#SoCS: The 6th,7th & 8th

I almost didn’t do a SoCS post today, but as it’s my week off from the Weekend Writing Warriors, I figured I should post something for the weekend.  That, and…  given this week’s quirky prompt and the piece of paper next to me (the summer camp form for Shakespeare & Co.), it seemed a fun fit.

And…  some fun would be a good thing for today.  It’s been a very…  different day.

Anyway, here is the SoCS prompt from Linda Hill’s blog:

Your prompt for #JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is as follows: read closely. When you’re ready to sit down and write your post, look to the publication (book, newspaper, permission slip from your kid’s teacher, whatever you find) closest to you, and base your post on the sixth, seventh, and eighth word from the beginning of the page. Enjoy!

Just so you know, I fudged here, since the 8th “word” was actually 2018. So instead I took Riotous, Company, and Enrollment as my three words.

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Instead of getting this post out sooner, I spent over eight hours in a crowded event hall with a riotous bunch of middle school kids while engineers and judges prowled between aisles of tables and chairs, asking questions, getting photographs…  it was the regional competition of Future City, and my son was part of his school’s team.

What’s that saying?  Neither rain nor snow nor heat…  Well, it seems those are child’s play when it comes to designing the city of the future for some.  This was the first year our son’s school didn’t offer the competition as a general elective for the 6th, 7th and 8th graders (it’s odd that this prompt fit today in so very many ways!) but instead made it a volunteer after school activity.  Seems that playing SIM City 4 and having to write an essay on what would be your ideal future city wasn’t cool…  and then all that designing a model?  That’s some hard stuff there…  especially the democratic process these kids had to use to get their ideas from the page onto the display.

At least, the sleet and freezing rain only made us late for the competition.  It didn’t damage the kid’s project, and no one got hurt getting there.

The competition was fierce.   We didn’t win, but… our little Catholic School won two awards for the great transportation our kids designed.  Maybe news like that will help increase enrollment in the program next year.

After that, a few families headed out to Five Guys for burgers and company...  and to discuss the projects we saw, the possible awards to aim for next year, and the upcoming basketball game at the school later in the evening.