Annie and Nathanael Are Both Graduate School Bound

The same news came early this month for both Annie and Nathanael.  Both were accepted to their first choice graduate programs.  Annie will begin the Fairleigh Dickinson University MA in Creative Writing and Literature for Educators program. She will fly back to Madison, NJ for the brief (June 24-26, 2016) residency portion of the program. 

SPU has also accepted Nate's application to its Master in Teaching Mathematics and Science program.  Admission to this particular program has been his goal for a few years.  He'll be starting these courses this summer: EDU 6170 Inquiry, Teaching, & Assessment for Math and Science I (3), EDU 6132 Learners in Context (3), EDU 6918 Introduction to Teaching (2), EDRD 6530 Reading/Writing in Content Areas (3).

When I counsel students about graduate school, I often ask the questions, "Where do you want to be in ten years?" and, "Do you want to shake the tree and see what fruit comes of it, or look back in ten years and wish you had?"  I'm proud of these two for executing their well founded plans.  Both programs seem the ideal match for their career goals. 

The New SR-520 Opens and We Were There

SEATTLE – The world's newest and longest floating bridge opened its arms to the public Saturday morning, April 2, as Gov. Jay Inslee cut an orange ribbon to commemorate the completion of the new State Route 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington.  The official ribbon-cutting at the bridge's mid-span was just one of many Grand Opening activities during a daylong celebration expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors onto the 1.5-mile-long structure.

"A bridge is a monument to optimism," Inslee said. "It's the ultimate expression of confidence in ourselves and in our communities. Today, we're taking a big step toward that bright future."

The new, six-lane bridge opens to vehicles, in two stages, later this month. Today's opening is all about foot traffic. The Grand Opening lets participants stroll across a car-free bridge while enjoying interactive exhibits, displays of bridge components, a LEGO play area for amateur bridge building, "passport"-stamping stations, food-truck offerings, and great views from the middle of the lake.

"This is what it's all about – seeing years of public engagement, planning, design and construction all come to fruition," said Roger Millar, acting secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation. "This grand bridge is going to serve our region well for a long long time."

During this morning's ribbon-cutting ceremony, Michael Empric, a representative of Guinness World Records, presented Millar with a certificate designating the new floating bridge – at 7,708.494 feet, end to end – as the world's longest. The ceremony opened with a tribal blessing of the bridge by Muckleshoot Tribal Councilman Louie Ungaro, and closed with a tribal song by Eileen Richardson, Latasha Moses Gonzales, Mary Ross, Eric Pacheco and Elizabeth Ocampo of the Muckleshoot Language Group.

    
Over 43,000 members of the public visited the SR-520 bridge on Saturday, April 2nd, and we were there.  I drove the family, and future family Cynthia who was visiting from Oregon, and then joined them on the bridge at mid-span in time to catch the ribbon cutting ceremony and this photo of Governor Inslee.  Later in the day, many folks were turned away due to the capacity of the bridge, but we were among the early birds.  By driving over Clyde Hill rather than taking the free shuttle busses, we were in and out with ease, while many waited hours for shuttle busses home.  On Sunday, Nathanael and Cynthia joined Susan and 7,000 others on a 20 mile bike ride that ended the opening weekend festivities.  Cynthia had forgotten her bib number back home in Oregon, but her dad David emailed me a scan of it, and using Nathanael's as a model, crafted an elegant and successful forgery that kept Cynthia in the ride.  Of course, she had her receipt to prove her legitimacy.  This was the kind of once in a lifetime event that begged our participation.  And it was free!  I even got my own piece of the ribbon.