gus participated in his first-ever science fair last week! his project was called "auris" and was an anatomical overview of the human ear. it was perfectly appropriate for a 2nd grade project. he worked on it with his friend, randy--gus did the illustrations and randy did the writing (because, sadly, gus inherited his father's aptitude for such...and anyone who has actually had the misfortune of trying to decipher rich's scrawl knows what an uphill struggle this boy will have). i'm guessing a career in calligraphy isn't in gus' future. but otolaryngology might be.
anyway, gus and randy did the whole project on their own without almost no help from me or tammie (randy's mom). and, granted, it was a little rough but this was our first science fair and we figured that all the projects would be like that since they were all done by 7- and 8-year olds. how wrong we were...they were not rough at all. in fact, they were almost all, without exception, suspiciously professional-looking.
without being too catty, let me just say that for next year i am seriously considering petitioning the school to categorize the entries into ones that were clearly done by the students alone with minimal parent involvement, ones that were clearly done with some help by the parents but still largely kid-driven, and ones that were just flat-out done by the parents. i actually saw one poor child looking dejected next to his perfectly-presented project because his father brought it in, set it up, tweaked the components and wouldn't let him touch a thing on it--in fact, he kept telling his son to stop touching it. i felt bad for the kid but worse for the father because you know he worried all day at work that his son had screwed something vital up and people would think ill of the family or some such crap. maybe next year he'll take the day off and guard the exhibition until the judging. gus and randy got very cool participant ribbons--they were ecstatic.
granted gus' school is a tad competitive--we were so thrilled when he got in that it actually made a huge difference in our decision to come back to albuquerque (that and we can't escape the triangle). we even had to fly out from iowa so he could spend the day at school and see how he fit--it was a more intensive application process than for a college. so i should have expected something like this. however, i think next year i'll shoot for the second of my new science fair categories over the first. any thoughts?
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