John:
So this week has seen the coldest day of the winter so far (a chilly -0.9C in downtown BA, at 4am, for 10 minutes) and the warmest (27C today, and there were still some people wearing scarves!!!). And there we were yesterday, sitting in the plush boardroom at a big utility company, me and my five advanced students. The class was about fear and risk and used things like bungee jumping and BASE jumping as a topic.

So I asked the class what had frightened them most in their lives.
Pablo:"When I thought I lost my son at the beach."
David: "When my kid fell out of his bed (the top bunk)."
Lidia:"When my daughter fell ill."
Mariolano: "When I thought I had lost my daughter when she was two."

Then Guillermo put an end to the conversation
"When I was, how do you say when someone gets in your car and has a gun?" (Carjacked, I said) "Yes, when I was carjacked and made to get into the trunk of my car and hit with the gun."

Base jumping didn't seem nearly so frightening after that.
  ¶ 2:23 AM