Lessons learned

I can admit now, in retrospect, that traveling for a conference in a different city at 8.5 months pregnant was kind of nutso. I know I’m not the only modern woman who refuses to entertain the idea that pregnancy and childbirth need interfere with career or life wants in any way. Amiright? I also think that I happened to start some exponential pregnancy growth right around the time my flight left.  

For reals, though, it was very hard to walk around Seattle whilst in the sweaty, swollen, breath-challenged, acid reflux, no-sleep pregnancy stage. Walking several blocks felt like an absolute chore. To reward myself for just making it to the conference every day (even if it was 10 am), I ate lots of crepes! I was on a one-a-day crepe binge (sometimes two!) and always Nutella/banana (for the health of the baby). It was marvelous, and I think I need to visit the creperie in downtown San Jose more often. 

The WA state convention center reminded me of a train station.

It did have dangling lights, which was nice.

One of the plenary lectures I heard was so up my alley, I could not contain myself—it started off with a discussion of whether the study of parallel universes should be relegated to philosophy or science and then proceeded to make the case for why it is firmly in the science category. He then blew my mind open with a reframing of unification (time before the universe expanded) and a comparison of the rate of inflation to the growth of a child (“if a baby had the same growth rate throughout gestation, birth would be an even more unpleasant experience”).

 Cosmic background radiation map of our universe with a smiley-face over it (!!!!!).  Also, Planck!

As an aside, I met another science teacher who majored in both science/philosophy. This is only the second one I’ve ever met (and both were physics majors), but I will say this—they are truly a more aristocratic breed (if I do say so myself), and different than the others. They also really take to me (duh, people of my flock) and are just about a million times more interesting to me than other people who have backgrounds in science. In fact, if I were ruler (dictator) of all science education initiatives, I would make it mandatory for science majors to take logic, and at least two other foundational philosophy courses (maybe the ancient Greeks and ethics?).

I took this picture after I sat through a talk that I did not understand at all (I just wrote down the title in my notes, with no notes after it!!).

On the third day, I decided to that I needed to at least walk to Pike Place Market, since it was six blocks away from the hotel. I did so, but neglected to calculate the round trip and associated walking around the market blockage and found myself saddled with intense uterine cramps after the ordeal (which took hours, as I move like a sloth). After that, I decided staying within a 3 block radius of my bed was about my limit. 

I returned late Thursday night and taught a very sleep deprived lesson on electron configuration on Friday, which was probably the most boring lesson I have ever in my life given--so boring that I just gave them a 10 minute break in the middle of it out of shame. They are such good sports about it all and they did learn how to do it (pretty basic and dry), but I was not on my A game. And with that, I have only SEVEN more working days until maternity leave! The purging of our house has already begun—this new baby might have no toys to play with when I’m through because we have so many stuffed animals (why?) and their uselessness is causing me to see every toy as equally pointless.