I was so tired when I woke up this morning; probably the after-effect of so much stress and study yesterday.\u00a0 Still, I had to drag my butt out of bed because today was another field trip.\u00a0 This time, I\u2019d be taking foreign exchange students plus host families to the Tech Museum of San Jose.<\/p>\n
As was the case on Tuesday, we took public transportation.\u00a0 I felt like an old pro at this public transportation thing, which is funny because up until Tuesday, I hadn\u2019t taken public transportation anywhere in California for 10 years (Though my heavy use of public transportation in Europe, NYC and DC helped considerably).\u00a0 Because I was a sudden pro at all this, the Vice Principal who accompanied us (super nice gal!) asked me lead the group to and from the Tech Museum.\u00a0 Maybe she shouldn\u2019t have.\u00a0 The two of us were having such a nice conversation on the Light-rail that I lost sight of where we were.\u00a0 We were supposed to get off at \u201cConvention Center,\u201d I looked up at one point, saw the word \u201cCenter\u201d on the sign, and we got off.\u00a0 It turned out to be \u201cCivic Center,\u201d about two miles from our destination.\u00a0 Fortunately, there was another tram only 10 minutes later and we still arrived at the museum precisely at 10AM when it opened.<\/p>\n
To start things off, the Tech Museum had all the 10AM groups participate in the \u201cworld\u2019s largest earthquake drill\u201d (on 10\/18 at 10:18AM).\u00a0 All schools in California and many in the US, and some in the rest of the world participated at the same time.\u00a0 The announcer said that 9.3 million people (students mostly) would be participating in California alone.\u00a0 At precisely 10:18, we all huddled under tables, cheered, and then went to the museum.\u00a0 To me, it seemed like a waste of 20 minutes (of our two hour stay), but it definitely was a unique experience, and it was sort of exciting to be a part of something so big.<\/p>\n
My group of eight headed downstairs to the \u201cEarthquake\u201d exhibit so the kids could experience what an earthquake felt like.\u00a0 For some reason, they weren\u2019t impressed with the 45 second 8.7 magnitude Tokyo quake that we simulated.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell you though, having been through the Loma Prieta quake in 1989 (6.9 for 15 seconds), they would have been really impressed (if not dead) had this \u201cTokyo\u201d quake happened here… maybe at 10:18.<\/p>\n
From that point on, we marched through all the exhibits for the next hour and a half.\u00a0 I tried to show them my area of expertise, semiconductors, but the exhibit was more conceptual than visual, so they didn\u2019t care.\u00a0 Nor did they particularly care that we were in \u201cSilicon Valley;\u201d whatever was inside their technology was \u201cmagic\u201d as far as they are concerned, and it didn\u2019t concern them so long as their technology worked.<\/p>\n
From what I understand, two students had made a special trip to see the Googleplex (and Stanford), but the other 20 foreign exchange students just wanted to hang out with each other, shop and eat.\u00a0 This is so different from last year\u2019s group, which was definitely college-focused and fairly aware of our Bay’s unique place in the world.<\/p>\n
Lunch at Mezcal was amazing.\u00a0 Most (including me) had two plates of food at the buffet they had set up just for us.\u00a0 After that, we made it back to school, walked home, and then our two foreign exchange kids went back to school to see the carnival and hang out with their friends.\u00a0 I went to my evening classes dragging a bit, hoping there would be coffee when I got there (there was\u2026 and cake!).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was so tired when I woke up this morning; probably the after-effect of so much stress and study yesterday.\u00a0 Still, I had to drag my butt out of bed because today was another field trip.\u00a0 This time, I\u2019d be … Continue reading