I won!

I'm absolutely amazed that I won the Alliance for Science essay contest. Apparently, I did write a good essay. For those of you who don't know, I submitted an essay for the Alliance for Science essay contest in late March about "Why I would like my Doctor to have studied evolution." I must say, I did have some fun writing that essay. I learned a lot about zoonoses, which are diseases that are transferrable between species. If you want to know what that has to do with the topic, you'll have to read my essay, which should be online at some time. If you can't wait, contact me via e-mail or IM, I'll send you a copy (and be sure to tell me whether you can handle open-document-format, so I know if I should send you a .odt or .rtf, the .rtfs aren't so pretty, unfortunately).

I'll give you some behind-the-scenes commentary. I had a super tough time cutting that essay within the word limit. I had to get rid of an entire section about the Tripoli Six (Six foreign doctors Five foreign nurses and one foreign doctor [Thanks for olvlzl at Respectful Insolence for spotting this] in Libya sentenced for infecting kids with HIV, even though new research found that it was impossible. For more detail, search scienceblogs.com, they'll have more detail than you can ever use). Even then, I had to kinda get rid of a few adjectives in that essay. I believe the final word could was 3 under the maximum. I never thought I would have so much to say.

So yeah, the prize is $300 and a free subscription to SEED (what I REALLY wanted), plus a bunch of stuff for the school. Well, here I am, bringing glory to the Los Angeles Unified School District. However, my achivement is kinda dwarfed by El Camino Real, but some potential glory at school might not be so bad (of course, I can't show off my OWN glory). And what do you all think I should do with the prize? My current plan is to deposit it in a bank account until I can come up with something to do with it. That way, I still make interest off of it, yay!

Ok, I know this post is getting kinda long, so I'll cap up by saying, I love you all! Oh yeah, and there's also my teacher to thank, Ms. Chung (who I then spent a week with in Costa Rica, which was a very good break from this). She helped revise and polish the essay, which I think made a huge difference. And I'd also like to thank PZ Myers, 'cause, he's awesome, and I wouldn't have found out about the contest without him. Oh, and my parents, for making me revise it, like 20 times. The Panda's Thumb was also an invaluble resource for this essay, thanks for covering the Michael Egnor affair so well (I found out about PZ's Egnor superlist AFTER I submitted the essay, unfortunately). I swear, he was so well timed. Now I'm wondering if anyone else used him as an example.

Ok, I'm ending it for real this time. Thanks to all the people I cited in my essay (duh, that's what citing is kinda for). OH! and the Understanding Evolution web site was extremely helpful. Wow, I never knew I had so many resources. Ok, well, bye everyone, and make sure your science is open source (?!) Hey, that could be my new motto. Or, make sure your open source is scientific. Meh, I like the other one better. Oh, and Fundies Say the Darndest Things, of course (does anyone else get an RSS feed for them, I think mine's broken), for uplifting me during times of stress, and making me laugh my face off. I swear, that place is funnier than any comedy show ever. Ok, now bye!