The Curiosity Journal

Suki was bored. Not just a little bored. MEGA bored. "There's nothing interesting in the whole world," she announced at breakfast.

Grandpa raised one eyebrow. He went to his room and came back with a small green notebook and a red pen.

"This is a Curiosity Journal," he said. "Every morning, write down three questions about anything. Then spend the day trying to find the answers."

"Questions about what?" asked Suki.

"About whatever makes you go hmm."

Suki looked around the kitchen. She saw the tap dripping. Hmm.

She wrote: "Why does water always drip in drops and not in a line?"

She looked at the toast. "Why does bread turn brown when you toast it?"

She looked at her orange juice. "Why is it called orange — was the fruit named after the color or the color after the fruit?"

Suddenly, her boring morning wasn't boring at all. It was full of questions!

At school, she asked her science teacher about the water drops (something called surface tension). She asked the librarian about toast (the Maillard reaction — she couldn't pronounce it, but she wrote it down). She couldn't find the orange answer until Grandpa helped her look it up (the fruit came first!).

The next morning, she had five new questions before she even got out of bed. How do birds know which direction to fly? Why do we yawn? Can fish hear?

"I was wrong, Grandpa," said Suki, scribbling furiously. "The world isn't boring at all. I just wasn't asking the right questions."

Grandpa smiled. "That's the secret, Suki-chan. Curious people are never bored. Because the world always has more to teach than we have time to learn."

Three months later, Suki's green notebook was full. Grandpa gave her another one. Blue this time.

She's on her fifth notebook now. And she's never been bored since.