Embrace 2020 104/365: teacher joy

In my previous life I was a music and brain neuroscientist. I played violin for 20+ years, have a Ph.D. in psychology (brain, behavior, and cognitive science track), and did a very fancy sounding (but miserable) triple appointment postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, Mass General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. During this time, I taught psychology classes and countless violin students.

And while there were periodic gratifying moments through those lines of teaching, it's pretty safe to say that I never experienced a jolt of joy and delight as I did when I saw Laura Mayes share pictures of the Easter cake she made, inspired by my live cake demo for Mom 2.0 summit. My goal in that demo was to show people a way to make a cake look fancy with a simple technique. Smoke and mirrors FTW! This was apparently the FIRST TIME Laura had ever decorated a cake and holy shit, you guys, look how gorgeous it is!

Thank you for that gift, Laura. The joy and delight of seeing a person try something creative is pretty amazing stuff. (Also, if any of you want to see that demo, I posted it on my YouTube channel.)