Nick, Programmerman
Day 295 (661) - Fairer memories
Back when I was in school, we would compete in the Education competitions. As a whole, we never did particularly well, I think some of the schools got together during the summer to prepare explicitly for these competitions, while we just hopped a bus the first week of school and had fun. The majority of the contests are written tests, with the best grade overall given first place, on down to sixth, broken into different tests based on the last grade you'd completed. Over the years, I managed to gather a good set of ribbons myself, though, including one blue one.
So the majority of my memories of the State Fair are tied to these tests. We would go down early on Saturday and Sunday, register, sit for a test, wait and wander for an hour while they graded them, and come back to results and usually disappointment (and four to six names called from the same school). Then the process would start over again. At some point after my time, they outgrew the building we had always used, moving the contests into another part of the park, and it was all last weekend anyway, so I missed the opportunity to see any of it happening live.
I checked the results of this year's contests. My school (Bellevue West) didn't do too well, though they did place second in the Quiz Bowl, beating out our archrival (East) by a spot.
Day 295 (661) - Fairer memories
Back when I was in school, we would compete in the Education competitions. As a whole, we never did particularly well, I think some of the schools got together during the summer to prepare explicitly for these competitions, while we just hopped a bus the first week of school and had fun. The majority of the contests are written tests, with the best grade overall given first place, on down to sixth, broken into different tests based on the last grade you'd completed. Over the years, I managed to gather a good set of ribbons myself, though, including one blue one.
So the majority of my memories of the State Fair are tied to these tests. We would go down early on Saturday and Sunday, register, sit for a test, wait and wander for an hour while they graded them, and come back to results and usually disappointment (and four to six names called from the same school). Then the process would start over again. At some point after my time, they outgrew the building we had always used, moving the contests into another part of the park, and it was all last weekend anyway, so I missed the opportunity to see any of it happening live.
I checked the results of this year's contests. My school (Bellevue West) didn't do too well, though they did place second in the Quiz Bowl, beating out our archrival (East) by a spot.