Crimsonietta.net

Despite the fact that May is the cruelest month, I must admit that I’m feeling pretty happy as of late =) Even though my AP exams are reaching the worst (tomorrow: English and French Literature), I still feel fairly relaxed and excited at things that have and will be happening. Several positive things about AP exams would be the fact that 1) I don’t have nearly any homework to do, 2) I don’t need to attend class, 3) I get to hang out with people I like before/during/after the exam, and 4) I’m not getting credit for most of my exams so I’m actually taking the exams for the sole purpose of seeing what I know, and truth to be told… that’s kind of fun in a way.

There are a mere four days left until Intel ISEF 2008. Today during AP Biology, our principal called us (me and Rachel+Emily, of course) down to his office to give us each a bag of our school’s pins for the traditional pin exchange which opens the ISEF fun. That’s definitely one of the main events that I’m looking forward to, in addition to the MIT reception that - rumour has it - Matt Mcgann hosts every ISEF. Inbetwen D&S checks, dining with college professors, practicing my foreign languages with other young scientists, being judged by 10+ scientists, and giving presentations to the public… well, hopefully I’ll get some time to chill and party with everyone in Atlanta! Rose, one of my SnM members, lives around the area so we’re going to see if we can meet up sometime =)

As if an entire week of partying with the geeks (and nerds) of the world wasn’t good enough, guess what happens on the day I get back? First I have a performance downtown at the Capitol for the 2008 Asia Festival at noon. As a side comment, I really feel like that promo poster could have been done much better, same as our website. I could technically volunteer to help them redo it, but I don’t know if my teacher would be appreciative of my nosiness. Anyways, I’m really glad I get to attend the noon performance; later that day some of my classmates are driving down to San Marcos for a 6pm performance, but I won’t be attending because guess what? I have a senior prom to go to =)

What? Vivi, the one who has always abhorred and condemned high school social events, is going to prom? As part of a conglomerate of couples? Yes, indeed. Due to various persuasive devices used by various friends, she has decided to give this “social” thing a try by tearing herself away from the computer for a night and going out with her friends. We’re having dinner at the Cheesecake Factory apparently, and then staying at prom until it ends around midnight. I’m extremely excited for some reason; I have my dress and everything and can’t wait for the day to arrive.

After that, I basically have several weeks of nothingness, and then graduation. Oh, but it doesn’t end there, because then I’ll have a kickass summer hanging out with some specific people ;D and apres ca, there are still MIT FPOPs to attend, orientation, and thennnnnn… the start of my college life.

WALL OF TEXT. SPARK OF EXCITEMENT.

For once I was able to get 7 full hours of sleep. I woke myself up at 6am since I was too anxious to sleep any more, ate a huge breakfast of strawberries and cereal, and then arrived at school at 7am. After a while, we got onto the bus (which looked brand-new; how nice) and started on our way down to the Parmer Events Center. On the way, everyone started discussing a bunch of science-related items, including whether we liked biology, chemistry, or physics most of the three main natural sciences. Emily was all for biology, John liked chemistry, and physics will always be my love. We called upon Lillian to break the three-way tie, but all she could say was that she liked biochemical physics most. Great answer

Once we arrived, we were given about 5 minutes to wander around and check out the competition. My first judge came about 10 minutes before 9am, when judging was -supposed- to start. She and another judge questioned me on my project as usual, so on and so forth comme d’habitude. The other members of my category were pretty cool as well. The other VRHS members (freshman - Alicia and Zach) had the best-looking boards, IMHO. There were two Brenham, two Bowie, and I think one Harmony student in my category (Behavioral & Social Sciences). One of the Bowie girls was pretty tall for a sophomore, and she kept on sneering (or so it seemed) at those around her. The other Bowie guy reminded me of John Veloria only he actually knew part of what he was talking about. And I swear he looked -extremely- familiar but I couldn’t place him, so whatever.

Judging for our category ended pretty quickly, and then we just stood around talking. After the judges finished discussion, three judges that didn’t judge me came back -just- to look at my project =) Zach kept insisting that he wasn’t good enough, but I swore that we would do amazing. Not to brag or anything, but it feels really cool to actually have people stare at your project and say, “Wow, look at that one” like I used to do as a little inferior freshman back in the day ;D

Finally they came on the loudspeaker and announced all the first place winners of each category and then dismissed us for lunch, warning that we should be back by 1pm for second tier judging. VRHS already won about 9 out of 17 possible first place spots, so all nine of us ran down to Sandy’s, got food, ran back, ate up our burgers and drinks in about 5 minutes flat, and ran back to our boards. We had to physically move our boards across the entire exhibit hall to the last two right-hand rows for second-tier judging.

During those two hours (1-3pm), I was bombarded with judges and ended up talking nonstop the entire time. As soon as one judge finished another came up, and sometimes a judge would come in the middle of another discussion and then after the first left I’d have to backtrack. I did get some really good connects, though ;D I met two guys from IBM, where my father works (I think they’ve all met each other at some time or another), and they told me more about what they did in their industry and etc. I also met two professors from UT, where I’ll most likely be going next year, in addition to some psychology majors who gave me good constructive criticism. By the time I finished the 2-hour judging, my throat was physically hurting since I had spoken so much. We 1st-placers went to get ice cream at Sandy’s and then sat around in the awards hall until we were able to rejoin with the others who had gone bowling. Chris and I and some of the other guys lined up in the hallway leading to the bathroom and started a joke of clapping whenever someone walked by. Pointless? Yes. Entertaining? Yes.

We headed to dinner at Shady Grove (and ended up speaking about Mina, Tanner, and taking over the world for the entire duration of our meal) and then came back to the convention center to make recordings and look at the other projects. At 7:15pm sharp, we had to endure a grueling performance by the Reagan HS drumline (all of our band/choir/musically inclined students were groaning inwardly the entire time, myself included). After that came awards.

I won’t list out all the amazing people that were given awards or made it to state. I WILL say that when awards were being called for Behavioral Sciences, I was at the side of the stage with Alicia and Zach, and after they announced 4th and 5th place, I turned to them and said, calmly as I could, “Guys. We.. are going to State” and then we erupted in silent cheers.

Of course I already knew I was 1st in my category, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. What WAS a surprise, however, was the $1000 Austin Energy Math & Science Scholarship I received. Both I and Garrett (one of my classmates, 1st place CS) received the scholarship, along with another student. Finally, at the end they announced the Best of Fair winners, who would be the Texan representatives to the Intel ISEF (International Science & Engineering Fair) 2008 in Atlanta, GA.

Guess who was the first person to have her name called?
That is right, guys. Moi =)

I, along with a guy from Westwood HS and a team of two girls (Rachel + Emily) from my school, are going to Intel ISEF.

When they announced my name, I stood up and mouthed the words, “Oh my god” while screams erupted from everyone behind me. I was -shaking- as I walked up on the stage and received my award, and I seriously felt tears in my eyes. It’s just so surreal and unbelievable. I’ve dreamed of this ever since freshman year but I never believed it would ever happen. It’s like all of my hard work has finally culminated in this final reward, and I am just so very grateful for the opportunity. Apparently I was -the- top choice for Best of Fair; one of the judges told me that 17 out of 17 judges unanimously voted me as their candidate for 1st Best of Fair award, whereas they actually debated about the 2nd Best of Fair recipient.

If that wasn’t already good enough, VRHS also won sweepstakes for the third year in a row, which means we got the most points (awarded based on how many people a school places and in which positions) out of all the high schools in attendance.

What now, Bowie and Westwood? (our two largest rivals)

I’m just so psyched for Intel ISEF already. I don’t even care if I place at Intel, I am just so happy that I get to go at all. From what I’ve heard so far, Intel ISEF is just “one big party after another” (quote Mrs. Mann). There’s a day (or two?) for judging, one for public exhibition (in which all the foreign countries dress in cultural outfits to present their projects), several guest speakers and other things. It’ll be so exciting! Plus, while we’re in Atlanta, Megan Pendleton (Intel ISEF finalist ‘05 and VRHS Alpha class ‘07) is probably going to be meeting us there since she goes to school at Georgia Tech and is in the area. It’s going to be -so- fun getting to travel with Rachel and Emily and my teachers and meeting so many amazing scientists from all over the world.

There’s a bunch of fun events there too. The one I’m really looking forward to is the student pin exchange, in which each school or region takes a bag of pins designed by their school and then trades with everyone else. So eventually I’ll have a huge collection of pins from all over the world! In addition, there’ll be exhibits from professional companies, probably a bunch of people there to give out scholarships, maybe even college reps? There’ll be hundreds of PRs there, too! I’m amazed and excited and all sorts of impatient. Finally there is something for me to look forward to after spring break! Intel ISEF will be my last and final large event before… graduation! =O

Today during AP Biology class, it seemed the only thing we were able to talk about was science fair. I love how every year we come back from a scifair event and it seems as if we’ve all gotten closer. When Mrs. Mann was reviewing DNA replication with us, Tanner and Clayton got into a discussion about artificial intelligence, and Tanner speculated humorously that the secret of life lay in the introns.

During AP Biology class, Clayton -did- start an argument with Jennifer/Jordan/Jocelyn, and occasionally Jocelyn asked Tanner for backup. I, however, did not join the fray since I know arguing with Clayton is useless - he doesn’t hear anyone’s opinion except his own. His argument was that if you had two people of the same skill level playing the same instrument, they would sound the same. They were arguing so very loudly too, I couldn’t concentrate on my French homework that I was last-minuting. I seriously resisted the urge to yell out, “Clayton, shut up, I just did a freaking science project that could disprove your argument. You are wrong”… but of course I didn’t blurt that out. It would sound like bragging, and I always get a bit embarassed when people wish me congratulations around people who didn’t even make it to State or Regionals. It’s almost like salt in the wound for the others, and despite my antisocial-ness, I know if I was one of the 4th/5th/no-placers at Regionals, I wouldn’t like to incessantly hear about how someone was going to advance to State or Internationals. Common courtesy, guys.

I won’t be taking more samples between now and then, but I’ll probably be rewriting my paper like mad and redoing my board so its more readable. Either way, I’ll have more free time, so I’ve decided to go ahead and try to revamp both SnM in the near future. When I’m in college, I’ll just focus on SnM and use Crimsonietta as a blog; I won’t have much time for much else!

Either way, it’s 1:20am and I’m to bed. Already. Finally I can get some sleep!

If anyone’s been keeping up with my MSN and/or Facebook personas, you can probably see how I’ve been anxiously counting down the days (and the hours and minutes) until science fair time. To tell the truth, I am terrified. I don’t know how I’ll finish on time. Then again, a lot of other people are in the same boat as I.

This year, I’m doing studies in the harmonic spectrum of various tones of musical instruments at 440Hz, analyzing them via the Fourier transform algorithm to align correlations between harmonics and concentration while taking a spatial-reasoning test. In simple words, I’m studying what music helps you think best. And no, the options are NOT “classic, rock, hard metal, or pop”. I am rather sick of that cliche project. Everyone knows how that will turn out, and no one can explain why.

My project -will- explain why, however, and that’s why it is so crucial that I perform well at school scifair.. because after -that- we’ll advance to Regionals and then hopefully to State! I created a Facebook group the other day with a list of 50 (so far) “You know you’re in Scifair when…” rejoinders. I get a little teary-eyed just thinking about it, but hopefully this year I have the option of creating even better memories I can cry about at graduation.

Ahh, graduation. That’s coming up in five months, and I can assure I will be a sentimental mess when I walk out of the Frank Erwin Center on the evening June 8th. Because as much as we can mock the “immaturity” of high school, as much as I am psyched for college, as much as I am ready to get out of this educational facility… a lot of good memories were made here, and they are irreplaceable.