expanding your horizons

Today, I dragged myself out of bed waaaaaaaaaaay too early for a Saturday morning, justso I could drive to Denton to talk to 6th, 7th, and 8th grade girls about my (soon-to-be-former) job as a Web geekette.

The name of the program is Expanding Your Horizons, and I first became acquainted with the program two years ago, when I accepted an invitation to speak. A good friend at TWU recruited me to participate, and when they called this year to see if I’d do it again, I happily agreed.

You might think I do this sort of thing for a good resume entry, but to be honest, I have never remembered to put it on there. In truth, there are many things I do of this nature — volunteering to talk to people, helping out, etc. — that I never think to add to my resume. For me, the appeal is just in the fun of spending a Saturday morning (though I’d much rather it have been in the afternoon, honestly) potentially making an impact on the lives of very impressionable young women… a cause about which I feel deeply.

I taught three 45-minute sessions with about 24 girls apiece, as well as some straggler parents and teachers. They were all pretty much attentive, interested, and seemed to have a good time. Some of the other presenters had really cool props — skeletons and the like, even — so I was a bit afraid my “presentation” (as it were) would be boring. And maybe, by comparison, it sorta was. I dunno — I didn’t see any of the others.

Still, I thought it was pretty good. It was one of my much-beloved opportunities to “teach” (in a sense), and was yet another reminder in a long lifetime of clues that I am not built for teaching K-12. I do, however, have buckets upon buckets of respect and admiration for those who can.

On another subject, we managed to completely forget about the opening ceremony to the Olympics, but I had a chance to watch a few things today on TV. It felt appropriate, as today was the coldest day of 2006 thus far in Dallas. The Olympics are so much fun to watch… hope you’re enjoying them, too! 🙂