Shaunae – BYU Graduate Shaunae graduated in December of 2007 with a BS in Biology. She has contemplated all manner of careers, ranging from medical to research and more.
But even though she has never pictured herself as a teacher, she has had the impression that teaching high school science and biology is what she will do.
However, since she did not major in education, she is taking a few required classes this Winter term, plus doing her student teaching here in Utah Valley.
Due to the shortage of science teachers – and especially women – the education department went to some special effort to get her into the program. They also assigned her to the coolest, most progressive mentor teacher for student teaching.
She is teaching 9th grade classes, and the teacher uses all PowerPoint and digital files. He got special funding so every student has a laptop, and all their notes are on the computer, and on the server. And he uses digital images and videos to demonstrate the things they are studying. He does NOT use the blackboard at all.
He is very progressive, and Shaunae thinks it is so cool and fun. Also, she is fortunate to be working with honors biology classes, so the kids are really into it. However, she will be spoiled when she goes out into the
 cold cruel world.Speaking of which, she is actually contemplating looking for teaching positions in either Arizona (because it's really warm there) or Oregon (because a former roommate is taking a job there, and she might go just for fun). Or, who knows, she may end up here in Utah. We'll see. Photo: Shaunae on a hike by Utah Lake.
You can see the "Y" of Y Mountain just
barely above and to the left of Shaunae.
Shaunae's Adventures – Balloon Heights / Timp Hike / China TripHome Made Hot Air Balloons
Shaunae is an adventurous young woman. She's often trying out something just for fun ... like home-made hot-air balloons. My brother and I made simpler versions of these when we were kids. Shaunae and Becky (a former roommate) found the plans for these online. Never a dull moment.
 Shaunae, on the ground holding the balloon over the small fire.
Paul (me) steadying the balloon.
Becky (Shaunae's roommate for years) preparing a kite string so the balloon wouldn't get away.
Below: The launch and flight. Becky unrolled ALL the kite string.
  Photo Note:
To see w-a-y more
photos of Shaunae's internship in China, her hike up
Timpanogos Mountain, and tons of other cool things, go to ...
But be warned – plan to spend some time looking. She has posted tons of photos. China Internship
Shaunae was determined to find an internship in mainland China that also involved her biology major. After pursuing every lead she could find, she finally got a reference to a Yale professor who had a connection to a Tuberculosis study in Wuhan China. This is about 300 miles inland, straight West of Shanghai. She worked at a hospital there, testing new procedures for identifying TB strains and tracking the spread. (In a nutshell.)
 View from her apartment in Wuhan. Shaunae stayed with the family of the hospital director. So this is the posh neighborhood.
 Here is Dr. Wei, the hospital director, and his family, plus Shaunae. They were wonderful, kind and generous. Shaunae has the best feelings for them and how at home they made her feel.
 After being in China only 3 weeks, several of Shaunae's co-workers invited her on a trip to Shanghai. As you can see, development is going very fast in China.
 Most of the time in Shanghai was spent in the shopping district. But they traveled to areas of traditional Chinese architecture also.
 Later, on her own, Shaunae took a week to fly to Inner Mongolia to visit a friend from BYU. Then she took a train to Beijing where she visited the Great Wall, The Forbidden City, and more.
She also took a cruise on the Yangtze River with the daughter of the Wei family. It was quite the summer.
Go to the photo link above to see more.
Hiking Timpanogos
Mount Timpanogos is the most prominent peak in Utah Valley. It is shown in the masthead at the top of this page (just to give you a sense of its size). Shaunae and some friends left on a Friday evening and hiked through most of the night to reach the top.
 Their goal was to see the sunrise from the peak (and here it is).
But the scenery they enjoyed along the trail coming back down in the
daylight is very moving.
 Shaunae posing on the peak.
 Here is the view toward Provo, Orem, and Utah Lake.
 But the view to the East (the "back side" of Timp) is, well, see for yourself.
This hike (more of a "climb" really) took about 10 hours.
Click on the photo link here if you want to see more.
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