Mount Saint Helens

I've been working on a new venture the last two weeks, which is one of the reasons blog posts have been so scarce of late.  It's taken up a lot of my time and energy, but I'm really excited about it, and I'm finally ready to talk about it.

I'm in the process of applying to teach at BYU Education Week 2011 2012.  I'm proposing a four-part lecture series on geology:  101 Ways to Die By Volcano (Volcanic Risks and Hazards), The 1980 Eruption of Mount Saint Helens:  Public Response to Disaster Warnings, A History of Gems Through Famous Jewels and Jewel Heists, and Settled Science:  The Evolution of Plate Tectonic Theory.

For the application, you must submit the outlines of your lectures, as well as a video of you giving one of the lectures.  So for the past two weeks, I've been preparing the Mount Saint Helens lecture, and tonight Bradley filmed me giving it before a small group of friends in the Relief Society room in our church.  (And thank you, thank you, all you wonderful people who came to listen to me.  It was so much easier to lecture for you, than it would have been to talk to an empty room!)

I was nervous before the lecture started, despite the fact that I had practiced in front of Bradley last night, and my mom and Telima this afternoon.  (Not to mention the twenty-plus times I gave a version of this lecture to my UVSC students 8-10 years ago.)  But, fortunately, the lecture went pretty smoothly, and I'm feeling fairly satisfied by it.

Applications are due next Friday, and so now I have to work on the outlines of the other lectures.  I won't know until January if my proposal will be accepted.  There's a fairly good chance it won't--straight science lectures aren't the usual fare at BYU Education Week--but I won't know unless I try.  (Bradley and I, because of the computer classes we teach each summer, have several contacts in the Continuing Education department, and before I embarked on this process we asked if they even consider science lectures.  The gentleman in charge said that although they don't have many science lectures submitted, they certainly wouldn't reject one out-of-hand, simply because of the subject material.)

I have had such a great time the past two weeks, immersing myself in volcanology again.  I've missed it!  And I've missed exercising my intellect, which has become somewhat atrophied in the past seven years of child raising.  It's good to get back to something I've loved since I was a little girl.

Here's hoping that the Education Week people like the lecture as much as I've loved preparing for it!