Enthusiasm is just another word for 'working your tail off'

Guess I made up for those three posts in one day by not posting all week!  School is wrapping up, for which YAY. But I'm going to miss my math class....

Our plans to start a FIRST Lego League [FLL] team at our school are progressing epically. All week I've been sending emails and plotting and talking with faculty and running around school with a clipboard.
Sarah [another robotics geek] and myself have been meeting at school, hashing through fundraising and other plans. It goeth well.

Tuesday we had a particularly productive day. We talked to several principals [high school and elementary] and obtained permission to officially have homeschoolers on the robotics teams...all the teams...and we now have a Robotics Department at Santiam [school], pretty much. We'll be starting a Jr.FLL team, and at least one FLL team. This means students will have a robotics program available to them from 1st grade all the way through high school.

We were also the happy recipients of a generous donation by one of the elementary teachers, of a sizeable quantity of legos, and several RCX lego kits. Nowadays FLL uses NXT systems, but these will be useful for us mentor-types to learn on....

At one point we [we being my dad the robotics and art teacher, Sarah, and myself] were striding determinedly through the school, three abreast. In the middle, me, armed with clipboard and feeling like we were out to save the world. In a way, we are.

FIRST is not about robots. It is about inspiration. If our young people want to be engineers, if they have a burning desire to succeed at something other than sports [to take a common example], we will have succeeded.
When I was at Championships in Atlanta, I had the feeling a few times that if everyone in the Georgia Dome felt the way I did, we would change the world. Thing is, feeling a certain way doesn't do much. Even enthusiasm [much as I hate to admit it] can't do everything. Maybe the difference is, for me enthusiasm is a code word for dedication, hard work, obsessive research, and a certain willingness to scream your lungs out at Regionals.

I know how FIRST has influenced me, I was thinking about this in assembly at school yesterday. In how far I will go to support people, my team or whatever. This was my third year at regionals and things are so different than the first year.  Now, I cheer at every full stop. The reason I had a sore throat for days afterwards was because whenever our team was on the field, I was yelling. At our end-of-season team party we watched a video that one of our mentors took at regionals: at one point the audio is completely distorted, the volume levels are maxed out because I was shouting a few seats over. I don't even scream like a girl, it's a YELL.  When the first round of awards was being given out on Friday evening, I wound up standing and clapping and cheering for each team that received an award. Our team was sitting at the top of the stadium, no-one stands up at the top of the stadium. I did....this coerced part of my team to do the same.  I meant it: I was happy for those teams.

When our team was called down for the Xerox Creativity Award....that was one of the best moments in my life. Running down to the floor of the stadium, past dozens of teams....down at the bottom, where the enthused teams stand, people had their hands out giving us high fives. You have to experience it, to know what I'm talking about. That was success.  Of course writing an essay at midnight was also success, but a different kind.

This sounds self-centered, but the best way I can describe FIRST is to tell what it's done to me.  Now I care about what other people have accomplished...it carries over into other things. I start a standing ovation for my friends' play, I cheer at ballet concerts [ballet concerts are very QUIET usually], I started the audience clapping in rhythm during the can-can piece [which the dancers like], I cheer at tiny robotics scrimmages.  FIRST hasn't been responsible for all this: it's just made me think more about how much effort people put into things, and want to recognize that effort.


I took the SAT again last Saturday.  I did a shameless promotion of FIRST in the essay.

Trigonometry final exam today: first part of two-part final, this with a partner. Tomorrow it's by ourselves, no calculator. That went very well. In fact things went along swimmingly until we got to the last problem, which involved working through two nasty trigonometric equations to prove that they are equal. Always requires oodles of work and sometimes one will pop up and kick your tail.

This one kicked our collective tails. My partner and I spent a good 45 minutes, and 3 pages of scratch paper, working out that one problem. We went down a lot of rabbit trails: as partner complained to the teacher, we had 45 minutes in which to go down as many rabbit trails.

The class period ended. Break passed, still we scribbled frantically. The next class period started, the teacher approached us to say 'The time has come...' but just a moment before that I had gotten off down the right path at LAST and scrabbled down the last box round the answer just at that moment.   ADRENALINE. High-five with my partner, who mentioned the fact that I dominate at math, and out the door, shaking from a combination of caffeine and adrenaline. Another WIN moment :)

Performance Week!

Wellwellwell it's been a while!  

I'm not dead yet.... :D

College Algebra/trig has been going well....so far it's just been 'review'  :P   But it's a good class...very small actually. The teacher is INSANE but very awesome :) and I've got a whole page of quotes from algebra...some from students but mostly Ms. Kimes  :)  It tells you something that she's got a little note on her filing cabinet: 'C___ High School,  ___ Kimes   Evil Cackle'   :D

Rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet are also going...well...ish. INTENSE.  Things got fast and furious about Tuesday of last week, with long rehearsals and lack of sleep.   Wednesday night I came home from a late rehearsal, did math, and around 10 PM I came to the realization that 'Oh crud we really should have competed for the Woodie Flowers award.'  (Robotics stuff: in honor of one of FIRST's founders, Woodie Flowers, it celebrates the mentor [robotics coach-type] who best embodies the spirit of FIRST.)  Well as usual our whole team was too busy building the robot to write an essay, and nobody actually thought of it except ME the DAY BEFORE the essay was due.   And of course I was finishing up Chairman's Award essay and stuff. 

One of our mentors has worked harder than anyone for the past 8 years or so, the team wouldn't exist without him.   Nobody from our team has ever been nominated for WF. I decided that if he can give hours of time, work practically a second job (that's what robotics is :P ) I can stay up and write an essay....

Thankfully there was a word limit, so it only took me about two hours. Writing an essay at midnight is a really exhilarating experience, as was getting up for school next day, Thursday. Rehearsal as usual.

There was a happy moment when I was curled up on the floor backstage trying to catch 40 winks when somebody shouted onstage, and I panicked, thinking it might be me needed, and sat up and banged my head on this pile of heavy metal thingees. Promptly cracked up. Later I managed to stand up directly under another hard boxy thing....fun times :)

 Friday our rehearsal started as usual at 3:30 in the afternoon. Cue-to-cue: the tech people are working on lighting. Actors say a line, stop. Wait. Wait some more. Skip to the end of the scene and wait some more.  Took hours to get through the first act. We were there til 11 Pm.   

It was also the first time run crew (shlepping sets and props and furniture) was actually working with servants (moving more shtuffs for scenes). 

As a Capulet servant, I (with 4-ish other servants) move these four potted trees on and offstage a LOT. Like after every third scene. We only started doing this in the past few days. Oh, and we're still acting in a couple scenes.  

Those confounded trees haunt my every waking thought. Before Friday's rehearsal I had been on top of things, and printed out a list of every scene and what had to be moved on stage. (We are now on the third revision of this important list.)

Run crew and fellow servants love me. There are a total of three people on run crew which is NOT enough. It got really exciting when the four trees blossomed to six, spread amongst us four servants (has to be servants because it's in the scene). 

And there's this miserable bench that I and another girl have to get on and offstage. There was one time when she wasn't there and I raced out onstage to grab it, to cheers from the techies in the audience....a great moment :) 

There was an issue getting home, so I got to hang round the theatre later than almost anybody else. My dad was working late on the robot and did not get home til 1:30 that morning. 

I dreamed all night about rehearsal, and those bloody trees! XD

Saturday proved even more interesting, with a second revision of the master-list, which has made run crew adore me :P   

 This time it was my turn to miss my cue with that blasted bench. Twice. The first time because I thought I had more time than I did, and was marshalling the troops for the next tree-moving bit. ARGH. Then I was all primed to make sure I didn't miss the next bench-scene, and took a SECOND to try and find tree-people, and BAM missed the entrance. Apologies all round, franticness. 

After about 1 pm I rushed cross-town to robotics scrimmage; big pre-competition thingee before the robot is boxed up Tuesday night. We did pretty well, except for a tip-over which resulted in something coming loose, and also the treads came off one wheel....thank goodness for epoxy! 

Stayed there til 7 when my mom came and rescued me from the deadly-dullness of standing-around-not-being-able-to-help-much (as was most of the team, it was just programming issues at that point.) 

My dad was really suffering, he couldn't help much either and was holed up trying not to fall asleep....commented that it was almost like being stuck in an airport at 1 AM.   He got home pretty early thankfully: 9:30. 

I went to bed at 8:30 and got about 12 hours of sleep...off to rehearsal at 1 this afternoon to find it had been cancelled :( I was really wanting to run through again with crew, those trees....Director was beyond enthused about my scene list and general preparedness, commented on my responsible-ness =D  which made me happy.