Yesterday I did three things. I lazed around outside with my friends. I got my first sunburn of the year. And I attended the farewell Honors Program banquet. The theme of the banquet was “Scientists Being Silly.” The guest speaker, Professor Kristin Johnson, opened with a picture of Einstein sticking his tongue out and ended with a YouTube Video of scientists in white lab coats dancing to the tune of “gonna rock this club like its dynamite.” Personally, I love silly things. I’m a fan of Monty Python, I like making bad puns, and I own a pair of slippers with bears on them so every time I put them on I have bear/bare feet. See what I told you about the bad puns? In honor of that speech, I’d like to list all the silly things we did that evening and say why they were awesome.
- Played with fortune telling fish. The people who set up the event were nice enough to give us each a fortune telling fish. You put the little plastic fish in the palm of your hand and depending on how it moved it would tell your fortune. E.g. a moving head equaled jealousy and a moving tail equaled indifference. I got “curls up entirely,” which meant passionate. I’m just glad I didn’t get motionless or “dead one.” Seeing as I’m only twenty-two, that would have been a really crappy fortune.
- Gave out silly gifts. The event had a variety of door-prizes including the cutest little green stuffed animal blob—I think it may have been a molecule. We also got mugs with the “University of Puget Sound Honors Program” written on them. They had electric candles at the bottom covered in glittery party plastic. I think I may have accidentally drunk some of the glitter this morning with my tea. Whoops.
- Told a silly story. Silly stories are the best. When I was really little, my dad used to tell me and my sister “Harry Potter stories,” spinoffs of the Harry Potter series only with way more bathroom humor. I enjoyed those stories and I enjoyed the one at the Honors Program banquet. The Honors Program banquet story takes the post college aspirations of the senior class and weaves them together into a single narrative—in this case the search for the spiritual meaning of the kidney. One of the best lines that night was, “To know for sure we’d need more kidneys to continue our research. I’m not at liberty to say where we’re getting them.”
So that was the silly stuff we did at the banquet. I enjoyed every moment of it. So get out there and be silly. Stick your tongue out. Drink glitter in your tea. Make a bad pun.