This morning, the School of Computing hosted the 4th Annual Quiz Bowl for middle school and high school students. This quiz bowl dealt with computing information. Most of the students were from the Greater Savannah area, with several coming to Atlanta. The winning team for the bowl came from Savannah, Windsor Forest High School. The winning individual student came from Savannah Arts Academy. My jobs for the quiz bowl included preparing and proctoring the individual tests, setting up and handing out prizes, and being the judge for the final rounds. The judge role was just to say if an answer was correct if the emcee, Charles Gray of WTOC TV could not determine if the answer was correct. As a reward for my work, I got a t-shirt, pizza for lunch, and a pizza to bring home for the sibs to have lunch. Pictures from the event shall be posted on the AASU ACM site Monday after the ACM meeting.
I hope for next year, they have more chicks there. Of the 61 contestants, only 8 were female. There may be more females in the computing industry than there were in Rear Admiral Grace Hopper's age, but we're still a minority in the field. However, a good chunk of us volunteers were female this day. So people, if you know a computer-savvy girl, encourage her to enter the computing field.
Wesley, one of the ACM officers, and I were talking after the bowl. I was saying how I don't know much Unix or PHP, but I plan on taking the course on the 2 subjects. He thinks I should write an application for blogging. Maybe a PHP script for a website. I don't know. I wish I had enough skills.
In other news, Smoochy came today (or yesterday; I'm not sure)! I didn't find the box with the frog until my dad came home asking for his tool package he got via FedEx. My dad opened the box and showed it to Scooter. At first, he was in disbelief. He hardly touched it. As the night progressed, he starting playing with it. He was having fun with his new, big frog. 
I think for an hour, Matthew, my dad, and I watched Scooter playing with the frog more than watching TV. As we were watching TV, we were wondering why there was a red light on the TV. We were all puzzled. Nicki spoke up about waking up each morning to Fox News. Matthew and I were laughing at the prospect of our very liberal sister watching Fox News. My dad started laughing at this. He remembered why the light was red! He programed the TV to come on each morning on Fox News. It was a nice family moment.
Finally, I just want to say I think a pair of my new earrings has nickel in them. My ears are irritated are the moment. I have an allergy to nickel. It's most noticeable on my ears. We didn't realize I had it, however, until I was 12 and playing the flute. Since then, I avoid nickel. I guess I'll just have to coat the back of these earrings with clear nail polish. So, for a few days, I'm going to let the irritation heal. That means no earrings. 
[♪ Listening to: "The Heart Wants What It Wants" - Darren Hayes]
Posted by Shawn at March 25, 2006 10:12 PM in General, Savannah.
That reminds me--I was in a quiz bowl team when I was in high school. It incompassed a lot more subjects but still, I was the only girl on the team. I think the gender ratio might be due more to the competitivness or the whole perception that's cast. Quiz bowl junkies--at least while I was growing up--were basically viewed as hopeless geeks.
Anyways, I'm allergic to nickle as well. The only earrings I get are plastic, silver, or gold. And my watches are plastic. Otherwise, I get a nasty rash.
Posted by: sya at March 25, 2006 11:30 PMI was on my homeroom's math bowl team in 5th grade. I was the only female out of the 4 of us. When I took AP European History in high school, we only had 3 or 4 girls in the whole class.
As for the nickel, my ears are better. They still are irritated, but I was able to place my gold piercers back in.
Posted by: Shawn at March 26, 2006 10:36 AM
