The First Goodbye

So…my Division B Science Olympiad career has ended.

I never thought this day would really come.

            Even a week ago, when I wrote that earlier blog post, I knew it was ending, I knew that was my last Division B competition…but I also felt like it was still so far away. And now it’s done. It’s gone.

            This Nationals, I didn’t do nearly as well as I would have liked (aka highest placing was 26^th and in an event I didn’t even like), but despite that, I’m very happy with how things turned out. See, this Nationals, I really realised what I loved and what Science Olympiad really meant to me. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t feel a whooshing sensation of disappointment (mostly in myself) and sadness when I didn’t get called up for my best and favourite event, but later, after that had blown over, I realised that I wasn’t nearly as upset as I should have been. In past years, I’ve almost cried when I didn’t get top ten or top twenty or whatever my goal was. This year, I was disappointed, but I wasn’t upset. And when I thought about why, that’s when I consciously realised what I’ve known all along.

            Science Olympiad isn’t just about medalling or winning—not even at the national level.

            I can tell you right now why I did so horribly in Reach for the Stars. It’s not because I’m bad at the event, or because I don’t know astronomy. The reason is because while the test writer is very good, they asked specific questions using things that you will never, ever, ever apply in astronomy—and that’s not what I studied. No, I can’t tell if an image is infrared or x-ray sometimes if there’s no reference point, or if a random cluster of dots happens to be Scorpius (especially without the constellation boundaries or RA/DEC), or if a random photo is short or long exposure just by looking at it. But I can tell you all the spectral lines of each type of star. I can tell you all about black holes, Hawking radiation, the Schwarzschild radius and metric, and accretion principles. I can tell you about Thorne-Zytkow objects, Herbig-Haro objects, Bok globules, emission nebulae, and absorption nebulae. I can tell you how to apply the Doppler shift, Planck’s Law, the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, the LRT, Wien’s Displacement, Hubble’s Law, and any number of others like that. I can tell you the exact triple alpha process, or how a star is born, or how Cepheids work as “yardsticks”, or what a star population is, or how an H-R diagram works and the math behind it. I can tell you about binary star systems, multiple star systems, how to find the mass of a star, spectral lines and spectroscopy, parallax (trigonometric or stellar) and the distance modulus. I can tell you how to read a light curve, how to identify a type of star or system by reading the light curve, how to read a radiation curve, how to find the temperature and luminosity, and how to apply bolometric measurements. I can explain the Big Bang and redshift, why stars seem to change brightness over time, the internal processes of stars, how they are born, the processes inside by which they live, how they die, what happens after they die, the limits of their mass, the effects it has on the interstellar medium...I could go on, because I know so much more, but I think you get the idea. I know astronomy. All the thirty one teams that beat me...how many of them can tell you about all of those? How many of them know half of Carroll and Ostlie by heart? How many of them help write an astronomy blog not only for Science Olympiad, but to expose others to the wonders of astronomy?

My failure at Nationals wasn’t because I didn’t know things, but because I knew all the wrong things for that specific event. In fact, there are quite a few people who told me that I wasn’t studying for Reach for the Stars at all, but rather Astronomy—in Division C. As Reach for the Stars is the Division B version of Astronomy in C, I didn’t see the problem with that. But I am also glad that I didn’t focus on the simple, plain Reach for the Stars things, but went above and beyond. I now have at least two years’ worth of college information in my brain about astronomy. And that’s the thing—when I didn’t medal, I knew it wasn’t because I failed, or didn’t know enough. It was, quite simply, because they tested on things that you would never use in real astronomy and therefore I didn’t study (and the notes restrictions didn’t help either).

But this is what made me honestly, consciously realise what Science Olympiad is about. It’s not just about medalling, but about learning. It is about learning, meeting new people, and gathering new friends. I learned so much about astronomy through Reach for the Stars (even if I did do horribly). I’m more suited to Astronomy because of that—because that’s what I know a lot about. Over the past four years I’ve done SO, I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of knowledge I’ve gained. I know all about aerodynamic principles now, about optics, thermodynamics, electricity, fluids and mechanics, forensics, heredity, chemistry, and so, so much more. As a direct result of Science Olympiad, I can now tell you the abbreviations of all 50 states, or the most dedicated hockey fans (Flyers), most of the Jewish holidays, the cost of a five day trip across the country, and a whole bunch more that I probably don’t need to know. I’ve made the best friends of my entire life (as I’ve mentioned before), I’ve found purpose and everything I really wanted, and I found science.

I think I’ve always known this all along—I’ve mentioned it several times before, and argued with people several times before using these arguments, and written essays (to use the term loosely) on it before. But now...now I really think I truly understand that concept. See, this Nats, something happened that went along the lines of this.

We were studying in our dorms (three other people and myself), and one of our test collaborators said that she had a test she wanted to give to me. I said okay, but that I would do it later when my partner wasn’t busy. I casually mentioned to her about putting it up on the test exchange of scioly.org or maybe put up a few notes on it, and the immediate response of everyone in that room was, “Why would you ever put tests up on the exchange or help write the wiki? That’s just helping other teams!” At that moment, I was stunned, and the only coherent words to come out of my mouth was, “Well, why not?” because I couldn’t think about just how wrong their logic was.

I have never written a single test that has not been put up on the test exchange, whether by me or if I asked someone else to do it for me. I have written half the Thermodynamics wiki and the Reach for the Stars wiki, in addition to helping and editing many, many other wiki pages, and in fact now hold the title of WikiMod. What if every other person in Science Olympiad felt the same way as my teammates did? Those people in the room relied heavily on the test exchange for practise, and on the wiki for information, and the recently upgraded image gallery for ideas. Would they have that if other people didn’t contribute? See, the point of Science Olympiad isn’t to keep everything to yourself in hopes of beating everyone else out there. It’s also to teach others and expose them. That’s why I do so much with scioly.org and why I am voluntarily giving up dozens, if not hundreds of hours this summer to host a summer study session for SO.

I guess at this point, I’ve done all that I can do with Division B SO. Nats this year was a perfect goodbye—it really was. Maybe I didn’t medal. That’s okay. This year, I found myself having lots of fun, even though I was stressing like crazy. I hung out with some people from Kansas (lesson learned: if you want to find someone, just stand outside their group’s door and stare at them until they get uncomfortable and go, “Can I...help you?”), met some people from Georgia (long haired hippies, hehe), went on some roller coasters, had a group of green-haired Californians scare the heck out of half my team (you’re still awesome, Paly, don’t worry), managed to break campus rules and get away with it (they weren’t major rules, I promise, it was just some printing things...), and basically had a blast.

That’s the difference between some teams, I think. I can compare two of the top teams from Nationals this year—I’ve heard a lot about both. Both teams take SO very, very seriously (hah, understatement of the century), but from what I’ve heard, their team dynamic is totally different. One of the teams was about winning, winning, winning. People on their team get so stressed that they will literally cut off all friends and human contact around Nats and alienate themselves. Sometimes they will seriously hurt people with what they say or do, no matter if it is inadvertently or not. They don’t stand with messing around during Nats—everything must be totally serious, and no one is really truly enjoying themselves. They stress, just stress and completely forget how to take things down a notch. SO, to them, is just a competition, just something to win and show off with. The other team...well, when we walked in on them, they weren’t stressing. They were having fun and joking around with each other, and the board with all their events on it had quite a few self-deprecating jokes. Yes, they want to win. Yes, they are uber-competitive. But they don’t forget that that’s not all there is to SO, and they have fun with it. They’re one of the most respected teams in the country, and in my opinion, one of the best not only because they are so freaking good (which they are), but also because they lose themselves not in the competition of SO, but in SO itself. (and also they’re nice people). It actually turned out that this second team placed higher than the first team whose purpose was wholly focused on winning.

But my team also isn’t what I remember it being a few years ago; it’s no longer the perfect team I dreamed of being a part of when I got older...and because of that, I’m now ready to move on, and find another start in Division C. Maybe I can help the team grow, help it mature and make it a real team. Maybe I can do more with my high school team, and become more involved than I ever did in Division B. Maybe we can even win States next year and still go to Nationals, and I can still keep competing. And I also know now that I will never, ever be done with Science Olympiad, no matter how old I get.

Not Ready

     This is my last year in Division B Science Olympiad.
     I guess I always knew it was coming; I just didn't realise it would be quite so soon. It's two days from Nats, and suddenly, it's hitting me hard right now. I always knew it, but I never realised it. This is my last Nationals as a Division B'er. This is the last year when I can medal in the events I spent years mastering. This is the last year of being a true Science Olympiad family (unless the high school can get their shiz together). This is the breaking up of the middle school, moving on, and the ending of something so good and so great that I almost can't bear to let it go.

     I'm not ready to move on. I'm not sure I ever will be.

     Two years in Division A SO, and I was completely ready to start Division B. Four years in Division B SO, and I never want to leave. Through my experiences in SO, I have gained the best friends of my life, I have learned responsibility and management, I have learned what it means to be a true leader, I have learned what it means to play for the team, and so much more. I have stuffed my head full of knowledge that I never would have known otherwise--and I have made the best friends of my life.

     Sure, we have a Division C SO team, but it's not the same. The Division C team is a bunch of disjointed, disoriented mess that's not quite together yet. This is the last time as a concrete team.

     Six days. Six days and this is all over. Six days and the absolute best time of my life comes to an end.

     I remember when I was in sixth grade and made Nats for the first time...I was so young then. I was the youngest person going--one of the youngest people to ever go on the Nationals trip with my team, at eleven and a half years old. I remember thinking that this was great, and I didn't ever want to stop. I remember realising that eventually, I would have to stop, but that wouldn't be until I finished ninth grade, and that was so far away back then. I was so sweet and innocent back then...I was still a nerdy loner, yes, but I didn't scare people and I didn't have much malice towards anyone.

    It's been three or four years since that day. Since then, I have moulded myself into someone almost totally unrecognisable from that sweet, shy sixth grader who walked around with a smile. I'm cynical and cold now, sarcastic to everyone, unappreciative and arrogant, and more jaded than any teenager has a right to be. I'm loud and opinionated, and I will correct you if I think you're wrong. I'm not afraid to flaunt my talents, I'm not afraid to make a very strong impression. I now view the human race with disdain and contempt, and am often pretty malicious. I scare people--I really do. Not just fun scare them, but scare them in a way that they will go to lengths to avoid me. I never intended to do that, but that is how it happened, and I'm not sure if I regret that.
    The path that has been taken to achieve that was...undeserved of anyone, if I do say so myself. It was incredibly tough, and for a lot of it, I was alone and didn't have anything or anyone to fall back on, so I turned inward and kept everyone else out with iron walls. I was scared, I was hurt, I was terrified of what people could do.

    The only thing that has kept me from totally collapsing inwards on myself is Science Olympiad. Through it, I found a few pillars to lean against when I got tired, people to help me carry my load when I was about to be crushed by everything, and I found a purpose. I found passion and a burning desire to learn, to know.

     And now...now I'm losing that. I won't ever completely let go of Science Olympiad--I don't think that's possible for me--but I'm losing so much of what I loved.

And I'm not ready.
Not yet.

Total Exhaustion

            Lately, I’ve been under a huge amount of stress. I don’t even know why, but there is just so much that keeps piling on top of me. What with a competitive sport that takes up about three hours a day, violin that takes up anywhere from one hour to two hours, preparing for Science Olympiad Nationals, helping run a major site that keeps breaking (not that I do much, but it still has quite a bit of work for me to do), school, programming about seven different languages, plus several major projects and trying to keep up with life in general…I’m beginning to see why I don’t even really have time for sleeping.

            It’s exhausting. It really is. My mind is going severely wonky from lack of sleep and all this stress and strain. Just my necessary work every day (sport, school, violin) take up so much time that I can’t do anything else until past 10 pm, and then it’s homework, which can take anywhere from twenty minutes to several hours depending on how cruel my teachers are being, and then spot-cramming for SO for at least an hour or two every night (with five or six events and Nats at the door, I have to), and then trying to fit in all my other things (fixing broken things on the site, programming, physics, etc). The end result of this? I usually don’t end up going to bed until at least 2 am, usually a bit past 3, and can now pull an all-nighter on a whim.

            Also because of all this work, I’ve been doing less and less homework for classes lately. Sure, occasionally I’ll pick up a math worksheet and do the first two problems, but then I’ll just put it down and go work on something else that’s pressing on my mind. It just doesn’t seem important when I compare it to everything else I’m trying to do. Especially Language work…I have several assignments that are pretty overdue, and because my teacher is nice and she likes me, she’s giving me a lot of extra time. Nevertheless, I’m kind of taking advantage of her kindness and just being like, “ehhhh”. As bad as I feel for doing that, I can’t help it—I’ve got so much else piled on my plate that Language just looks small, boring, and uninteresting. I’ve lost pretty much all motivation to do anything for classes. I do most of my math homework during band class. I take naps in math if I need to, although usually I spend most of math frantically preparing other things for when I’m at home.

            I’ve also found that when left to my own devices (i.e. on break or something), I tend to forget to do things that are necessary for living, such as eating, drinking, and sleeping. Once, I was home alone for about a day or so, and I completely forgot about food until my sister complained to me about being hungry. I promptly microwaved some food for her and went back downstairs, proceeding to work there till I fell asleep at my desk, which was at some point way early in the morning.

           

            But now with all of this…I am extremely exhausted. I don’t know what I can do about it but just keep plodding through the miles of work stretching before me. A lot of the time, I don’t want to do the work anymore. I’m nearly falling asleep typing this, and that may also be why a lot of the sentences are short, choppy, and badly grammared. I just want to go to sleep for a very long time, and then wake up and not have any of this…bleh…work.

World Threats

So lately, we've been hearing a lot about a possible World War III. With rising tensions between Israel and Iran and most of the world's major powers involved, this could turn very ugly very fast. North Korea is another pressing issue, with a hostile president and imminent missile launches against the US.

What do all of these have in common?

Nuclear weapons.

Now, as a scientist and physicist, I can tell you how dangerous those things are in the wrong hands. Heck, even in the right hands, they're insanely risky. On average, each bomb can wipe out  basically everything in a two-mile radius, and slowly kill everything in a hundred-mile radius. The amount of energy produced by the nuclear fission happening in one bomb is enough to power Greenland for four years. That’s no small amount. Think about what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and that was only with one bomb each, and nowhere near as advanced or destructive as those of today. Now think about the number of bombs in the world—about 23,000 in existence. If a third world war happens, all of those bombs will be detonated.

Imagine the mass death and destruction that will follow. The earth will literally be wiped of all life, save a few bacteria and some microorganisms tough enough to survive. A third world war isn’t going to just wipe out the human race, but most other species as well.

Guys, we can’t let that happen. For the sake of Earth, for the sake of the only planet able to support life, we can’t let that happen. I’m just one person, but I know that together, we can make a difference. Cliché and annoying, yes, but very true. As my History teacher keeps telling us, “You are the most powerful teenagers to ever walk the face of this earth.” So let’s use that power. Let’s use it to stop the destruction of the world.

I’m telling you guys, we need to do something about this. Speak up. Blog something. Write something. Publish it. Get the word out, protest, do something. I don’t know how many people read this blog—probably not very many, but if each of those people did something to get the word out…

Come on, people. I believe in you.

Take a listen to this: (warning: a bit of language, but nothing over the top)

And also this:

Let's not let this happen, guys. Help the world...not die.

Life (again)

            It’s been a while since I wrote anything on this blog. Plenty has happened, most of which I won’t mention, but there are a few things worthy of notice.

            Firstly, we won States (by oh such a narrow margin!) and we are headed to Nationals! I’ve picked up a few events along the way, and…I haven’t exactly studied for one of them. Oops. Another one of my events has ­got to be the most irritating event ever. Maybe it’s because I can’t build and—oh yeah—I’m being forced to build. That may be a slight issue. I don’t think I’ve had this many Science Olympiad related injuries since…well, since ever. I have six events for Nats, and three of them are builds. Isn’t that just genius?

            And then, of course, I managed to find my mental twin (hereafter referred to as James). Not my quantum twin, mind—I already have one of those—but someone who is so identical to me mentally that we might as well be the same person in two different places. (Also, it would be quite weird if we called each other twins, because, well…you can deduce for yourself. And if you can’t, you’ll figure it out soon enough.)

Our similarities begin with having the same IQ score. While usually this isn’t too momentous, both of us happen to have a truly ridiculous IQ score that literally indicates we are smarter than 99.986% of humans. Randomly finding someone else with the exact same score is highly unlikely and very unusual, especially considering age. Past that, we are interested in exactly the same things, though I am a bit more into music than him. Of course, there are many more similarities, but I won’t mention them here for sake of privacy and respect.

It’s quite startling to have someone so the same as me. He answers my questions before I ask them, I know exactly what he’s thinking most of the time given context. There have been several instances when we have literally asked and answered questions at the same time. It’s like our brains are so in sync that we both know exactly how the world is viewed through the other person’s eyes. I’ve honestly never experienced anything as completely offputting as someone who views the world the same way I do, someone who is so identical to me that they understand what the world looks like to me.

I suppose that’s all that’s worth mentioning. Till next time, then.

Regionals

    Today was Regionals again...once again, it was amazing.

    I woke up at 6:30, thought I was desperately late, and rushed to competition, getting there at around 7:00. It turned out that I was about an hour early,  but our coach had told us to be there by 7:20, so technically I was only 20 minutes early. Still, as I'm usually there anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour before our coach tells us to be there, this was considered late for me.

    I went into the Student Center Ballroom, and sat down with the rest of my team. I was also trying to finish highlighting my resource sheet for one of my events--this was difficult, as the people around me were rather distracting and  we were required to put on duct tape. I was creative and made the duct tape into my initials--first initial on the front, last initial on the back.

    For the first hour, I did that and panicked muchly about, well, everything. Mostly Sounds of Music, but that was because our entire thing sucked for that. We had a pretty bad-sounding chromatophone that played the notes, but had no quality or resonance or anything. My PVC flute thing was airy, horrible-sounding, and way out of tune if you just played it. I had to reshape my embouchure every single note.

   My first event was the written portion of Sounds. This was somewhat tricky because, well, I hadn't studied much for it at all. All we had to go on was my partner's and my musical affiliation and my deep affection for physics. I thought we were so screwed over.

   Immediately after that, I went to go to Helicopters. We had two--one better than the other. This room had really bad rafters up on the ceilings, but we had to take the risk, because the other option? An eight foot tall ceiling. So we opted for the thirty foot, raftered ceiling.
The first time, our heli got stuck in the rafters--just wedged in there.
The second time, our other heli flew for 32.45 seconds.
This was about half the time we usually got from the first heli, but we just held our heads up and was like, "you know what, we did what we could, and we will learn."

     Next was Rotor Egg Drop. This one...well, let's just say we crashed and burned. Our device broke so completely, it wasn't even funny. It flipped over, the balsa wood broke in several places, the Mylar completely tore...
However, the egg didn't break and we got 3.16 seconds.

     I had a free block after this, so I watched another Rotor Egg Drop and then went to go practise my Sounds instrument, because it still sounded like total crap. I did this for a while, went to watch a few other helicopters (amazing times, 1:34 and 1:21).

     And then...Disease Detectives. Probably my least favourite event. I went in there, did the test with my partner, and left. A crazy kid from the team below was so...loud. And then, "PIZZAAAAAAAA!" 

    I ate after that--just pizza, like everyone else. Then...it was DOOOM. SoM. One team had two octave instruments, and our was one octave and pretty out of tune.
We practised, went in there, played, and was sure we had failed. It was so bad.
I had time after that, so I went to homeroom and hung out for a bit, and then went to Reach for the Stars.

    The test for Reach was the exact same as last year's, and ridiculously short as well (20 questions). We finished in less than ten minutes and left.

     Following this, we went outside and played Wuah! for a while (I am not going to describe it--takes too freaking long. All you need to know is that it's bloody LOUD). Then, we proceeded to go to the ballroom and wait. For an hour.

      Awards came, and...oh my God. Just...oh my God.
Disease, we didn't medal. No surprise there.
Reach for the Stars: 1st. I expected this one.
Helicopters: 3rd. wtf?
Rotor Egg Drop: 2nd. This was just like, "really?"
SoM: FIRST FREAKING PLACE OHMYGOD

Yeah...SoM was just like total "wtf just happened really whaaaat?" 
I am so proud of that first place...just, that has got to be the best Regionals medal I ever got. Hours and hours of tiring work...come to fruition...

I love Science Olympiad

Laughter and the AMC 10

    So basically, for the past couple of weeks, I've been...off. I have been pretty stressed, irritated, and snappish. But yesterday, for literally no reason, I started laughing my head off for about five minutes. And maybe I don't laugh enough, because after about twenty seconds, my abdomen and chest started to really hurt, but I didn't stop, because it felt...good. I mean, it hurt like hell after a bit, but still. Felt good.

    Also, the AMC 10? About 40% of it was just like complete "wtf". This is good. It means that now I have stuff to do to keep me occupied and...busy...and...yeah. (no, no, it's not like I'm too busy at all right now already)

   But yes, I think I will try to laugh just a bit more. And try the AMC12...maybe?

Invitationals

Yesterday (or rather two days ago, as it's 4 am), I had Science Olympiad invitationals against several of the best teams in the country.
Bloody amazing.
3rd, 6th, 7th.
Funnily enough, I'm most proud of my seventh. That event...I studied for literally all of two days before competition, went in with another first timer, did what we could, and boom, got seventh out of 52 teams and national champions and runner ups.

What really amazed me, though, was that I found an honestly nice person. I'll just call him ER, but essentially he found me after I was deathly bored and offered to let me watch Rotor Egg Drop with him. So I went, and he stayed with me for two hours. Then he was like, "I should go home..." but I was like, "No! You should stay for the awards! They're fun!" so he did.

So I thank you, person, for having the patience to deal with me for four straight hours. Thank you for the entertainment provided, the horrible dancing, the conducting, conspiracy theories, physics talk, and whatever else happened.

N t'inquiete pas!

New Beginnings

   As you can see, I've deleted all of the old blog posts. They were just...garnering too much attention, and I feel that I don't need to complain online anymore. Therefore, that's all good and gone, and this is something new. This is the one where I complain, yes, but not how I used to. So all those old posts are gone, and this is a new one.

  Happy living.

Thoughtful

    Yes, life sucks. It really does. But then again, doesn't the universe also really like screwing with us?

My complaints are hardly worthy of a blog like this. I may actually move everything to another blog, just for the sake of people not being able to find this as easily.

But I have been thinking (a dangerous pasttime, I know) and I have come to the conclusion that all this is completely insignificant.

Oh, the wonders of astronomy...