Dreams coming true!

I don't even think I have the words to describe the pure JOY of being lucky enough to see Chris Hadfield at the ETown conference yesterday.  To make it even more spectacular the Barenaked Ladies were OUT OF THIS WORLD and Hadfield even played ISS with them!  

I was fortunate enough to see the end of Chris Hadfield's keynote speech and was so impressed with his wisdom and down-to-earth (or up-in-space) advice.  He answered questions eloquently and every explanation made you feel like you could do anything and that with enough dedication you could even be an astronaut too!  I'm seriously re-thinking my career choices!  See my video of part of it here

Also see a great blog post all about it here and their eloquent summary

1. Treat your physical body right. A bit of exercise a few times a week, and pay attention to what you eat. It’s the little daily decisions that can add up. Take care of your body today, and it will be there for you for life.

2. Get an education. Learn how to do complicated, knotty things. And if somebody offers to teach you something for free, always, always take it.

3. Have a purpose or dream, of what kind of person you would like to be, and what you would like to do when you get older. When your life is oriented in such a way, you’ll make little decisions every day that will help you build towards that future. But if you don’t take any action, inertia will lead you to exactly where you are already heading.

4. It’s likely that you won’t live out your dream exactly as you imagined it, but enjoy every little step in the process. Celebrate all of the little wins. Investing too much in just the end goal, you may realize, will not make you very happy once you reach it. It’s your choice, one can choose to be miserable throughout the process, waiting for the big payout, or enjoy and be grateful for every little step along the way.

After the inspirational lecture we enjoyed some food truck goodies on the Shaw patio and then made our way in to the Barenaked Ladies concert.  When the music started we danced our way right up front and stayed there the entire time!  My ankles are sore and my voice scratchy from all the dancing and "whooooping"!  Half way through the set Chris Hadfield came on stage and sang ISS (Is Somebody Singing?), a song he recorded from the ISS with Ed Robertson from the BNL!  See the original recording here.  

I recorded my own video below so excuse how jumpy it is because I was LOSING MY MIND!!  And excuse all the whooping and my feeble attempt to sing along.  Look for my "selfy" half way through.  LOL.  See the Edmonton Journal article and video here.

 After Commander Hadfield left the BNL continued to rock it!  Their new songs are awesome and the oldies were as epic as ever.  They even sang The Big Bang Theory song in it's entirety. Ed brought a sweet girl, Alora, up on stage to play guitar with him and the Darth Vader "If I Had a Million Dollars" had us crying and laughing at the same time.  I've always been a BNL fan but now it is getting up to Hadfield levels of adoration!  I even got the encore guitar pic from Kevin!!

I also want to thank my friends Jenny and Lea for coming to share in my excitement and for capturing the moment with me.  Also my husband for watching the kids so mommy could go out and see her astronaut friend.

I have enjoyed sharing all of this with my students today and hope it is just one step in reaching my goal of having my hero, Chris Hadfield, come and share his passion for science, advice for achieving goals, and unique perspective of the world.  

See here for The Chris Hadfield Project
See here for all of my Chris Hadfield posts

Dont forget to TWEET and Facebook message Chris Hadfield so he knows how much we want him to come to Beaumont!  #BeaumontLovesHadfield