CupGeeks

My name is Laura and I’m a geeky cupcake maker. There, I said it. I’ve heard that this is the first step to recovery.

About a month ago, my friend Mara and I embarked on a quest to increase awareness of nerdy staples (anything to do with math, science, or academics in general) through the ever-effective medium of delicious, homemade cupcakes. It is not an easy task. In fact, there is a great deal of courage needed to brave the unpredictable effects of hours in the kitchen, an inordinate amount of extra calories, and the complete submergence into the relatively unknown region of Nerddom. I’m not saying we’re fearless. I’m strongly implying it through the use of obnoxious circumlocution.

Our first project was ambitious. We knew that we had to choose something easily recognizable, something impressively typical. It had to be big. People had to notice it, admire it, and worship it. There is one obvious template that fits this criteria. So we set out to construct the Periodic Table of Elements out of delicious color-coded and flavor-coded cupcakes.

The Plan:

Nonmetals: Vanilla 

Metals: Chocolate

Solid at room temperature: Green Icing

Liquid at room temperature: Blue Icing

Gaseous at room temperature: Purple Icing

Unknown state: Yellow Icing

Induction (Not the Electrical or the Mathematical Kind)

The National Honor Society recently held an induction for new members. The ceremony was delightful, replete with tidbits of both scrumptious food and invaluable wisdom.

The previous night, I had been pacing frantically in my kitchen, trying to formulate a speech that would accurately capture the spirit of scholarship and trying to bake brownies so delicious to make any audience member forget the public speaking mishap that I feared would occur. The preparation of a good speech has much in common with the preparation of a good chocolate delicacy. I knew I had the dry mix, the essentials, the flour, sugar, eggs, and cocoa. Those were the statements of “Welcome”, “Today is a very special day for our inductees”, and “I am very proud to be standing here before you”. But I also needed to find the chunks of chocolate, the lasting wisdom that would keep people reminiscing about the experience later. The process of writing a speech that would satisfy both my peers and my older advisors was a challenge.

This is what I came up with:

Scholarship is the corner stone of the 5 NHS pillars. Most people generally agree that a sense of scholarship is a pretty important characteristic to have, and yet the meaning of scholarship, the very essence of being a scholar, is grievously misunderstood in today’s society. And in a way, it is the pillar that is the hardest to explain in the context of NHS, because who are we, a group of kids who are recognized almost explicitly for our grade point averages, to explain that Scholarship is really not about the number of A’s you receive in high school. That it’s not about the prestigious university you matriculate in or the number of intimidating letters next to your name. Scholarship is above all simply describing the innately human desire to know, to know it all, and to be able to apply that knowledge. 

Most of us instead imagine a scholar as a gray-haired old man locked up in a secluded corner of a library pouring over Dante’s Inferno and holding his inhaler like a security blanket. He sure knows a lot about latin conjugations and the specifics of Greek history, but when you ask him about the sun or grass he mutters incoherently “Oh, I heard about that once...” Scholarship is more than that.

We are all born scholars. In fact, I would argue that most of us begin life more scholarly, and we begin to lose that as the tedious hands of preconception, education, and society begin to wrap their confining fingers around our minds. As kids, we question everything. I distinctly remember repeatedly pestering my mom with questions such as “Why do all houses have walls?” and “What do colors feel?” and “How can we prove Fermat’s Last Theorem without defining first the explicit relationship between modular functions and elliptic curves?” Well, I think I remember asking all of those questions. The point is, at that stage, we learn at an alarming rate. We learn so much we can barely keep it all in our little heads. And it’s exciting! I remember that as a kid, time stretched out! A year in my childhood felt like a decade. It’s because every day, we found new things, we discovered something incredible. And as you grow up, you begin to think that incredible is something rare, something to be found only occasionally by lucky people. This is a mistake. Incredible is everywhere. Find it. Find it by questioning everything. Find it by keeping a dream diary. Find it by asking your teachers what their favorite books are. Then read them. Then write one, for the sake of it. Talk to an artist. No, become an artist. Spend a whole day without using the word “and”. Describe the color green. See if you can draw an astronaut with your left hand, it doesn’t matter! No matter what, you cannot let your curiosity be dampened. And those that embrace it, those that run towards curiosity with open arms and minds, those are the true scholars.

Thank you

It isn't perfect, but it gave me the necessary experience in public speaking and speech craft that will help me with later projects.

Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth!

Since May, I have been working intensively on the school production of William Shakespeare's masterpiece (in my amateur opinion, of course) of Macbeth. Taking on the role of Stage Manager took more courage from me than one would expect. Theater is one of my few irrational fears (the others include clowns, bananas, and lampposts after 11 PM). I don't have very promising prospects of overcoming my other fears, but these past six months have successfully transplanted theater from my "AVOID AT ALL COSTS" list to my list of passions. 

I always knew that I loved Shakespeare. Since working on Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade, I have longed to be transported to a fantastical world where iambic pentameter and frilly collars are the norm and I could stop by any market on any day to buy my very own nemesis. But there's something absolutely incredible about seeing the words jump to life on stage. The words, already replete with poignancy and potence, take on meanings that transcend mere diction when spoken aloud. In the lines I would normally have skimmed over, such as "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!" (Act 2, scene 2), I now hear emotions bubbling and tensions brewing. 

Total immersion in a work like Macbeth does have consequences. I have spent so many hours making stage blood that my fingernails are irreversibly a sickly red and the recipe is forever ingrained in my memory. Staying after school every day until 8 or 8:30 has forced me to postpone many of my other responsibilities (such as writing on this blog, obviously). Additionally, now I spew out random Elizabethan phrases in my day to day life. If someone ever gives me both good and bad news: "Such welcome, and unwelcome things at once, 'tis hard to reconcile". My normal laments ("Aaaaah" and "Errgghh") have now become "O, Scotland, Scotland!". 

Perhaps I am flattering myself, but stage manager seems to be the toughest job in the whole production. I am responsible for every cue, set change, and blocking change. If something goes wrong, it falls on my head. Luckily, such blunders are rare because of the unbelievable quality of our stellar cast.

Our first show is tonight. May Fortune go with us. So thanks to all at once, and to each one, whom we invite to see us triumph at 6:30!