Sol 6: Among the Asteroids

If you were to add up the entire mass of the asteroid belt, the total ends up being just 4% of the mass of the moon. Think about that for a minute. There's roughly 1.9 million asteroids in the asteroid belt and their combined mass is still only 4% of the mass of the moon. That's crazy.

I'm bringing it up because this week in THe SCraWL CENter I had to interact with ACTUAL SPACE ALIENS ON MY OWN. It felt like I was flying among the asteroids in the belt, trying to dodge one and then the next at warp speeds. It was overwhelming. It was intense. But when it was over, I felt alive.

My first interaction was with an alien pupil who was multi-lingual. (As most of the aliens are since they can adjust their dials to whatever language is relevant.) This alien pupil wanted to make sure that his scrawl was coming out as well as his spoken language was. He also wanted assistance in setting up his piece; where is it appropriate to insert personal tidbits in a bit of scrawl? I let him know that there isn't necessarily a correct or incorrect way to do this and that he has options. He could insert personal musings in each paragraph or he could have a section of his paper where he focused on just that. We also would find sentences in his scrawl where the language was a little difficult to decipher. I had asked him what his goal of the sentence was and if the sentence wasn't meeting that goal, I would tell him to revisit it and re-word it so that it could meet his goals.

In my second interaction of the week, I had a pupil who needed assistance in setting up her scrawl. She was feeling overwhelmed and she did not know where to begin. I had asked what she was planning on writing her scrawl on. She had an incredibly broad topic: pollution. I had asked her what specifically about pollution did she want to tackle. She had ended up deciding she wanted to write about the destruction of environmental habitats. I let her know what while this is a little more specific, it's still a pretty broad topic. I told her that we probably want to dig a littler deeper because if a topic is too broad, it's going to take a lot to cover everything and sometimes it's easy to get overwhelmed. I suggested that she continue her research because something more specific might jump out at her. I suggested maybe she could research the destruction of a specific habitat like the rain forest. I wanted to make it clear to this student that if you have a topic that's too broad, it can be difficult to cover every thing necessary and relevant. But on the other side of the spectrum, if you have a topic that's too specific, it can be hard to find information on your topic.

After we discussed choosing a specific topic, I helped her get an idea of setting up her draft. She had an assignment sheet where the alien professor had made a bulleted list of guidelines for what the scrawl should consist of. I suggested the pupil follow this list and make an outline accordingly where each guideline could be a heading and under each, the pupil could list what she wanted to do in order to meet that guideline. I suggested this because once she starts seeing the scrawl slowly come together, it might be easier to actually put it into draft format.

At the end of both sessions I made sure to ask if they were satisfied--I wanted them to leave feeling like their issues were addressed. Both of them said that they were satisfied. The second pupil had come to the appointment feeling stressed but before she left, she had mentioned that she felt a lot better.

I am an astronaut. I have seen what Earth looks like from Mars. I've crash-landed on Martian soil. I've interacted with aliens. I've met the Martian alien space queen. But nothing has made me feel more alive than hearing two pupils breathe a sigh of relief after I've helped them.

Sol 5: Ready

This week, an incredible thing happened on Mars. The fellow aliens in THe SCraWL CENter pooled their resources and made it possible for me to contact NASA. 

I was able to let Commander Pentecost that I crash landed on Mars. Commander Pentecost gave me a new set of directions that essentially entailed taking samples from Mars and coming back home immediately. Crash landing on Mars wasn't exactly giving NASA a great reputation. The engineers at NASA were going to send me a list of directions via satellite on how to fix my ship that crash landed. 

When I let Commander Pentecost that I had no intention of doing such thing, he became very angry with me and understandably so. He said that I could face losing my job but when I had explained that I had discovered life on Mars and not just life but incredibly intelligent life with the capability to communicate with anyone, he had agreed that it was more important for me to stay. He agreed that this was a huge discovery. A Nobel Prize worthy discovery. 

I hadn't even thought of that. This whole time I've been so focused on doing the Alien Space Queen proud, I had not even considered what this experience could mean for me and my future. The knowledge and tools I take with me from THe SCraWL CENter will continue to follow me long after I'm done here. I see it happening already. My own scrawl has improved and I'm finding it easier to communicate with strangers in ways that it was not before. 

Later, I witnessed another interaction with COurTNey. This interaction was groundbreaking. A being had come into THe SCraWL CENter with an assignment that he had not even started yet. This being needed help deciphering the assignment and setting up the layout for the scrawl that he needed to write. This interaction was so groundbreaking because COurTNey had more or less let me have control because I was more familiar with the subject matter of this assignment. I was able to explain what I believed the professor wanted from this being and I was able to suggest a way in which I thought the information would best be presented. The being arrived to the interaction feeling anxious and worried but left more relaxed and ready to take on the task ahead of him. I like to think that I was a part of that.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to interact with beings all on my own and I cannot think of a better introduction to those interactions. I feel exhilarated, I feel nervous, but most of all--I feel ready.