Week Eight

Hi there!

I’m writing this blog post in the car on the way to San Diego! I’m visiting UC San Diego and I’m so excited! Narrowing my college choices is going to be so hard; I wish I could go to all of them. So, this week was in between very stressful and relaxing. 

This week was the Arizona Science and Engineering Fair and I haven’t participated in a science fair since fourth grade. Let me just tell you, so many things have changed in eight years. These students have become so competitive (EVEN THE ELEMENTARY KIDS) and they are doing these really amazing projects across Arizona. When I was in elementary school, my idea of science project was gluing some scrubs to my rollerblades and cleaning the floor in a fun way (this experiment failed by the way). Yeah, this is what kids are doing now:

But anyway, my poster was on the evaluation of bio-binder as a partial replacement of asphalt binder, which took so long to make. My mentor and I had a few disagreements on what should be on the poster, but it took two days until it was finalized… It was only finalized because it was the last day and there were typos. YAY FOR PROCRASTINATION! But here’s what my poster looked like:

The overall experience was unlike any I’ve had before. But good thing Kathleen and George were there to guide me! So basically how AzSEF works is that judges who have already read your poster will come back and ask you questions about your project to evaluate your overall understanding of the subject. I think I did fine for my first time, seeing that I didn’t really prepare a speech and that I made all my judges laugh.. ;) But I had lots of fun meeting new people and that’s more important than winning in the long run. 

So now that the science fair is over, I can switch my focus back to MALDI!

So long!

Seerat Jajj

P.S. Sorry this post is so late. There was no WiFi at LAX or on the airplane or at the hotel (well there was WiFi but I am not paying $20 for one hour). But then I thought I could write it on my phone, BUT NO I forgot my phone in Phoenix. So I am posting it the second I got home.