Return and Report...

State Science Olympiad was boring as hell and exciting as hell.

Boring - driving up all alone, waiting through some boring events, spending time studying my Food Handling textbook. Walking, walking, walking, everywhere on the IUPUI campus. Definitely got my movement in today.

Exciting - Michael got first place in two of his events, Fossils and Remote Sensing (Don't ask. Maybe something to do with analyzing satellite data?), awards ceremony, Chick-Fil-A for lunch.

Pleasant - Heather came over to pick up some hockey tickets I had received at work that her friends were going to use tonight and we spent a pleasant hour or so talking about just nothing much, but I was very relaxed.

Frustrating - Michael's team won second place. Only first place gets to go to nationals this year. Sometimes two go, it has to do with how many teams compete in state. The winner was Bloomington HS North, the in-town rival, AND they only won because one of the events was judged incorrectly. The judge let some teams do some things that were outside the rules, but it wasn't the teams' fault, it was the judge not knowing the right procedures. So they decided not to disqualify the teams, but to let individual winners get their medals, but not count them toward the team score.

The judges say that for nationals (In Augusta, Georgia, Erin!) some states who qualify to send two teams only send one. If someone does that, they will let South also go for Indiana. We have to wait until at least next week to know, however.
It was very upsetting, a few of the girls were crying, and even one of the boys. I thought Michael looked like he wanted to. I gave him a big hug and he was pretty clingy.

Sweet - Michael gave one of his medals to another kid. The alternates weren't supposed to get the "team" medal, which was on a rainbow ribbon, but one of them got one. Kyle said, "I didn't get a rainbow medal." Michael just took his off and handed it to him and said, "You can have mine. I have another one at home from another year." Ahhh....

I am totally and utterly exhausted. I want to watch the news in a minute to see if the basketball team won THEIR state tourney.

So - positive thoughts toward getting to nationals! And YAY for all these teenagers who think engineering and science is fun.