Captain’s log - August 21 – Washington D.C. Airport

Apparently Baltimore is not a good city to write blogs in, I keep missing a day and had to include it in the next day blog (or maybe it’s the Sheraton). Anyway, on the 20^th of August, I woke up around 7 am so I can get some breakfast and head out to John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY). I called Ms. Linda Brody to confirm that I’m coming and she gave me quick directions. I took the hotel shuttle to the light rail then took that to the nearest stop to CTY. I walked about 5 min until I reached the building I am going to visit. I called Linda from the front desk and she came down to greet me and guide my to the conference room. I spent the next hour with Linda and Ms. Carol Blackburn (I think, unless I mixed my business cards) talking about why I’m here and the story of the Talents Center (I told it so good I was proud that I was working there and not anywhere else! And they were impressed too). Linda then took me to meet Ms. Susan Collins (Senior Program Manager – Distance Education). We talked for a bit about distance learning and then she showed me “The Cove”, a game developed for CTY. It’s a game like Myst with math problems/puzzles, and it’s suppose to let children learn math by solving problems to get them out of an island (it looked really fun, even though it was a math game!). She then gave me a copy of the game to try it (Thanks Susan!  ). Susan then introduced me to Sook Fong Chang (Program Manager – Distance Education) where we inquired about the Arabic language distance learning program and if it will be implemented in the near future (Answer: it will take a while). Then I met Mr. Ben Reynolds (Senior Program Manager – Distance Education). We talked a bit about the writing course CTY covers and how it relates to scientific research papers. Linda then took me to lunch with Susan, Carol and ….. (Forgot the name, Sorry Maim. She is in charge of the summer camps at CTY). We talked through lunch about the Talents Center and the recent summer camp we held (again, they were very impressed with the “companies” idea) and also the education system in Saudi Arabia. After that I went back up to the conference room where Ms. Kristi Birch and …. (She didn’t send me the contacts info yet, so I don’t recall the name. Sorry!) explained to me what Cogito.org is about and we talked a bit about our participation at ISEF2007. I then went back to Susan’s office (I left my bag there) and she was having a talk with Mr. Thomas Forese (Director of Academic Partnerships – Link-Systems International, Inc.). She introduced us and then mentioned that I am a videogame programmer. Thomas asked me how I think a learning material can be a game. I gave him my view on the subject and how I would approach such a task. I think he liked what he heard as he immediately offered me his business card. I stopped by Linda’s office to say goodbye and then I got out of there. I returned to the light rail station where the hotel shuttle dropped me and I went to the nearby bookstore before calling them to pick me up. Brendan turned out to be the driver so we chatted along the way back to the hotel. I went to my room to take a quick nap but like always it ended up being a 4 hour nap! I forced myself to go to the nearby mall to get dinner then came back to my room. I arranged my bag (I bought a lot of books!) and then went to sleep. On the 21^st of August (Today) I woke up and took my breakfast before going to the front desk and checking out. I took a cab to the Baltimore train station. The driver turned out to be from Senegal and his name was “Ahmad”. He has been to Saudi Arabia before (Jeddah and Riyadh). At the train station I bought the ticket and waited for the train. From that point it just was a smooth trip to the Washington Union station where I toured the station first then road the subway to the airport (Union Station was beautiful). I am now sitting at the terminal waiting for my plane to get to Boston. Like every airport I’ve been to recently there is NO free internet, so I’ll post this once I reached the hotel in Boston. Take care and have a nice day 