Fixing a Hole

I admit that I cherished dreams of informing the readers of this blog (all--what, 3?--of them) that we had won State in quiz bowl. That said, I'm very pleased with third. After a shaky start (we arrived late and missed the opening ceremonies because Ms. Greene had to stop at McDonalds to use the bathroom; she couldn't fit in the one on the bus), we played well, maybe not our best, but as well as could be expected. I think we all kind of knew that Lincolnshire Stevenson was tough, and half-expected to lose to them and then take third, which is what happened.

The worst moment of the day was going into the last question against Bradley-Bourbonnais, our first round. We are a better team than Bradley-Bourbonnais, we have beaten them soundly in the past, but for some reason we were far too slow, allowing them to catch up to us after an early lead. Going into the last question, they were twelve points behind. It sounds silly, but I felt like I was going to throw up; my heart was pounding, and my head and stomach ached. Nikki, the sole girl on this year's team, buzzed in quickly when the question (chemistry) was read, and my heart sank, but she was wrong. Ms. Greene signalled furiously to us to sit back and not buzz in; if you're not up by much on the last question, and the other team's buzzed in wrong, you don't want to buzz in, because the other team still has a chance to get the bonus and could win it. Tyler buzzed in, anyway, and got it right: "I knew the answer," he shrugged when I asked him afterwards why he'd done that. As it was, we were up by enough that it wouldn't have mattered, and we got three parts of the bonus, so we ended up winning by 37.

The second half of our round against Morton was undoubtedly the best moment of the day (the quiz bowl part, anyway). During the first half, they were quick and got a big lead, of as much as 101 points. I seriously didn't think we were going to win, and for a few minutes I was okay with that. After the twentieth question, Ms. Greene called a timeout. We knew what we had to do, and after that timeout, Morton's score didn't change until the last two questions. The last question was a bit of a victory for me; we had already won it and knew it, but I took a wild guess, as it was a lit question, and got it right. The final score was 296-212; I still can't believe we won.

As far as hanging out with my friends, the day overall went very well. April, Gloria, and Emily all came, so it was nice to see and chat with them, and I always have fun with the guys, despite their enduring maleness. I'm sure we added a few new stories and inside jokes to the repertoire--John Brown's mom falling on top of Gloria while serving bagels on the bus, for one. The ride down was noisy and cheerful. Patrick was quoted and pictured in the paper that morning for an article on teens using cell phones while driving, so people were passing around and commenting on that, and Alex Gary, a reporter from the Register Star, was making the rounds, interviewing all of the team members. On the ride back, most people were playing cards, which I abstained from, talking to April and listening to music. When we got home, we went to Applebee's, joined by Paul's family (he's married and has two young children) and Emily's brother. Patrick, Ross, Ryan, and Gloria played cards for much of the time even while we were at the restaurant, so that was a little off-putting, if only because it would have been nice to just sit and chat, although I did get to talk to April, Emily, and Tyler while we were there.

In spite of the fact that it was a great day, it seemed a bit anticlimactic. We've been preparing for this all year, and now it's come and gone. This past week, I'd been trying to put it out of my mind and not worry about it too much, and maybe I was too successful. On Friday night, I took part in the history class "movie night," thinking it would keep me from obsessing about State the next day, but I wasn't even tempted to obsess. (The movie, by the way, City of God, was excellent, though disturbingly violent; it was about gangs and drug wars in the slums of Rio de Janeiro.) Most of the week before that had been occupied with the end of the quarter and my calculus grade; I found out that I'm getting a D, prompting a ban on instant messaging for an indefinite amount of time and an ultimatum that I have to bring my grade up or further action will be taken. I'm almost positive that I did pretty well on the test on Friday, so hopefully my grade will take a turn for the better. I really have been doing okay lately; it was just the first two tests of the semester that killed me.

Today I've got a paper to write on The World That Trade Created, a book we're supposed to have read during the course of the quarter in history. I just keep telling myself that there are only four more days until spring break.