i felt the sun today

watching my students build, push, and play with facebook pretty much inspired me to experiment with a facebook project of my own. (anyone - with or without a facebook account - should be able to access this page. if you can't access it, something's not working and please let me know.)

on facebook, you can post pictures, put them into photo albums, and give them titles and annotations. you can tag people in your pictures and link to their facebook profiles. you can set limits on who can and who can't see the pictures. other users can view and comment on the pictures. (the url above does not include user comments; you have to be a facebook user to have access to picture comments.)

i really enjoyed this project because:

1. i was able to give away stuff i no longer need;
   
2. students were able to get stuff that is useful or strange or interesting;
   
3. it gave me an opportunity to meet UW students i haven't met;
   
4. it gave me some much needed practice with digital photography, uploading, albuming, etc;
   
5. it gave me further insight into what my com 300 students are currently going through with their final projects.

in other news, sarah and i went to a bat mitzvah this morning. i've been to a lot of bar and bat mitzvahs, at least a dozen, and i've never seen someone ace it like dany did. the prayers, the songs, the interpretations, the public speaking -- dany did it all and she did it with humor, intelligence, and style. she's 13 years old and she's a thinker. sarah knows dany through a reading group she (sarah) set up a few years ago that brings together youth and their parents to read and discuss books. the afternoon was spent at gasworks park on THE FIRST FULLY SUNNY DAY IN SEATTLE for months. it's been the longest winter ever. living 6-9 months without regular sunshine is doable, but it's not exactly desirable and definately not that fun. on days like these, people in seattle go crazy and soak up as much sun as possible. on days like these, we begin to long for summer, even though it's a few months away.