Read CSSF: Day One first!

---

Morning

The next morning, I stashed my luggage (“Wow, you travel light!”) in room 316, and headed downstairs to the lobby. The others were already leaving, so I didn’t get a chance to check out of the dorm. (What a mistake that was.)

We walked around USC campus for ages, looking for a place to eat. The only place we could find was a muffin shop, and I ate half a chocolate chip muffin. Yuck.

Then we walked back to the California ScienCenter and attended the “student orientation,” which didn’t really orient anyone but actually got me more nervous. Was I going to win? I couldn’t believe I was there at all, actually. California State Science Fair. Wow.

---

Judging

The orientation concluded. We were to go to our projects. I was both excited and nervous, and I just couldn’t wait for the whole thing to be over with. I wondered if I would win. First? Honorable Mention? Or nothing at all? What about Recognition and Special Awards?

The judging: basically the same as at Synopsys. It fell into a routine, talk and talk and say the same thing a billion times over. The judges here, however, asked deeper and more challenging questions. Maybe this is because CSSF is a state competition.

I remember one judge quite clearly, because he gave me many challenges and we had a pretty in-depth conversation about my project. I think he was trying to see how much I really knew–in that case, I guess I passed the test. :-)

When the judging finally finished, I was relieved. Most of the judges appeared to be impressed with my project. Whether or not they actually were, I would find out later.

---

Lunch Break

I used my lunch ticket to get the “sack lunch,” which was a gross green egg roll sort of thing filled with turkey and other stuff. I ate most of it because I hadn’t had breakfast, but it was gross. Good thing they also provided lemonade, chips, and a cookie, though.

I found Charles, Boyuan, Adeline, their friends, and Tony. Charles and Boyuan went off to see the IMAX or something, so Adeline, Tony, and I talked for a bit.

I bought a ticket to see the IMAX movie “Forces of Nature,” but that was where things started to go wrong. My ticket was for 2:30 to 3:15. I realized (a bit too late) that we had to be at the Rose Garden for a group photo at 3:00. So I’ll just see the first 30 minutes then. Uh oh…what about my key for the dorms? I had to return that and check back in!

It was 2:25. Adeline was still there, and she hadn’t checked out either. Charles and Boyuan needed to do that too. Since they were seeing the IMAX movie, and would be out at 2:30, we decided to wait. Tick, tock, tick, tock… Adeline had purchased a Venus Flytrap from the gift shop, so I decided to go see what else was in there. I ended up buying a gyroscope, which was pretty cool.

Two-thirty-five. Still no sign of Charles or anyone else. Wait a second–they get out from the upper floor! Adeline: “So that’s what that big mass of people was!” She called him on her cell and he came down with Boyuan. Boyuan (smartly) decided to give his keys to Charles, so he wouldn’t have to run over. Adeline and I didn’t. Charles ran ahead, but I was wearing a backpack with a laptop and other stuff in it, so I walked with Adeline. We were talking, and not paying attention to where we were going. We continued walking straight ahead.

Oh shoot, where are we? LOL

Backtracking, we saw Charles returning from the dorm. It was 2:50. We walked (quickly now) to the dorm and checked out. Whew! Now we had to get back as soon as possible. We did so.

Well, actually, we stopped to take a picture of the fountain for no apparent reason. Haha.

---

Group Photo

We arrived at 3:05, just a little late.

It was too bright to take pictures. The photographer’s tip? “Look at the sun while I’m counting, and look back on ’3′.”

“What? Doesn’t that damage your eyes?”

Response: “Eyes closed of course.” LOL But, seriously, though, this strange-sounding tip worked.

Here’s a group photo. My name tag was rotated nearly 45 degrees though. :-( 8-|

---

The Awards Ceremony

Before the awards ceremony was project removal, at 3:30. We took our projects to the cars parked some distance away. It was a lot to walk. Plus, we needed to get over to the sports center for the awards ceremony, too. They were in opposite directions!

On the way to the Los Angeles Sports Arena, we passed the Memorial Coliseum, and a huge statue of headless people. These photos are pretty cool.

The Sports Arena would not open for another hour or so. I solved someone’s Rubik’s cube with the cheat sheet I found at the bottom of my backpack. LOL

It’s too bad I don’t have any pictures of the interior of the arena. It was huge! The bottom seats were reserved for student–I sat with Tony, Charles, Adeline, and Boyuan. The suspense was starting. What would I get? Would I win at all? There weren’t that many special awards this time, and I didn’t win any of those. When we finally got to my category, my name was the last one called on stage (alphabetical order). Heheheheh. Everything happened so fast–before I knew it, my main competitor (or so I thought) had already received the first prize: Honorable Mention. Then 3rd place was called. Not me. The 2nd place. Not me! Yeah!

Announcer: “First place: David Liu!”

The award presenter gave me my medallion. As I stepped in front of the “First Place” sign, the announcer continued, “Title of the project, ‘Internet-Based Distributed Computing’.” This was it! I had won! When I stepped off the stage, more pictures were taken. Some Chinese reporters pulled me aside and interviewed me. As a result, I was published in several Chinese newspapers, like this, this, this, and this. Can’t read the articles? Translate the pages with [AltaVista's free BabelFish service][http://babelfish.altavista.com/]. Funnily, a few reporters didn’t recognize the last character in my Chinese name, so it was reported incorrectly in two of the articles.

I sent a picture message to my parents, who were eager to hear about my success. My medallion reads: “FIRST PLACE. MATHEMATICS AND SOFTWARE. JUNIOR DIVISION.” :-D

By the time I got back to my seat, the next two categories had already finished. Unfortunately, Tony, Charles, Adeline, and Boyuan didn’t win anything for their outstanding projects. Better luck next year!

---

Going Home

The Prime Time shuttles were parked right outside the Sports Arena, ready to take us to the airport. We ate dinner at the airport, and waited for our plane at Gate 10.

I took pictures of everyone before we got on the plane.

Here we are, descending into San Jose. It’s hard to take a picture because of the motion of the plane, but the effect is still pretty nice.

“Welcome to San Jose!” I collected some screen names and email addresses, and said a final goodbye to all the new people I met.

My dad picked me up and drove us home. By the time we got back it was nearly 11 PM.

---

I had a lot of fun during this trip. (Obviously, judging by the length of these two blog entries!) This was a unique experience for me, and I hope I get the chance to go again next year!