involved in the project, and something she said really stuck with me. I don't have it memorized word-for-word, but the general gist of it was, "Mediocre men succeed all of the time. We'll know that we've achieved complete equality when women who are mediocre succeed." Interesting thought, huh? I'm still chewing on that one.