Imagine You Are the Only One in the World To Do Something: Our Maiden Blogging Voyage

Students started learning about their blogging voyage during our writing block. They helped me craft the blog post below, editing and revising the writing. They discovered they could choose a topic of interest and write! Several learned about how to use word count to keep their blog succinct and insert hyperlinks into their blogs to enhance their piece. I modeled how to create a blog post based off some of our class discussions about my cousin Eric.

Imagine you are the only one in the world to do something. My cousin, Eric Freedman, knows what this feels like. He is a rare gem. He won the coveted Shipley Award, given to one gemologist in the world each year, in 1992. His work, including being past President of the American Gem Society which when founded were the elite members of Gemological Institute of America. This led him on an exciting journey.

            Eric was a jeweler in New York that was lucky enough to be the one person in the world to appraise the hope diamond. The diamond weighs 45.52 carats and is currently housed in the Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. Though he will never tell his secrets of how much the diamond was worth, he was the man who put a price tag on the most famous diamond in the world.

            Eric was also known to go with Diane Sawyer of Primetime Live, doing segments about gems. They worked together, sometimes in disguise, to figure out if jewelers were selling synthetic gems versus genuine gems. They used a microscope and a special solution. View another video here! What you might find will shock you! Sometimes the gem’s color would disappear right before their eyes!

            Cousin Eric also worked with pearls. I learned from the video you could put the pearl in your mouth. Then you rub it against your tooth! You want to see if it feels gritty. If it is gritty this is good! Some of you might be running to your jewelry box now to check the quality of your gems. He also evaluated the entire worldwide inventory of Tiffany and appraised the 128.54 ct. Tiffany diamond. 

            I am proud of my cousin and his work. I have learned a lot about gemology from him. I do often wonder if he realizes the scope of being the only person in the world to do something. He even set a world’s record for the distance traveled in a water filled cave (no air pockets), diving 15,680 feet in 11 hours underwater with friend of his. He is a shining example of what happens when you follow your passions.