It is a meme. It is the five questions meme. Here's how it works:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."

2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your journal with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

I'll give questions to up to 5 people, but I doubt I'll get that many takers. And yes, I know I've done this before, but it's still fun.

Here are the questions that Greg asked me and my answers.

1. What surprised you most about animal training?

The elephant (elephants in general, supposedly). She was smart and truly caring. She used to take me and push me gently with her trunk so that I was standing directly between her two front legs, as if she was protecting me. Apparently, I was small and in need of protection. She didn’t always listen to me, but she was so gentle and kind.

2. What surprised you most about motherhood?

I don’t know; this is a tough one. I don’t feel like I was surprised about that much, things just sort of were/are.

After much thought, I’d say maybe the guilt. If I get mad and yell at him or have a “bad mommy moment,” I feel very badly about it after it has happened. Even if it’s something that I know, deep down inside won’t be scarring, I still worry that I’ve scarred him for life by yelling at him, or some such thing.

3. Same one I asked Lisa about teaching: You can teach your students one concept and one concept only, but they will completely understand and embrace this concept. What's on the syllabus?

Critical Thinking/Problem Solving-I know, that’s not just one concept, but it is so very important. It’s one of the foundational skills that people need to have, but so many don’t, and it’s extremely difficult to teach. My students get so frustrated when I tell them that their test problems won’t be like their homework problems. They’ll use the same concepts and the same formulas, but there won’t be the same problem with numbers changed, it’ll be a NEW situation. In Physics, you can ALWAYS design a new problem to test the same concept and the ability to solve any problem thrown at you starts with that critical thinking/problem solving skill-take apart what you’ve been given. Once you get that, all problems are reduced to plug and chug.

4. The odds of dying are 1 in 1000. Do you take a flight on the Shuttle?

Mommy mode just kicked in, HECK NO!! Just for a joy ride, not a chance. To go somewhere else (the moon, mars), maybe but still probably not.

5. You only get to hear one song for the rest of your life. What is it?

Tough choice, it’d definitely be something classical, no words even, I’d have to do more research to really decide. It’d definitely be an orchestral piece rather than a small group piece. Maybe Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven. Can’t narrow it down more than that right now.