i can't believe i'm still alive...

the science fair was this week. what happened?
well, i learned a lot for next year:
- tell kids to label all project boards and props before bringing it to school
- tell kids to drop off everything in one location so that i don't have to be in 2 places at once. this year, i was *running* back and forth - i didn't sit or breathe till early evening!
- set up tables before the day of the event so that the burden is on the kids (and not me) to place things in the correct location
- tell kids: "NO MODEL VOLCANO PROJECTS!!"
- take a sick day after it's all over - what am i doing at work today?? i'm so exhausted...

seriously, if 5 angelic moms hadn't serendipitously shown up the afternoon before the event, i think i would've died. props to these women - mothers are fantastic... they were wearing high-end fashion and heels but took no issue to hauling tables all over the room, putting up the boards and props, and labeling everything.

we transformed the room from:
to this in 3 hours:

over 100 projects, organized by grade level... & the room looked even better that evening when it was packed with >250 happy people

there were some neat things that came out of the whole thing:
- a bunch of compliments about the success of the event
- parents who were impressed that kids are actually doing science (experiments w/ variables, data tables, etc)
- the joy of watching kids run around excitedly showing each other their favorite projects
- random new knowledge - like i didn't know that you can grow bacterial cultures on jello, did you?

this girl tested the cleanliness of the saliva in dogs, kids, and adults - she grew the cultures for a month and the results were nasty! =)

the aftermath...
- kids who had a lot of fun & felt good about themselves... & oddly, the cheesy certificates i gave out meant something to them - enough that 2 little girls came back to my room and lied about having worked with their brothers just so they could get a certificate
- me being proud of myself for pulling off such a large event. but boy, if i ever get married - can someone else plan the wedding??
- hours spent cleaning up the mess from those DARN MODEL VOLCANOS!!

one little boy's project almost got ruined by the red concoction of baking soda + vinegar that spilled out of the neighboring project onto his sprouts. his teacher, not knowing that the lump of wet dirt held living plants (she thought it was a rock), didn't give him permission to rinse out the contaminated water. he walked over to me and on the verge of tears, told me this was the worst science fair ever.

i took him and his sprouts to the water fountain and explained the misunderstanding - once he could tell that someone cared about him (and his plants), his voice stopped shaking. there was a moment there that could've squelched his interest in science because the things that were important to him were not important to others... and it was an incredible moment when i realized that i made a difference (he told me afterwards that he still loved science).

it was one of the first times all year that i was able to successfully resolve the conflict - what a great feeling!

in january, i said that this (conflict resolution) is an area of desired growth. recently, God seems to be trying to answer my request by letting me practice at it first hand (i.e. bringing more conflict into my life). i've learned some things:
- my first tactic is to avoid conflict (way more than i realized)
- and even when in the middle of it, i tend to walk away for a short time - i didn't realize how much space i needed to process things
- b/c my tendancy is to take all the blame onto myself, i'm actually learning little by little to articulate a more well-rounded picture of what i think happened

i hate conflict, but in some ways this is very good. how else am i to learn how to mediate the conflicts of others if i can't even address my own? so even in this, thank you, God. =)