It all starts with poster board.
Getting mom to drive to the drug store to load up on the thick flimsy is a great start to a great project. Grab a sheet of white, a sheet of neon pink, and if you’re lucky one of those thick cardboard three-folds. Come on, we both know that cardboard added some scientific integrity to your research — the seventh grade equivalent of getting your work published in The New England Journal of Awesome.
Now, it doesn’t end there. Next you’re grabbing markers, spray paint, baking soda, and Styrofoam. Once you’ve got everything together you’re rushing home and getting down to science, people. The carpeted corner of the unfinished basement becomes your lab and it’s time to spend hours putting on lab coats, staring into microscopes, and pour bubbling green liquids into beakers. Also, taping.
Come on and let’s count down some classics:
6. The solar system. Jabbing those spray-painted Styrofoam balls with a straightened out coat hanger is a truly great feeling. As is painting a splotchy brown Australia on Earth and a big eye on Jupiter. If you want to go the To Scale route, remember to leave Pluto at home.
5. Volcano. There are two types of eruptions. First, there’s the Underwhelming Fizz — where you stare deep into the mouth of the fiery beast only to witness some rock-hard hunks of baking soda floating in a pool of strong-smelling vinegar. It’s disappointing, but you can always try again and hope for a Superblow — where everyone stares with wide-eyes as red ooze bubbles and slides down your carefully painted volcano onto the GI Joe townspeople below.
4. The one the kid’s parents obviously did. Also known as robbing your child of the thrill of scientific discovery in exchange for a B+.
3. Growing something. Whether it was lima beans or patches of fresh grass, it was a a classic move to study Sunlight vs. Shadows, Music vs. No Music, or Watering Plants vs. Pouring Coke On Them.
2. Coke is bad. Speaking of Coke, did you have that kid who left a tooth or some nails sitting in it for a month? The groundbreaking research typically concluded with a harsh indictment of the entire soda industry. And maybe a business card for the kid’s dad who was a dentist.
1. The one that didn’t work. Every science fair had a few of these gems. They were sad and beautiful at the same time. Because that down-faced ten year old standing in front of a dim lightbulb was learning how to deal with lost efforts and how to get back their drive after a fall. Keep that chin up, tiger. You’ll get ’em next time.
Yes, beautiful science fair moments were always a perfect close to months of hallway passion, energetic teachers, and long lonely nights cutting construction paper letters with pinking shears. Letting kids learn, letting kids dream, letting kids try and try and try — well, there’s just so much good that comes of that.
As they bottle insects, jab battery wires into lemons, and rub magnets together, you can see the whirring gears spinning with delight. Yes, all that learning just sponges, soaks in, and sticks there forever as the next generation of curiosity seekers tease their buzzing minds forward and forward and forward…
AWESOME!
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Photos from: here
fresh french fries. right out of the fryer. mmm crunchy! AWESOME.
Pouring a carbonated beverage, taking a deep breath in, and the bubbles NOT spilling over.
Sucking your breath in kept that extra push of air from splashing the bubbles around. Now, you can enjoy your drink!
Yup.. you’ve just played a really risky game, but you came away a winner!
http://1000awesomethings.com/2009/02/10/833-pouring-a-drink-where-the-bubbles-go-right-to-the-top-but-not-over/
Parting your hair on the other side and not having anyone notice. It’s like being an international spy whose mad skills let him go undetected by the masses. Or I pretend to be my other self. Left-side hair-parting me is always slightly more intelligent and noticeably more hungry that it’s right-side counterpart. I always feel extra stealthy on those kind of days. :)
That sound a pebble makes when you kick it across a sidewalk.
Theres nothing better than walking, when you are in no big hurry and you see a perfect pebble right in your walking path. You’ve just gotta kick it. And it’s so satisfying, youve gotta kick it again. Eventually an all-out 1 on 0 soccer game breaks out. Sure, you may look crazy to passersby, but you’re having fun, so who cares?
Even better if you have a walking partner and a game randomly breaks out.
Yardsticks
Don’t ask me why because I have no idea. Maybe because in elementary we were NEVER allowed to use the teachers yardstick, so I always wanted my own yardstick. I bought a yard stick, I’ve never used it, but it makes me happy to have one.
Last night we went to Chuck E Cheese. It was my nephews birthday party. He was very cute about the whole thing. He had a smile for every one. Even though he just wanted to run off and play he made sure to tell every one hi and when we left he yelled thank you across the parking lot. This was the first time my kids have ever gone to Chuck E Cheese. Was the pizza their favorite part? Nope. The tickets from playing the games so they could get prizes? Nope. It was getting that little cup full of little shiny gold tokens. Looking at that little cup you could see them thinking about how many games they would get to play. Every gold coin was one game. That was a cup full of games. A cup full of fun. Seems to me that there should be a cup full of fun handed out to every one, every day.
Waking up 5 minutes before your alarm goes off.
cause you know you got that extra five minutes to sleep.
self-deprecating jokes:
no one feels awkward laughing if you made the joke about yourself.
watching kids have fun, they always seem to be happy and that brings a smile to your face
seeing kids with disabilities succeed in life
Trading lunches packed lunches.
My fruit roll up for your pudding cup?
My baby carrots for your apple slices?
My turkey sandwich for a slice of your cold pizza?
Whatever the case, it was always nice to score some bonus sweets that you REALLY wanted in your lunch. Sometimes you’d have to sacrifice a big portion to get your paws on a handful of M&M’s, but it was always worth it.
Let me just say this: thank God for the kid who liked vegetables.
“Hey, bud. Want some of these celery sticks? Here take them. Mmm…your chocolate chunk cookies look good, you gonna eat ’em? I mean, I DID give you those celery sticks…”
So awesome.
That’s awesome, I always loved that one.
The smell when you walk into the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.
Childhood. Happiness. Love.
AWESOME.
OMG you are so right! It has it’s own distinct smell and it is AMAZING! I get to go to Disneyland in a couple of weeks and now I am super excited for that ride.
When someone gives you a compliment, especially if it was unexpected.
falling asleep on the couch or in the car when you’re little and having your parents carry you up the stairs and put you in bed. nobody likes being woke up from a nice sleep. especially to find out they have to walk all the way into the house and all the way up the stairs. it feels like an impossible task. but then there’s those times your parents just pick you up and take you to your nice bed to continue your perfect sleep. even if you did wake up you pretended you didn’t. just in case they might put you down if they found out you were actually awake (not that they ever would).
When you desperately need a piece of gum or mint to cover up that garlic breath and your friend just happens to have a piece on hand!
Particularly if they give you their last one.. you know you’ve got a true friend! (Or that your breath was just REALLY bad that day!)
http://1000awesomethings.com/2009/06/12/745-when-someone-gives-you-their-last-piece-of-gum/
Laughing for no reason. You’re sitting down with your friends, and all of a sudden you start cracking up. You’re laughing but you don’t know why. You’re friends look at you like you’re crazy, but who cares! laughing is fun! AWESOME!
1) Doodling on a person, even yourself
2) Grabbing the spot that someone else just left where you can still feel their body heat
3) Learning that the way you do things, just isn’t the way EVERYONE does things. I never knew Canadians got milk from a bag.
4) The delight of a good bandage. It fits, soaks up your blood, and somehow gives you warm fuzzy memories about how a simple bandage can cure most boo boos
5) STICKERS
6) Free t-shirts. When it comes to freebies, t-shirts are tops. It’s like being given permission to treat clothing horribly. Paint? Ketchup stain? Who cares! The shirt was free!
7) Knowing that family and friends survived a disaster. The bittersweet wave of relief that they were spared.
8) Going fishing, and watching someone catch an actual fish. The look of surprize on their face is beautiful. No more seaweed or trees for that hook, no sir!
9) Bubbles! From a wand, in your cup, they call to be popped.
10) A meal cooked from scratch. If you cooked it, you know you gave it your all. If you’re the sampler, you respect the effort given. And the food just taste better.
Re: Number 8: Catching a fish in an unorthodox way.
I was at the lake once and was swimming. I had a plastic bag. Fish were everywhere. I tried and tried, but eventually caught one in the bag. Everybody was screaming out of awe. Best fishing trip I’ve ever had.
When you’re done with your workout for the day.
When you get a package from a friend, who is far away.
The perfect piece of music on a roadtrip.
Tree Houses
Because there is nothing cooler when you are kid than a home-made tree house. The anticipation as you watch Dad build the fort, and maybe even get to help a bit. When your input is included in the design. Finally getting to play in the fort once Dad has nailed the last board to the perfect tree.
Climbing high, talking for hours inside, giggling with friends. Making a “NO BOYS/GIRLS ALLOWED” sign and feeling incredibly exclusive (even when there aren’t any boys/girls around to shun). Having Mom bring lunch out to you and your friends so you don’t have to leave your antics. Staying up late and finally having your parents’ permission to sleep inside the tree house.
Imaginations run free in tree houses. You’re the captain of a mighty and fierce pirate ship, the King or Queen of the greatest castle in the world, an explorer in a foreign land setting up camp. You’re the Swiss Family Robinson. You’re Tarzan in his jungle. Anything is possible when you are buried in the leafy canopy, hidden high above the ground.
Then you get older. Many toys lose their charm as you age, but not tree houses. Tree houses will always be awesome. You daydream about multi-story tree houses. You tell your friends about how, in the future, your kids will have the best tree house ever – you’ll make sure of it. You size up every tree you come across in terms of how good of a tree house tree it’d make. You know exactly what your ultimate tree house looks like.
Tree houses were, are, and will always be…
AWESOME!
Yeah, that’s awesome. Unfortunately I never had one.
Skipping rocks
Finding a perfect, flat, round, smooth stone. Throwing it at just the right angle. Getting a bunch of skips/bounces in before it sinks below the water’s surface.
AWESOME.
Finally finding a great roommate after a bunch of idiots.
Word.
When you realize that your wife is the best roommate you could’ve ever hoped for, and you think… “well.. that’s convenient!”
Spring Break. Always loved spring break as a kid and now my child gets to enjoy the week off school to enjoy the warming weather.
Getting to sleep in on the weekends. Last weekend was busy busy busy and I had to get up before the sun every day. Made me really look forward to this weekend so I can sleep in.
I think this one has already been listed but just to make sure…..parties at work. Taking a break from the computer and filing and getting paid to eat cake is awesome!
Ha ha, that made me think of the scene in “Office Space” when Milton didn’t get a piece of cake because he had to keep passing them back!
Finding mistakes in movies.
Beating the system by fixing things yourself.
This week I saved £50 on a new toner cartridge by fixing the old one, and I also didn’t have to buy a new wireless mouse by taking it apart and fiddling with it and putting it back together again (don’t know what I did……)
hmmm, maybe my awesome things should be fixing things by accident and then feeling smug about it…….
AWESOME!
I once fixed the flushing mechanism in the back of my toilet, and I felt TOTALLY smug about it afterwards.
Ha! This just happened in my house last week.. my wife complained that the toilet kept running, after she flushed it. I went in, took the lid of the back, jiggled stuff around, and it magically stopped.
My wife thought I was a total handyman/stud, but little did she know, that is the ONLY tool my in my plumbers tool kit. If the “random jiggling” didn’t work, I would’ve been totally clueless!
Dude, I replaced the whole works in there. Looked it up online, went to the store, bought the parts for like $5 or something ridiculously cheap, came home, shut off the water (this is an important step in all plumbing jobs), replaced the parts (one of which is called a “ballcock” I kid you not look it up) turned the water back on, JIGGLED IT, and then felt pretty darned smug.
Wow. Smugness was definitely earned… I’m impressed.. (and I’m not yanking your chain.. not even the one attached to the ballcock..)
Do you KNOW how much plumbers charge?!?
Like I said, totally smug.
-The feeling when you finish your last exam for the term and walking out of the building
-Recapping university stories with friends years after graduation
Receive mail! I never receive mail so when I do it makes me happy ! :D
Getting a whiff of that special ice cream shop smell when you walk by an open door, especially when it’s a place that you didn’t realize sells ice cream!
Having a day off when everybody else is working/ at school. You can do what ever you want with no-one bothering you.
And it’s best if your friend also has a day off, because then you can go shopping together. And what could be better time for shopping than weekday, in forenoon?
When your alarm goes off in the morning and plays a really good song. It makes waking up & getting out of that comfy bed so much easier!
Getting to wake up late on a school day because you have some kind of appointment.
One of the most awsome things that has happened to me, and it only happened twice, once with each child, is picking my child up at daycare on that one special day. That day, the first day it happens. When they came running to me for the first time, arms outstretched, yelling “Daddeeeeee”. It happens alot now. But that first day, Wow! What a feeling.
Finishing a long-overdue project.
I just finished knitting a baby blanket for a couple of new parents I know that I’ve been working on since the end of September. There was that period of “no worries, the baby isn’t due til March” followed by “oh, wow, that’s coming up fast” which inevitably leads to the last minute panic, nights of frenzied knitting, and a package delivered after the baby is born, but it was all worth it to see the finished product.
It’s so awesome when a college class is unexpectedly cancelled! To get to campus and see the note on the door or to wake up and get the email that class has been cancelled is amazing :)
P.S. It’s even better if you live on campus. Then you can just go back to your room and sleep some more.
My apologies if this appears twice; I’ve been having some problems with posting.
Finding the funny in the bad
Last summer I broke up with my long-term boyfriend. We had owned a house together, the break-up was sudden for me, so it was a pretty terrible time for me.
It all kind of culminated in the ex scheduling a fake viewing of the house to keep me away while he moved his furniture out and picked out his choice of the “shared assets”.
When I came home to find my cookware taken and my cell phone missing, I was in sore need of a good, long hug. Yes, it turned out that his idea of “shared assets” were things that I’d owned long before I ever met him.
Finally, when I was getting set up in my new place, putting things away, I noticed that he’d taken the beaters for my hand mixer.
Not the hand mixer in its entirety, just the beaters.
That’s just too absurd to be anything but hilarious, which I think is pretty
AWESOME.
It’s awesome to be able to secretly help others. It’s great to not-so-secretly help them, too. But every now and then you get a chance to be the masked stranger who contributes to someone else having a better day.
It’s awesome when you get a shot and it doesn’t hurt as much as you thought it would.
Especially flu shots. They don’t hurt worth shit. Kind of disappointing actually…
I’m not at all disappointed by that!
It’s awesome when a friend from another city / state / country comes to visit you. They take time from their schedule, pay money to travel, and come visit YOU. It’s a very special feeling.
It’s awesome to repeatedly enter contests on the off-chance you might win! It seems hopeless, but that little piece of hope keeps you trying ;)
FINALLY listening to that song that has been stuck in your head the entire day.
The best feeling. You’ve wanted this all day, and you’ve been playing it over and over in your head. You’ve sort of known what it’s sounded like, but now that you’re really hearing it, you just lay back in bliss, because it’s not bothering you anymore.
Taking a hot shower after a long day
You’ve been running around all day, all fresh and put together in the morning, but by the afternoon you’re worn out- your clothes sweaty, your shirt sleeve smudged with food from lunch, your pants heavy with the germs of public transit, your shoes scuffed and your feet sore.
Then you come home, step into a nice hot shower, wash all the grime of the day away, and change into a fresh pair of pj’s, still with that clean laundry scent.
AWESOME!
the first ‘flip-flops’ day in spring. just putting them on changes the whole day.
One word ingredient labels. Ex: I was eating a bag of baby carrots and the label said Ingredients: CARROTS on the back of the bag.
Hahahahah that is funny .. and yes, awesome!
yeah i was in my macro-economics class and i laughed out loud…i explained it to my professor and she also thought it was hilarious..haha
the sound of things being ‘sucked up’ by the vacuum cleaner. that crunching rattle is so incredibly satisfying.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning (especially when brewed in an old fashioned percolator). It reminds me so vividly of my late nana that it brings tears to my eyes and a smile to my lips all at once. Awesome!
It’s awesome to get a compliment from a stranger :)
Waking up and checking your email only to see class is cancelled. You can just roll back over, watch a movie, or actually have time to get breakfast before starting the day.