And then, there's Babak. Babak LOVES clouds. He gets excited when he sees different kinds of clouds or rare combinations, staring at them and explaining to me what they are while completely enraptured. He will drive all the way out to the Mississippi River 20 miles west of town to watch storms, mainly, for their clouds. Somewhere in Blacksburg, there had better be one really proud elementary school teacher who taught him all of this stuff. I'd also hope that our children in Shelby that he taught learned a good bit on them from him, because I don't see how this couldn't be contagious! Babak simply loves clouds more than anyone I've ever met, including my meteorologist uncle. Even he doesn't talk about clouds like this, at least not that I've ever noticed. And yes, I am totally picking on Babak about the clouds thing--but he was also district teacher of the year and his kids knocked the state average on the 5th grade science test (even without really ever having science taught much to them before 5th grade), so you know what? He can like his clouds as much as he wants to! The only bummer is that he's not teaching anymore. Guess he'll have to come share the clouds thing with my kids.
This is on my mind today because Vijay, one of our groomsmen who was Babak's close friend and roommate at Johns Hopkins, has a wonderful mother who just quit teaching 5th grade. She was extremely generous and mailed down tons of books, posters, and other teaching things to me and my school. In the massive budget crunch that's likely to furlough us (yes, teachers can be furloughed) we certainly don't have any funding for supplies, so this was hugely appreciated! In a box that arrived today, I found these...
Something tells me at least one of these may end up on our guest room wall where Babak's home office is, rather than in a classroom... :)
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