mrs. j. mrs. j. not just taught us the principles of science inquiry, but she also was a disciplinary, she was the person who brought you back on track. she would make you think about the problems you were facing. she would try and connect the theory that we learned in the classroom to what we were trying to do in our projects. to teach us why on paper the geo thermal energy project, which always worked flawlessly, but in reality is implications and the uq not always what the books tell you and it didn't quite work. she went a couple of steps further. our school was crowded, we didn't have space or time sometimes to work on the projects we were doing. she literally opened up here home and we would work on the project on evenings and weekends and holidays in her living room. she enabled us to go beyond where we were. once i had a bunch of questions that she couldn't answer and she said, why don't you go call someone? here's the person, here's the number, go talk to her. you can imagine, i'm 12, 13 years old. i barely use the phone, i didn't have one at home. there were only two such phones in our entire school. one was on the principal's desk and the other one was in a drawer with the school clerk under lock and key. so i go up, i go to the school office, i ask the school clerk, mrs, i said i need to make this call, he reluctantly hands me the phone, i make the call, a short call, i get my answer. and something changed for me. for this scrawny little -- as i walked out, i felt an inch suddenly i found a connection with the world that was beyond the 1 kilometer radius between my home and my school. it's almost like mrs. j, the mentor in my life had shown me the art of the possible. beyond the confines of where i lived, and where i studied. and she did this not just for me, but for hundreds of other folks like us. and we have gone on a lot of us to become doctors and lawyers and in some small way tried to make the world a better place. she gave us the key that opened the lock. i have been thinking about this quite a bit recently because even as the world is becoming increasingly connected, and nowadays, this is a cybercafe in my old neighborhood, i can walk in there, you know, kids like me, 30 years ago and walk in there and instantaneously be connected to all sor