A Silver in St. George / "Dam" Las Vegas

Well, I haven’t posted about soccer in a while, but the only thing I’ve been doing for the past months is practice, which isn’t the most enthralling thing.  So instead of talking about my soccer, I will recall on this post my brother’s soccer tournament in St. George.  We left on Friday, drove for a good few hours, and arrived in the sunny, red rock environment of St. George.

As a result of not doing so well during their fall soccer season, my brother’s team was looking for a confidence booster in winning the tournament.  The first game, they won 3-2.  The second game, they won 1-0.  The third game, they won 5-2.  Now, I don’t what it looks like to you reading it, but those wins felt A LOT better than the multiple season losses, even from a spectators point of view.  After winning all three games they moved on to semi-finals, which was a success too.  The finals was pretty intense; going into overtime and penalty kicks.  Unfortunately, they lost during the penalty kicks.  Sound familiar?  Yep, this situation took place before in the girl’s high school state semi-finals soccer game.

Whoo, yeah! Second place!

Science Fair Surprise

Last Wednesday, a science fair was held at my school.  As an Honors Biology student, I was required to participate in it.  I think the last time I did a science fair of any sort was in third or fourth grade.  When I heard that I had to do a science fair project this year, I was very saddened, for I am just not into that type of thing.  Nonetheless, this project was a big part of my grade and who knows?  Maybe it would turn out to be fun.

So I started thinking and researching stuff that pertained to my interests.  Finally, I found a site that talked about food and reaction times which reminded me of gum.  I did some research about gum and learned scientists had already proven that gum improves your reaction time, so that experiment was out of the question.  I didn't want to totally throw out the idea, so I thought about adjusting it.  Then...light bulb!  I would do an experiment to see if gum improves reaction times more in children or adults.  Yeah!  I did more research, this time on brain plasticity in kids.  And I was off!

I created a question and a hypothesis.  I found a website that tested reaction times and made little sheets of paper for volunteers to write their results on.  The hardest part was finding forty volunteers to do my experiment.  However, even that got done eventually.  I wrote my research paper and finished my display board.  I was ready for the science fair.

And, of course, after being perfectly healthy for months, I get sick the day of the fair.  Of all the times.  The good thing was I was still able to go to school and participate, but it was very uncomfortable because I had a sore throat and a mild, but painful cough.  When the judges came around to my display, I temporarily quelled my cough, but I had a terrible performance!  I rushed through everything, forgetting to say key things like my hypothesis and half my procedure.  It was very embarrassing.  However, I figured they were only judges and my goal was to get a good grade from my teacher.  Luckily, my presentation to my teacher went a lot better, and I got the feeling she liked my project. Overall, it was an okay afternoon.

Two days later, on Friday (the day this was posted) the twenty finalists moving on and the twenty honorable mentions were announced during second period.  My second period class is relatively loud, so I missed the first half.  The second half revealed some names that belonged to kids in my class and I congratulated them.  The big surprise came at lunch when my friends told me they had heard my name on the announcements!  At first I didn't believe them, but sure enough, a special certificate with my name on it was waiting for me in the office.  What, I made it?!  Despite my awful presentation?  Apparently it wasn't as bad as I thought. :)  So I guess I'm going to the district science fair. -_-  At least it will look good on a college application.

Here are a couple cat memes that have to do with science.

Image courtesy of Le Café Witteveen

Image courtesy of Beam Me Up

A Park of Dragons

Enter DragonVale.

It's a digital game for touch screens and smart phones where the player builds a park with various kinds of dragons.  In my opinion, it's pretty awesome.  Although, I did stop playing it for about a year because my iPad experienced some technical difficulties and I didn't get back into DragonVale for a long time even after the iPad was fixed.

It all starts with a floating island in the middle of the sky.  On it, a bunch of rocks and trees that need to be cleared along with one portal.  Through this portal comes tiny wizards that walk through your park, earning the player money.  The more wizards in one's park, the better one is doing.  Of course, one isn't going to get far without dragons.  The most basic dragons (the starter ones) are the plant dragon, the fire dragon, and the earth dragon.

To move further along in the game, one must breed dragons, collect coins, and grow treats.  My favorite and least favorite part is breeding dragons, hoping to end up with a rare kind.  I love seeing the cool egg designs and new dragons created, however, it can be immensely frustrating.  Getting rare dragons is, well, a rare event.  There is no guarantee one will get the dragon one wants, no matter how many times one breeds the same pair of dragons.

Above is one of the floating islands of my DragonVale park, just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.
Sorry about the poor resolution; you might want to click on the picture to enlarge it.

Click here to visit the DragonVale Wiki.  It has a ton of info such as all the kinds of dragons, breeding hints, and the latest news.