Dad woke me up yesterday morning to tell me that the space shuttle hadn't made it through its landing. I probably wouldn't have heard until this morning, as my English language newspaper is about 2 days behind and I don't often check the internet on the weekends. I'm glad I heard about it yesterday though or my arrival to my desk to see the front page of the newspaper (a huge picture of the shuttle falling apart next to the picture of the crew) would have ruined my Monday morning. I had been following the reports of this mission since it was getting extra press due to the Israeli astronaut aboard. At the same time, I've been seeing articles regarding restarting the teachers in space program that Christa McAuliffe was a part of. They were planning to make it a more extensive program this time around and the back-up teacher for the Challenger mission, Barbara Morgan, is now a full-time Educator Astronaut preparing to go to the Space Station in November. For the first time since elementary school, I was daydreaming about being an astronaut some day! Anyway, the accident really shocked me and I feel awful for everyone involved. The crew seemed like an amazing bunch of people (a given, I suppose) with really diverse backgrounds. I hope that NASA manages to recover and continue to get dreamy kids like me psyched about space. I had a pretty crappy morning and attempt to run yesterday, but it all felt really insignificant considering everything else happening in the world.