By: Annie Phan
Today was our first learning festival of the summer (!!!), held at the Louisa County Library. It was strange seeing everyone wear real people clothes, instead of the usual cycling outfits or loungewear. Before the start of our learning festival, we were interviewed for a podcast by the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library - our episode will be out on June 15th.
After a quick lunch, kids of all ages started filtering into the learning festival. My workshop with Kate is called Scratch from Scratch, which is an introduction to computer science and programming using Scratch, a visually-oriented creative programming language developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. The kids were absolutely overflowing with energy - I was surprised by how eager and interested they were in programming and computer science, and by the end of our workshop I was impressed with the games and animations they had managed to create.
Later, Kate and I decided to participate in An and Bethany’s egg drop challenge, in which we attempted to throw together a device that would save an egg from cracking after a four foot death drop. Our work was a masterpiece, but extremely ineffective. For awhile, I just stared at the yolk laying on the parking lot pavement and wondered what could have been.
Once all of our workshops were finished, Shirley, an MIT alum’s mom, came to meet us all the way from MARYLAND, to give us gifts from a magical red bag. First she pulled out Tim the Beaver cookie cutters - one for each of us, in the perfect likeness of our team mascot. Then, out came little individually wrapped, carefully arranged packages of cookies that she had baked herself, using the cookie cutters. It was such an amazing gesture to come all the way to the library to deliver these gifts herself. I think I saw Delia shed a tear or two.
Today was Bethany’s birthday, so we went to dinner at Tavern on the Rail, which I think is one of the three restaurants we were able to find within a reasonable distance of the library. During the meal we spent a disproportionate amount of time showing each other how to perform strange hand contortions, and discussing the unincorporated
community of Bumpass, Virginia.
After dinner, we drove through the unlit winding roads towards a local church, and Alex told us some shocking facts about turtle hibernation. As we rolled into the nearly-empty parking lot, a man emerged from the darkness, seemingly out of nowhere. In my mind I was trying to figure out the best escape route in case this turned into an attempted murder scenario, but I quickly realized that I had no idea where I could go or how to get there and decided to let fate do as it would.
It turns out that the man was only Jerry, the international colonial dance master. He had invited us to the church earlier to join his group for some colonial dancing. Colonial dancing is a surprisingly demanding activity, requiring lots of quick walking, spinning, shuffling, inter-partner coordination, and intense and slightly uncomfortable eye contact. For over an hour, I stared into the eyes of near-strangers over the age of 60 and spun with them to the rhythm of colonial flutes. It made me slightly sweaty.
Back at the Acorn Farm Community, they were having a rave near their mini-stage. I saw someone fire-spinning, and a woman who swayed along to the music with no top on. We considered joining, but it was a bit late at this point and we wanted to get an early start the next morning for our ride to Charlottesville.
I sat for awhile in my commune bed, listening to the pulsing beat from the stage and trying not to go to shock from the day’s events. A lot about the day seemed surreal. I still don’t really know how to process the richness of events that have happened in the first few days of our trip, but maybe I’ll figure it out eventually.
PS: I'm also keeping a daily personal blog at squeeksqueek.wordpress.com if you're interested in reading more from me.