There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved. ~ George Sands

Three Questions, December 5, 2024

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I experienced today?

The most beautiful thing I saw today was the sunset setting over the ocean at the end of the day from my campus. I watched it light up the clouds from my office. Unfortunately I was on a Zoom meeting so I couldn’t get a photo.

What did I learn today?

What I learned today was that a lot of people I work with respect me as a source of calm and solid information in a crisis. Today we got a tsunami warning, something we get occasionally, but for the first time ever it was labeled extreme and including and immediate evacuation notice. This came on the heels of a 7.0 earthquake at the southern end of the Cascadian Subduction Zone. These quakes in this area can cause a very significant and fast arriving tsunami so the warning came out shortly after the quake. People pretty quickly showed up to my office and asked the same question, “what’s really happening?” I’d quickly gotten on the web and was listening to a radio station from Crescent City knowing they would see impact about an hour before us. This way I learned that the tsunami watch had been canceled and let my people know before the District had informed them.

What made me happy today?

What made me happy today was a simple thing, tomorrow I have a really important medical consultation and today several friends checked in to wish me well. A small thing but it made me happy that they remembered and that they care.