I am not a car person. Watching hunks of metal go really fast along a strip of pavement doesn’t have much draw for me, yet this year I found myself at the Watkins Glen race track. I blame it on my friend who is, as some males are known to be, rather obsessed with cars. I went for him. I wen because I only see him for a few days per year. I did not look forward to it, but life can be surprising. I ended up enjoying myself. There was a hum of excitement and the smell of cheap food and burning rubber. It was a vastly different from my usual haunts of robotics competition and science fairs, but just like those places, it reeked of obsession. There were people lined up to drool over Jaguars and proud parents of Porsches showing off their mechanical children. I don’t need to go again, but I’m happy to have experienced Watkins Glen.
Author: simplyemmasthoughts
July 15, 2015: Swim meets
As usual, my summer is almost more busy than the school year. There are just too many fun things to do! Sailing, kayaking, science fair projects, three weeks at Duke TiP. So, I am not the best when it comes to attending swim meets. Last Tuesday was my first meet of the season. I was nervous. We were swimming against a team we had never defeated, and I had only swam twice after four weeks away from exercise. The few days before I had slipped in as much swimming as I could, but I wasn’t sure how my body would deal with racing. Apparently I had nothing to worry about. Everyone on our team, me included, flew, and although our win was a close thing, we did win. More importantly, I cut time from all of my strokes, showing good self-impovement.
My second meet of the season was last night. There were a few issues that I had to overcome there. First of all, as soon as the pool deck got thoroughly soaked, it also got extremely slippery. This meant that diving, backstroke starts, and any wall turns were fraught with danger. The pool was also very small, only five lanes across, meaning that the waves the other competitors created didn’t disperse as easily as they would in a big pool. Everyone had to be careful to not breath in a lung-full of water. Nonetheless, my team, the Yellowfins, had another win, this time by almost 200 points. We’re over halfway through our competition season, and we are undefeated!!
July 15, 2015: Duke TiP Summer Studies
Duke TiP Summer Studies is nerd heaven to say the least. Learning a semester’s worth of college level courses in three weeks while meeting other intelligent and motivated teens? Who could ask for more? This year, during my three weeks at TiP, I took the Game Theory: Economics class and discovered a world of ideas I had never even touched on before. We learned about Nash Equilibria, Pareto Optimal situations, and many other concepts. Not only was I inspired by my class material, but also by my classmates. I met people that geek out over the same things as I do, people who listen to Radio Lab, have read Brave New World, will get excited over math and science. I live in a community that doesn’t exactly celebrate intelligence. When people say “nerd” or “geek” here, they’re insulting you. So to be immersed in a community that sees education as their hobby was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. T-47 more weeks until I get to go back. I can’t wait.
June 3, 2015: Fundraising:
I hate asking for money. Smiling up at someone and presenting a spiel, “Hi, my name is Emma Christensen, and I’m part of a First Lego League robotics team. Give me all your money.” It drives me crazy. Door-to-door sale is better, but not by much. I don’t know why I hate asking for money so much, but I do. This makes fundraising of any kind very hard for me, even when it isn’t for a cause that I’m a part of, so last week when my mom pitched the idea that we go help out at the Children’s Miracle Network fundraiser, I had to struggle with myself before I could say, “Yeah, that sounds great!” Volunteering is good, I told myself, you always get that warm feeling after you help people, remember. So, I put on my brave face and went and asked for money.
Now, I’ve worked with political campaigns in the past, both in 2008 and 2012, and I thought I knew how fundraisers went. There were a bunch of volunteers calling a list of phone numbers to procure either information or money. I would fill out forms, or run things back and forth. We’d all be crammed into a gray-looking room with random, bright signs plastered on the walls. It would be quiet except for the hum of voices. There might even be free soda. This is not how the Children’s Miracle Network fundraiser went. Yes, there were a bunch of volunteers answering phones. Yes, there was free soda. Yes, there were random, bright posters plastered on the walls, but it didn’t feel anything like what I was used to, because it was all being televised. A few people in fancy clothes were up front, talking on and on about nothing. The phone-answerers were in the back, waiting for people to call in and give money. They were bringing children and dogs up on stage, interviewing random volunteers, trying to get pretty girls to say funny things. It was sickly-sweet, and I wondered who in the world would watch this, but the phones were ringing. In the end, although I doubt I’ll volunteer for that fundraiser again, I’m glad I got to see and experience a whole different world from my own.
May 28, 2015: Shakespeare:
Spaghetti and Shakespeare was formed a few years ago when orchestra ended and I realized that my Monday nights were free. When I tell people about how my friends and I sit around and read Shakespeare to each other, I usually get weird looks, but it is extremely fun. We pick parts, settle into our characters, and enjoy the witty and harsh words of the Bard. This year, we didn’t start at our usual time, deciding to do Literature Analysis instead, but when Literature came to an end, we realized that we were missing Shakespeare. So, in these last few weeks before I got to Duke TiP, we’re reading Much Ado About Nothing. Although A Comedy of Errors still takes the prize for my favorite play, Much Ado About Nothing is high-ranking. It has a wonderful mix of characters which keep the story rolling. I’ve also found that since we started Spaghetti and Shakespeare, I’ve found it much easier to understand old english.
Solecisms (random vocabulary love poem)
Please excuse the frequency
Of my axiomatic solecisms
As my truculent tongue
Refuses my eyes any ogling
Without turning taciturn
And if I should seem diffident
In stark contrast to
My usually garrulous self
It comes from the confusion
Of the vast difference
Between coquettish and me
Attraction is not my strong-suit
I find satiety among words
Yet even they have a surfeit
Of understanding
When it comes to this
Eclectic feeling
I apologize for my maudlin tone
But frankly
You bewitch me
May 22, 2015: Class!
A few years ago, I took my Dad’s biology 1100 class. It was a good intro for me into the world of studying and homework. It was hard, but I did well and had a blast. Unfortunately, the class, as classes do, ended. I found that I missed doing the in-class exercises and marveling at the basics of biology. I soon found a solution. I could informally TA. I knew the information well enough to help with grading, and I could attend class every once in a while to help out by socratic questioning student to the solution. It was perfect. Last summer I was very serious about it, attending class most days and grading all the in-class exercises and exams. This year, with much more on my plate, I won’t be as regular, but I am still joining in the fun of biology!
May 21, 2015: Objective-C, My New Obsession:
This last school year I took two semesters of Java programming from the local community college. I have discovered a new passion. I’ve been programming on Graphic User Interfaces (GUIs) since I joined a robotics team in 2009, but text based programming is a whole new world.
Ever since I started with Java, I’ve been wanting to get into app building, but recently I discovered that Apple apps are written with Objective-C. This means another programming language to learn, but the challenge is exciting. After finishing the Java classes out with A’s, I got the Big Nerd Ranch Objective-C Programming and have been devouring it’s contents in my free time. Computer programming has gone from being part of my school routine to being my hobby. Thankfully, Objective-C is similar to Java, so I hope to be writing my first app soon.
May 21, 2015: Swim Team!
Swim team has started, and I’m in the thick of it. We have a wonderful coach named Jessie who is an incredible swimmer and an incredible teacher. She has helped me cut my times on all my strokes. Just yesterday, she showed me that you can breath to the side when swimming butterfly, and you won’t get disqualified! She has also helped me lengthen my freestyle which means I go much faster with less work. Meets begin in a few weeks, and I’m excited to see if I can beat my times. I am moving up into the 15-18 age range, though, so I doubt I’ll be winning anything.
I’m also teaching the younger students. We have a whole mix of skill levels. One girl started this year with a fear of water. I worked hard to teach her the strokes she needs to be on swim team. One of the biggest problems we’re trying to take care of is grabbing the lane line. Many of the younger kids will pull on the lane line to make themselves go faster. That is immediate disqualification which is detrimental to our team scores. Overall I feel a little like a broken record, “Don’t grab the lane line, don’t grab the lane line, don’t grab the………”
May 20, 2015: Literature Analysis:
A few years ago, when we dissolved our FLL team, my friends and I realized we still wanted to see each other regularly. So, we kept creating. We built go-karts from scratch, we did a engineering curriculum, we sorted Legos and built NXT Lego robots for outreach. This year, though, we decided to move on from engineering and try something new, Literature Analysis. Our parents helped us set it up by contacting a professor at the local community college to see if she would want to lead our group. Soon, we were picking apart short stories, looking for the author’s voice, plots, themes, and metaphors. We just finished up our second semester and can’t wait to start again in the fall. We’re all learning a lot, but the most interesting part is that I keep noticing that the skills we’re learning in Literature Analysis, we also use in our every day lives.
simplyemmasthoughts 