Day 69: Highway to the Danger Zone

Learning Festival in Fallon, NV

(This draft was made back in August, but I never published it, whoops!) (Published on 1/23/26)

Highway to the … LAST LEARNING FESTIVAL! Today was a momentous day – the day of our last learning festival. It really feels like things are starting to wrap up. It’s like the first sign of the end. 

I woke up on the couch of the Youth Center’s Teen room. Then I went to the Youth Center’s industrial kitchen to grab breakfast. It truly was the breakfast of champions. I had everything elementary school me could have wanted. Chocolate milk, prepackaged cereal bowls, even tangerine juice. After enjoying my long breakfast, I went to go help with setup for our workshop. 

We had a pretty decent sized group this time around with 6 to 8 kids per group. But even though it was our 10th time doing this, it wasn’t easy. The kids were a rowdy bunch. They asked a lot of great questions, but they were also easily distracted, for example, by all of the balloons in the corner of the classroom. Fair. There were a couple of mishaps. One of our soda bottles cracked and sprayed a kid with baking soda and vinegar. I was also subsequently sprayed by said bottle. Later in the day a scuffle broke out between two of the kids. I broke them up. I was also pretty tired, so at some point I started dosing off during Sarah’s chemistry section. But we made it. After our learning festival wrapped up, I felt a little bit relieved. Teaching kids is tiring. 

Afterwards me, Sarah, Ramona and Greta hit up a cafe. Looking at the menu, I saw that you can choose up to 5 fruits to add to your smoothie. I like to get the most bang for my buck, so I got the crazy combo of mango, banana, blueberry, peach and pineapple. It was delicious. Felt rejuvenating. 

We headed back and people went off to do their own things. Charles and Ruth were still working on the prints, so everyone gathered there. At some point we managed to find Ruth’s Scratch account and looked at all the games she made as a middle schooler. Ruth was very embarrassed. Afterwards me and Charles did something we had been wanting to do for a while – play two-player Flash games. Specifically, we played Gun Mayhem 2, a Co-op 2D platform shooter. Together we cleared the campaign of the game. And then we played Gun Game, a game mode where each time you kill your opponent you upgrade to a new weapon. And after you get through the 15th weapon, you win. We played 10 rounds and Charles won… none of them. 

Afterwards I went to go take a quick nap and woke up when I saw a message in the group chat that Ruth was going to show us the completed The Breakfast Club trailer (see her blog). Needless to say, it was absolute cinema. Iconic. Afterwards Ruth showed us the video she had put together for her 2.009 (MechE capstone project class) team. I then went to sleep, knowing that tomorrow would be a long day. 

Tune in next time for my final blog …and the final blog of Spokes!