Konbanwa, reader-sans! So, I'm going to warn you that I'm exhausted and it is extremely likely that none of what I'm saying will make sense, so bear with me. Anyway, today was the infamous science fair that has been driving me crazy all year and that has prevented me from posting lately. I figured I'd let you guys know how it went.
Well... It went... I'm a little frustrated with my partner because she wasn't as knowledgeable about the project as she seemed to think she was and she gave some incorrect information to the judges and put me in the bad position of having to correct her when they pointed out the mistakes. It was a pretty painful process... We also didn't place or get honorable mention... But it wasn't all bad.
Out of the, I think, 15 groups from our school that went, almost all of them placed or got honorable mention and we have five groups going to the state fair next month and two that are definitely going to the national fair over the summer, so our school really represented. It's really impressive because most of the schools that were there were magnet schools or private schools and we're just a public school with a really good program, so it was nice to hear how frustrated some of the other kids were who had been rude to us about going to a public school earlier in the day when our school almost swept several of the categories! Wow, that was really venomous of me to say... I don't think I really care, though! We did a really awesome job as a school.
As far as my project, I think I understand why the judges didn't like us. We have hit so many walls and had to change the project so many times that we didn't have enough time to really build anything, so all of the things we discussed were theoretical. Also, I have no experience with engineering and I did almost everything on the project. And of course, we didn't build anything up from scratch. We pieced together a lot of bits and parts of things, but the judges didn't seem pleased by that when we were explaining it. Between that and the misinformation, I think that's where we went wrong.
Now, I was a little disappointed at first, but this is where having a logical mind comes in handy: you don't have to deal with those pesky human emotions! Basically, the way I see it, I learned from this and I don't have to win a medal or a trophy to prove my own worth. Not once in this project did I give up (unlike my partner...) and yeah, things were often tough, but I learned that I can just buckle down and get it done. You do what you have to do because it's not worth it to waste time. I know this is a pretty unusual trait, so I'm going to cherish it. I'm glad I did this project because I finally found something I'm good at: problem solving, working hard to make it through, not giving up when things start to get a little tough. I'm good at thinking. It's nice to find something about myself that I can feel proud of. I've often had issues with believing I'm never good enough, that I'm a Jack of all trades but master of none. That's a bad feeling and hopefully I'll be able to remember," Turtle-chan, you did this. You built this crazy complicated machine by yourself. You taught yourself how to code. You did this."
I guess what I'm saying--here I go, I'm getting sentimental--is that even if you think you're not good at anything or maybe you're "eh" at a lot of things but not really good at any one thing, maybe you're just looking for talent in the wrong places. I mean, I'm an "eh" artist, an "eh" musician, and "eh" dancer, a "meh" writer (slightly better than "eh" in case you were wondering!), but I'm a good worker.
And I'm going to clarify, because I think I sound really bitter about my partner. I don't dislike her personally; I just don't like the way she's handled this project. I also don't like that she's one of those people that doesn't take the time to do the research properly before deciding she knows everything. I will admit that I don't know everything, but if I think I might need to know something, I make darn sure to look it up and find several different sources before deciding what the facts are. For example, she scolded me during the fair because a judge asked us how we were planning on taking the computer out of the equation for making our project function and I told him, honestly, that we were considering using an Arduino Uno board, but that the software was extremely complicated and that our coding knowledge essentially amounted to turning lights on and off so we'd need to do more research before jumping in that deep. The judge seemed okay with this, but my partner was very affronted. She told me that most people wouldn't think that was funny (which is how it was intended) and that you should never admit you don't know how to do something to a judge. Personally, I found that most of the judges appreciated my honesty and one even complimented me on it. I don't know. We just didn't pair well together. I wanted to work alone, but my teacher and her teacher assigned her as my partner, so I didn't have much choice in the matter. I really don't hate her, we just don't function the same way. And that's fine, it just frustrates me because I like to be very calm, very cautious, very prepared, and just generally feel like everything is under control. I don't like surprises, so I tend to over plan. She, on the other hand, seems to just prefer to go with the flow and she was very nervous during the judging while I was very calm and level-headed, so that may have caused some of our conflict.
Anyway, I'm pretty much falling asleep while I'm typing, so I'm going to log out for the night. I'll try to get some stories up here soon. Or maybe my band feature on Oomph! because they're seriously amazing. I'll catch you guys later!
- Turtle-chan
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