Another week down...

... and one more to go.

This week's highlights:

- Sailing again! This time I went out in the sunfish with another lady who hadn't a clue about what she was doing. It was hilarious.
Me: "Do we want the sail on the left or the right of the boat?"
My partner: "I dunno."

A group of us beginners were out in pairs and we were followed around by our instructor, who drove the whaler and yelled to us with a megaphone. At one point we finally got our boat to move and it was smooth sailing:
Instructor: "Way to go ladies, you've found the beat!"
Me: "What's she talking about- the beat?"
My partner: "Beats me."

It was a great lesson. While we couldn't really understand the jargon nor the explanations of how sailing is supposed to work, by just doing it we were able to figure it out. At one point we were taught how to capsize and recover our boat. The sunset was gorgeous and the wind was perfect. Such fun!

- Fishing in the harbor! We took our students out and caught an awesome variety of fish: scup (mostly), black sea bass, baby dogfish shark, and a sea robin. The kids loved it. Each kid caught about 2-6 fish and the instructors were exhausted. Non-stop, we baited hooks and unhooked fish. We also took the kids beach seining that day and we caught (amongst an enormous number of the common fish), some baby puffer fish. They are so cute! We also caught some bay pipe fish, which we took back to the lab and threw in the sea horse tank.

- Shark dissections! Now this was an interesting one. Dogfish dissections always produce a variety of reactions. Kids typically range from the squeamish, who just want to watch from a distance, to the overly enthusiastic kids, who tend to be obnoxious about it. But this year I had a kid react in a way I'd never seen before. Now I've heard of people having physical reactions, such as feeling nauseous or even passing out. But this kid (we'll call him "Bob") really scared me. He actually began to shake and started to rock himself back and forth, while whimpering. I told him to go outside and that he didn't have to continue. I figured he'd just wait for us to finish, but when I look up again, Bob was gone. At the end of class I went out looking for him and found him on a bench outside, still crying and shaking. We contacted the nurse and staff authorities, and his parents were contacted immediately.

Interestingly enough, Bob has been one of those kids who has been very disruptive in my class and has been often difficult to manage. He comes off as kind of a bully (though I don't think intentionally), and he doesn't know how to reign himself in. But his adverse psychological reaction to the day's class activities sparked a little more compassion on my part. Certainly, it wasn't the reaction I had expected from him. Poor kid. I wonder if he'll come back next week.