In the fall of 2007, we went to the Houston Museum of Natural History to see the Lucy exhibit. (Or as my husband put it, "Why are we going to see old bones?") Since we were there anyway, we naturally toured the rest of the museum exhibits, including the one pictured above, which is labeled as the world's largest seashell. I took the picture because I loved the way the white and blue looked together, and when I posted the picture to my web hosting site, I of course titled it "World's Largest Seashell". Now if you do a Google image search for "world's largest seashell" or any of several variations thereof, the first picture you see is mine.
It's my one and only claim to fame, because I lead an otherwise boring life. What usually happens in my life is more like this:
I work with young children who just can't get the hang of speaking correctly. Some of them have a condition called childhood apraxia of speech, which simply put means that for them saying the simplest sentence, like "I want cookie", is as difficult as reading Fox in Socks while mildly drunk is for the rest of us. Remediation consists largely of trying to make constant repetition seem remotely interesting to the childish intellect.
That means I spend my day holding conversations like the following:
D: car?
Me: Say, "I want car."
D: "ahwan"
Me: I want what?
D: Car!
Me: "I want car."
D: Here (hands me car)
D had trouble learning the pronouns "I" and "you", so even getting "ahwan" (I want) was pretty cool, and often got him the car. One day, the ladder came off the fire engine (fah en). "Don't worry", I reassured D. "I fix it."
"You fix it?"
My jaw hit the table. Not only three whole words, subject-verb-object, but he used the right pronoun. I went over to my desk to write it down before I forgot.
A little voice drifts over from the play table. "You writing?"
"Yeah, I writing so I don't forget." I crying, actually. I get emotional over little things.
Little things like having the number one hit when you Google "world's largest seashell". It's my one and only claim to fame.
how big is the shell? like whats its dimensions
ReplyDeletethat is totally amazing! Could you write how big it it?
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to find out how big it is, without much luck. Those kinds of seashells can reach a length of 40", but I'm not sure how long the one in the picture is.
ReplyDeleteJust came across this post and the part I find personally charming is the part about teaching. My mom is a speech and language pathologist and she's told me about those moments of sheer joy when a child suddenly has a random breakthrough. Most often, it's back to "ahwan" right after that, but for that one moment it's wonderful. In fact, you remind me of my mom - and that's a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI was suckered to this blog that has nothing about the "world's largest seashell!" No dimensions, weight, history...absolutely nothing. Only some lame bragging right, about NOTHING!
ReplyDelete