filed in Single Women's Hall of Fame
Aim High and They Just Might Name a Comet After You
My friend and artistic advisor, Miguel, who regularly visits this site, suggested I post something more upbeat. Maybe he’s right. Since returning from Colorado, I’ve been in heavy lifting mode, trying to reshape my romantic disappointment into a learning experience. Enough of that. Time to lighten up.
Though probably not the best way to realize this goal, yesterday, I decided to go to an early morning screening of The Hurt Locker, about a group of soldiers who defuse bombs during the Iraq war. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, it’s a compelling and tense film, the best I’ve seen this year, but not exactly a mood elevator.
It’s good that I also found my way to Maria Mitchell, who was born 191 years ago on August 1, and is America’s first noted woman astronomer. Mitchell was encouraged by her father at an early age to study math and science. In 1847, peering through a telescope on the roof of a bank where he worked as a cashier, she noticed an object in the night’s sky that didn’t appear in her charts. It was a comet, and her discovery brought international fame and a big career. Mitchell became Professor of Astronomy at the newly-formed Vassar College, she was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and helped found the American Association for the Advancement of Women. (Look for her in my Single Women’s Hall of Fame.) The comet, C/ 1847 T1, is named “Miss Mitchell.”
I’m glad to be on the upswing.
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FIRST PERSON SINGULAR is a guide to surviving, thriving and sometimes just getting through a single day. Created by Wendy Braitman (more…)
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Hi, Wendy:
What I like about your site is you can be disappointed one day and up the next. Which I find in my life is the nature of how “this stuff” works. I have to allow myself to be disappointed – let it match the level of my expectation. And then eventually the disappointment passes – like everything.. The good stuff and the bad..