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Green Thumb

Back in year 10 Science all students had to complete what the teachers fondly dubbed a "student research project". As if it was the first time any of us had done the research for a project ourselves. Basically the premise was to hypothesize and devise your own experiment, record the results and present your findings. The mark would go toward your final grade and you were thus one step closer to passing year 10 and moving onto becoming a senior, that or dropping out and starting a trade. 

Well with all the confidence of a professional landscaper I decided I would finally break out the personalised gardening set I had received from my aunty a few christmases ago and put it to good use (an addition to my christmas list after seeing a troll in central park and imaging I had magical powers in my thumb that could somehow grow plants). My experiment was to see whether talking to plants helped them grow.

My idea was to plant the same type of seeds in 5 different pot plants keeping all variables like sun exposure, water and care the same but for 20 minutes each day I would choose a different form of verbal encouragement (or torture depending on your outlook) and see which one worked the best.. that is, which plant grew the fastest. The 5 methods of stimulation were

1. Watching TV 

2. offering all sorts of encouragement 

3. Insulting it 

4. Playing music 

5. and ignoring the last. 

So right about now your wondering why I'm telling you this story.. its basically like this, can you imagine walking into our house at 4 to find the tv turned on and a lone pot plant sitting in front of it? Weirdnes abounds when you walk further in to see another casually listening to Mozart's concerto in E minor. If this hasn't already caused you to quickly turn around and head back out the door you walk to the patio only to discover a young girl lovingly caressing a pot and whispering compliments into its dirt and another further down the garden screaming insults such as "you dirty plant, you'll never grow to anything, why don't you just crawl up and die!!"

Its no wonder the neighbours thought we were crazy!

But it did make for great stress relief as both my mum and sister would also have a go. Unfortunately I failed the project as I had no results to record. None of the plants made it past seed stage which I concluded was not the talking (and screaming) but due in fact to my utter lack of gardening ability. 

More later in the week - hope you all had a fantastic long weekend ^_^