My First Advanced Academy

What an incredibly fun and relaxing week I had with my first Advanced team! Not only did I have a team, but I also worked up on flight deck of the orbiter we use for Advanced teams. So, I not only had the opportunity to get to see my team, but I also got to work with a good portion of the other kids. I went into the week, with the help of H, planning on just being chill about things and rolling with the punches. So, highlights of my week in nice bullet point form:

• Having a group of 15 kids from Singapore, 1 from India, and 1 from America. 
  Talk about a mixed group. While most of my kids were from Singapore, they worked together like I have never seen before. It was truly an amazing experience! They made my week incredibly easy with me only threatening once that they were not getting dinner. < Story with that, we went over our rocket building time. We were nearly 30 minutes late to dinner. It was actually quite funny to witness.
• Having kids WANT to learn about space. Most of the kids I encountered this week truly did want to learn about space, which is a nice change.
• Meet Diablo. . . He decided he wanted to join in on the fun of low ropes course. Needless to say, he only hung around for a bit before him and a rake got acquainted. No worries, he was just moved out of ropes/kid area. THANK GOODNESS!
• It is amazing how fast I can just learn to go with it and do things I am not comfortable doing. There were times this week when I was so nervous about messing something up or being thought that I had no idea what I was doing. I quickly learned I was not the only person that felt that way and that I should just go with it. This is the first time I have taught flight deck to kids that were not mine and it was nerve wracking the first time, but after the 10th? Nope! Not anymore! Running a 3 hour mission in Mission Control? Kind of scary, but everyone made it through. Lighting rockets built by high schoolers with “D” engines into the air? TERRIFYING, but super entertaining! This job makes you a veteran fast!!
• I thought it was me and it is, but it really depends on the kids. For the past few months, I have really thought hard about my decision to move down here. For Pete’s sake, I changed my major because I DID NOT want to work with kids and now here I am. Working with older kids is SO different than working with the younger ones. Again, it was almost like not working at all. It was amazing!
• I am looking at the future everyday, but I really saw it in these kids. Thinking about specific kids I worked with this past week makes me smile inside. I KNOW I will be seeing them being successful in whatever they do, whether it is space related or not. These kids were amazing and it was such a pleasure to work with them! In ten years, I will remember them and wonder where they are in life.

Again, this week was amazing! I could not have asked for a better first Advanced Academy week to work. It is going to be hard to switch gears and work with younger kids the next few weeks. That is one of the hardest parts about this job, I have found. Oh well, such is life.

Have a GREAT Tuesday!! PS, the workouts are going great and I was able to dive in the UAT Tank tonight! Fun times!!