Senior Projects

Anne & I went over to the local high school yesterday evening to see the Senior Projects. Actually we went to take a photo of our son with his project board. He insists we were only there to embarrass him. We got there early enough that I was able to stroll through both gyms where the projects were set up. I talked to a handful of girls. I avoid talking to the guys, I find they are generally not as interesting to talk to. Their spiels are more canned, more strained, not as nuanced.

I talked to:

• one Latino girl who had gotten pregnant and had a baby. She had quite the hard luck story, but it wasn't getting her down. She was working and going to school and planning on attending the local community college. She was bright and articulate. She was getting some help from her Aunt & Uncle.
• a Muslim girl from Somalia. She was wearing a head scarf and a floor length dress or robe or something. But her face wasn't covered and she talked to me. She left when war broke out, which was when she was two.
• a girl who did a project on STARS which is some kind program to promote sexual abstinence in teenagers. She had gone over to the middle school (Junior High School in other words) to present this information and what she got from the kids over there was that it was too late. Evidently she should be selling the program to elementary school kids.
• a girl who did a project on Parkinson's disease. She knew someone who had it.
• a girl who wanted to be a writer and had started on a novel.
• a guy who had done a big drawing of emergency workers. He was working for the local ambulance company servicing the vehicles and he had made up a large drawing that combined several emergency scenes into one.
• a girl who had several drawings of horses that included parts of their skeletons. Horses have a bunch of leg bones, more than you or I.
  
• a girl who had been riding along with the local police did a project on adrenaline.
  

I saw several projects on the same or similar topics, I saw some that were so simple they were self explanatory and some that looked intriguing, but I didn't have time to investigate.

There were more exhibits in a third room that I didn't even realize was there until it was all over. Mostly it was seniors standing around waiting for the judges. Each project was supposed to be judged by two judges, but not all projects got judged by two. In any case, the witching hour was 8PM and as soon as it hit everyone packed their bags and headed for the doors.