PTSW: Contagion

A post I began back in February and neglected in the intervening weeks:

2-27-2012

Tonight is our annual science fair. The eleventh iteration. And each year some ten-year-old comes up with a question to investigate that has never occurred to me before. My favorite this year was the quest to prove whether smiling really is contagious. The young fellow not only had a decently controlled experiment, he tacked on a bit of poetry to  his enthusiastic and entertaining oral report --- I hope his log gives evidence of an experiment to match his little speech. I immediately thought: "There's my next 'Poem to Start the Week'".

Smiling Is Infectious
Author Unknown

Smiling is infectious,
you catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too.

I passed around the corner
and someone saw my grin.
When he smiled I realized
I'd passed it on to him.

I thought about that smile,
then I realized its worth.
A single smile, just like mine
could travel round the earth.

So, if you feel a smile begin,
don't leave it undetected.
Let's start an epidemic quick,
and get the world infected!


Later note: The project, still my favorite of the year, did not win a gold medal as I recall, but did win a lesser medal from the judges.