Science fair

Hmm. Since it's January, there wasn't a whole lot that was interesting this week. I've just been enjoying my last full week off before spring semester starts. 

One thing that was out of the ordinary was that my mom asked me to help judge elementary school science projects. Along with two other judges, I judged five projects: one kid created boxes with lightbulbs and different kinds of insulation; some girls tested how to prevent berries from rotting; some girls tested how long it took different kinds of soda cans to explode in the freezer; two boys tested whether basketball, soccer, or running burned the most calories; one boy tested different amounts of hydrogen peroxide in "elephant toothpaste." I was also supposed to judge a girl seeing whether salt or a heater melted ice faster, but she didn't show up.

This was all online, of course, and science fairs have changed a lot since I was a kid. I don't know if today's presentations would have been more traditional if there weren't a pandemic going on, but an online science fair would have been impractical back at the turn of the millennium. Our dial-up AOL couldn't have handled video streaming, even if the technology had been around. Apparently PowerPoints existed, but I hadn't heard of them. 

When I was in school, everyone was graded by first, second, or third place. In fifth grade, I remember one of my classmates only got third place, and I remember thinking that was unfair, because his science was sound (at least as far as I could tell as a fifth-grader). His display board was sloppy, with pencil-written captions. But he did the project all by himself, not having a supportive family and probably not having a home computer. (He was a troubled kid. He once slashed a teacher's tires, and in sixth grade he was expelled.) But before we began making our projects, they presented us with an example of what not to do: a demonstration and explanation (not an experiment) about volcanoes. One kid in another grade did that exact project (the bad example!) and still got second or first place. I remember thinking that was so unfair and ridiculous.

All of this is to say that I tried to be fair and impartial in judging.

One evening this week, I was sitting in my room, petting Jimmy, when suddenly I heard a crash and the sound of shattering glass from the living room. For years, our tall lamp in the living room has been crooked. Finally the strain of being crooked became too much, and it crashed to the ground with no provocation. So my parents ordered a new one. 

Never mind the clutter of our house.

I've also been pursuing my goal of running on all of North Salt Lake's streets and visiting all of its parks. 

Then Friday, January 15, was my arbitrary date for beginning the Valentine's Day season. It's nice to have something going on this time of year, but Valentine's Day really isn't great. The best/most interesting thing about it is the candy and desserts, but even Valentine's Day sweets aren't as good as the other holidays, holidays where the candy is one of the lesser parts.

Last month, I made cherry crisp and modified the recipe to give it a gingerbread topping. So this month, I made cherry crisp but modified the recipe for a red velvet topping.

Ten of the twelve months of the year have their own wonderful things going on in the moment. But for all of January and February, I'm mostly looking forward to other times of the year, instead of what's going on at the moment.