1 - March Recap
Today (Saturday) felt wrong, I was able to de-stress and not care about anything! I thought that taking today as a "true holiday" would help with the amount of sleep I am getting, but it is doing the opposite, as the stress of one week deadlines seems to have grown on to me.
Since this is my first (real) post, I'll start off with a recap of this past month.
March 2019
State Debate
I ended up hitting #1 and #2 right away in the tournament and I hadn't prepped much, so overall it wasn't very good in terms of accomplishments. There was a blizzard on the way there though, and both our cars went in the ditch at least once, and we had to run along side the Green Yukon (the same Green Yukon from MATHCOUNTS a couple years ago!!) on the interstate because Mrs. Kroll (old debate coach) drove us into the median thinking it was the highway, visibility was 0. There are more stories, but overall it was fun, but not academically remarkable.State Congress + Congress Qualifiers
There ended up being one less house than expected, so I wasn't someone that we were pushing to qualify anymore. We tried to push an oral interper through, but that went about as well as you would expect (it didn't work) -- as much as I would have liked to qualify through congress, I didn't really care because I was prepping for BQ anyway (I decided to have a backup plan).Big Questions Qualifiers
Since I didn't qualify in NSDA nationals in LD nor Foreign Extemp, I was planning to qualify in BQ. However, I pulled out of this the week of to help study for Science Olympiad (BQ was rescheduled to the and SDSU Programming Design. Neither of my teammates won it though, so it was pretty much a wash. In a unforeseen move to almost everyone on my debate team (and my dad), I was given the World Schools spot, so it all worked out in the end. However, my taking of this spot means that I should probably try to qualify next year just so Mr. Kerr doesn't regret it. I decided not to go to any camps and just try doing debate prep on my own, because I do want to get a neat (as high as possible) score on the SAT and ACT.Science Olympiad
I am going to write out a bit here, because I want to remember this for next year.
We ended up getting second, which is a very good performance. I was very pleased with the way that most of the team handled their events, and the way that the team agreed to do their best. However, there were some lessons to be learned for next year.
First off, having the same 2-3 person team for more than 2 events doesn't work out: the pair (or team) will end up prioritizing one event over the others. Indeed, the two teams we had that did this each scored first in one or two events, but got last place in others.
Secondly, I think we need to really have group bonding somehow. This year I felt like there was one large friend group and a couple others. There's no way we can win like this the next year, but I have a feeling that this was exacerbated by some people that won't be on the team next year, so for us to win next year I really have to drive the fact that we are a TEAM.
Thirdly, I may be acting rashly here, but I believe that if you refuse to do an event for some superficial reason, you don't deserve a spot on the team -- you're in it for yourself and not for the team. Science Olympiad is a team event, not an individual event: either everyone succeeds or no one does. (unfortunately there also were some slackers, but we only had one person not get any medals whatsoever, so I think we did well overall)
Fortunately, we have next year. These are pretty minor compared to how proud I am of the team, and pretty satisfied with the work that I did. Fundraising is going to be interesting though.
SDSU Programming Design Contest
This one was weird. Initially, after Science Olympiad, I wanted to ditch this: I didn't need the prize ($1000 scholarship to SDSU's Engineering College), and honestly I was pretty tired of the one-week deadlines. Mr. Berg (our coach for the contest) told me that I couldn't drop out because it would look bad on the school because someone else (on the other team) had already dropped out.
The day before, I took the day off to prep (i.e write most of the code because I had been busy doing Science Olympiad). I had started asking for my partners code the day before (we had been working on this for the past 6 months on and off) and I was planning to combine the two parts that day. Around 5pm, I was made aware that my partner had been hospitalized in Sioux Falls and wouldn't be available. From then to around 4am I worked non-stop (I even turned off the music!!) to get *something* to work. I ended up designing this: https://slideforthe.world/ and got FIRST PLACE somehow!!! Honestly, I probably won because I didn't code in PyGame.
This did mark the second year in a row that I had to do the contest with our submission containing only my code.
AIME
When I started 8th grade, I set myself the goal of making IMO. Now, 43% of the way through high school, I think I finally made peace with that, after failing to make the AIME in 8th and 9th grade (even though that pipe-dream has been thoroughly broken). I got a 2 on the AIME I, and 109 on AMC 10A. Overall, not as great of scores as I wish they were of course, but at least I am an AIME Qualifier :)
I have to say, typing out "2020" gives me mini-anxiety attacks--I can't believe that in around 100 weeks, I would have completely decided my future. I guess this final stretch of the first section of my life is something that I have to do well, but the future always holds surprises.