Normalcy, Or Lack Thereof

The thing I am most terrified of is my dreams coming true.

Swim Meets and Homecoming

For the past three days, I have been subject to the exquisite torture of a swim meet—nerve wracking, long, exhausting, and just painful, yet somehow intensely fun.

    Here’s the thing about swim meets: there is a definite reason that swimming, unlike other sports, doesn't have a competition every week or every other week—or anything regularly, really. The meets are really, really long. I’m not kidding. Friday took four hours, Saturday took seven, and Sunday took six. And it wasn't even a prelim/final meet. Those take even longer. In addition to the immense time strain, they are also completely draining. On Saturday, I nearly passed out while talking on the phone to my friend. That tired. No athlete can continuously and regularly withstand that sort of physical demand, not only because it’s just exhausting, but because it impairs their physical and mental ability beyond belief. Today at school, one of my teammates with whom I share a math class basically tried to sleep the whole period. He didn't (mostly because he didn't do so well on the last test and now wanted to do better), but he looked like he was going to fall asleep any moment.  I finished my history test in record time (fifteen minutes to answer twenty multiple choice and write two essays) so I could just get done and go take a nap.

    During the swim meet, you also have to be very careful about what event they’re on. Some events take only a few minutes, while others can last up to nearly half an hour. It’s a little bit frazzling, and sometimes a little bit panicky. Another awful thing about swim meets is being comfortable and then being forced to get in the water. During the breaks between the events, we get dry and put on some heat-insulating uniforms, and most of us have fuzzy blankets or soft jackets or something. When you are very tired and in the midst of relaxing, with good music and good company (and maybe a physics textbook), and have a very soft and fluffy blanket poncho wrapped around you and you are very warm and dry, you just do not want to move. To have to not only move but get into freezing water...well, it makes you want to cry every time.

    Despite all this, though, the swim meet was pretty darn amazing. I did pretty well, relative to myself, though I am nowhere near the top swimmers in my group. And another brilliant thing—I finally realised what an amazing team my swim team really is. Because we’re actually a team.

See, here’s the thing. I've been part of a team before, but I've never been part of a family team, where everyone on the team is just completely comfortable and at home with each other. One guy brought some weird peppermint extract thing, and it was passed around for all to use (well, all that wanted it). We bring chairs to the meet and arrange them in sort of a circle, or at least a group thing, and then the chairs are free game. Anyone is welcome to sit in any chair, regardless of whose it is, because no one minds. Phones are freely exchanged among the team, which is pretty amazing, if I do say so myself, considering how attached people are to their phones. Food is sort of just a free for all. I saw several people over the weekend digging into other people’s bags for food, and no one minded. Even blankets are shared. And as long as someone isn't using them, any of them will lend you their goggles and/or swim cap, if you need it.

Even more proof of this is how close members of the team are even outside of swimming. We have one guy that literally has a permanent residence in another teammate’s house. Another one refers to his friend’s parents as “Mom” and “Dad”, because he’s so close to them. Parties (or at least meet-ups) involving members of the swim team occur often. We have a Breakfast Club, and sometimes we go to Moe’s on Wednesdays.

I got to know some of my teammates pretty well over the course of the weekend (which isn't surprising, considering the SEVENTEEN HOURS), and I must say...I’m very impressed with the unity and cohesiveness of the team.

    In other news, I was coerced into going to homecoming, because my friend’s parents decided to suddenly realise that their son was getting some semblance of a social life and started to completely freak out. And homecoming was awful. The music was awful. The people there were awful. I’m pretty sure I made at least one guy go home and cry. I went through a throng of people to see what homecoming was all about, and I completely gave up when I saw the grinding. And the shoes? Well, let’s just say I could fill a whole lake with the amount of shoes that were just lying around there.

It was awful. Just plain out horrible. Unlike the swim meet, there were ZERO redeeming qualities about this event.

Yeah.

Until next time, then!

Ranting (sorry)

I always want to write blog posts, but it seems that half the time, I forget. Well, here’s one more for the day.

Fair warning: This blog post is mostly ranting.

You know when someone does something so totally unforgivable that you can never even look them in the eye again? When just their very presence makes your blood boil and your teeth clench, when you try to avoid them at all costs?

For reasons I won’t explain here, my dad has just about hit that point. I suppose this is bad, as he and I live in the same house. I can’t stand to be in the same room as him for more than five minutes, sometimes even less. I literally make detours and go out of my way to avoid here. Luckily, I don’t eat dinner with the rest of my family, so I can mostly just pretend he’s not there. Car rides with him, however, are absolute hell. I usually just stick in my earphones and turn it up so I can’t hear him, and he just has to fume because all his attempts at any further communication with me are fruitless.

But honestly, he sort of deserves it. Once again, unmentionable, unforgivable things. I can’t stand the sight of him, I can’t stand to acknowledge his presence. Sure, I’m an awful person. Sure, I don’t like people so much. At this point, I have basically given up on trying to be nice. It never seems to go anywhere anyways.

Another thing that irks me: teachers’ favouritism. I have one nameless teacher who so obviously favours a few guys in my class that it’s not even funny. They act up and don’t do their homework and tell football stories and check their phones and hit on girls, and all she does is smile benignly at them and laugh. I pull out a physics book and start doing problems, and she starts telling me how I shouldn't do that and how this is ENGLISH class and put that away right now you foolish girl for you cannot do that. Excuse me, lady, firstly, I'm actually GOOD at English. Very good. And I’m doing PHYSICS. For something that matters to me. Something that’s actually helpful and academic, something that MATTERS. I’m not hitting on everyone of the opposite sex within a twenty metre radius, or going on about some fight the football team had, or giggling like a girl over some Instagram picture. If you want to get me in trouble, fine. But at least get the other kids, who by the way, are way worse than I am, in trouble too.

Favouritism.

Is.

Not.

Okay.

Something else that has been giving me massive headaches is just other people that I actually like and care about. My two best friends recently started dating, which sort of alienates me completely. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that I can count on one hand (not joking; literally) the number of friends I really care about, and boom, there go two. It’s not very fun; I sort of hang out with those two plus one other friend selectively; that’s it. It’s a little bit hurtful, actually, but I am happy for them. Another thing is that a friend (actually the friend mentioned in the previous sentence) is taking me to homecoming, and his parents are MORE than going all out about it (something about going out just to get new pants, I really don’t know). Said friend realizes that there is no “date” in this; we’re merely going so other people will stop irritating the two of us. His parents do not realize this. And I realised that when said friend told me his parents wanted to take me out to dinner. This bothers me greatly, since I do not want a date.

My main problem with this “people I care about” thing, however, is another one of my very, very close friends (though I’m not sure “friend” is the right term…). His problem is that he is arrogant, stubborn, slightly depressive, and has a temper hotter than the core of a hypergiant star. These traits get elevated when he’s under stress. As he’s doing college applications right now, yeah, you could say he’s under a ton of stress, especially with other conditions and expectations on him that I won’t go into. Basically, he has become a world-class jerk in the past two weeks for various reasons, and while I’m very worried about him (for both his sanity and his health), I really want to just go and punch him in the face and knock some sense into that supposedly genius head of his. And for the record, he offered to let me break his nose if I wanted to. I feel like I just might take him up on that offer.

See, here’s the thing. When he gets stressed, his emotions get frazzled, and he starts being snippy and rude. He starts accusing people of random things and then refuses to listen when they offer help. Then he starts ignoring people, generally trying to avoid them, and then tries really hard to mask it. The Mask works on other people; at least, most other people. However, it doesn't work all that well on me, because I know him so ridiculously well. He tries to pretend that he’s all right and fine and nothing is wrong, and usually I don’t push him, but I know when things are wrong with him. Quite honestly, it’s a little bit hurtful when he doesn't tell me, because that signifies that either he doesn't trust me enough or he is going through something really really bad that he should probably have help for. In any case, he’s an arrogant berk, and he’s taken up enough space here.

And as if all this isn't enough, I have a headache the size of the Local Group and then some. It’s not as if this is unexpected, really; I’m quite prone to massive headaches. Still, what an awful addition to an already awful week...

Feelings of Completely Unjustified Guilt

There are some times when you feel like the biggest jerk in the history of ever, even though things aren't your fault at all. See, I have this history class that I am taking, and there are tons of people who are failing it at present moment. There are smart people who've never gotten below a 94 in their life who are failing or just struggling to maintain a C or B. We get thrown headfirst into content, and for a lot of people, they just can’t keep up. They don’t know how to deal with the barrage of content that we get, and the fact that we get through thirty pages a week and have a test every other week. They don’t know how to write essays fast or they just can’t write. Currently, I’m one of the only people in the class who have an A. I am also one of two, maybe three, people who have a really high A (I think I have a 98.6 right now). So one of the most frequent questions I get asked is how I study and prepare for this class. The problem?

I can’t answer that question.

See, I don’t study for this class. Not even remotely. Usually, I do the homework on the day it is due. I never look back at my notes once I finish taking them in class. I don’t even really pay attention in class, because I’m folding origami or writing a story or doing calculus problems or studying physics. I don’t really read the textbook; I skim it over while I’m doing homework (usually, the homework is take notes on the textbook). I never plan my essays or think about what argument I have to make before I have to make it. I also hate history, so I feel no need to really make an effort at all.

If everyone “studied” the way I do, we’d have a class of F’s…and then me. And it’s not fair for them. It’s really not. I have a good friend who is in the same class I am, who is one of the smartest and most dedicated people I know. She has never had anything below a mid-A as an average in any of her classes before, and right now, she’s struggling just to maintain a low B. She studies the content every night for at least an hour or two, habitually going to bed past midnight just to study for this class. She rereads the textbook at least five or six times, takes the notes we take in class, retakes them, then rephrases them, makes flash cards for them, and generally goes way overboard with everything just to not fail. The first time she asked me what I did to study and I said, “Well…I don’t study...at all...”, she looked like she was going to slap me to Antarctica and back and break down crying.

I feel awful when I think about things like that. Everyone is really struggling with this class. A classmate of mine who is an amazing writer details every part of her essay two days before time and goes through every nuance of it to make it perfect…and I get a better score than her. Every time. Another classmate stresses about it greatly and goes to our teacher for advice and help at least once a week, and I still do better than her by an average of 20 points. Yet another very intelligent classmate makes timelines and notes by himself, asks questions, and generally just tries really hard, but I still get a higher score on him on tests and quizzes and analyses.

The class average is a C, and this is apparently perfectly normal and acceptable. The teacher says that if you make a B in this class, you are golden and above average. I’m the only kid he has who doesn't even listen in class (once again, origami, story, calc, phys). Everyone else hangs on to his every word just to be able to pass. My dedicated friend takes notes over and over again, and she stresses so much that she looks like she’s about to cry half the time.

It’s not fair to those people who slave and work night and day just to pass this class. It’s not fair that they have to work so incredibly hard to get a mediocre grade, and I just wing my way through and end up with a near-perfect grade. It’s not fair that they have to give up activities and time to study and do extra work, when I ignore this class in favour of other things I like to do. I make no effort at all, and I do so much better than everyone else. It makes me feel like an awful person, even though I know it’s really not my fault. Things just…come easily to me. Remembering things and writing things, taking pieces of information and analysing the crap out of them...it’s just not hard for me.

But every time I see my friend, and see how tired she is and how she constantly keeps studying her notes and flash cards, I feel guilty and awful and just generally bad. I try to help her, but I can’t do much, because, well, I don’t do anything in this class. I can’t help her study. All I can do is tell her all the things she missed and try to help her do better.

Also, in honour of two of my excellent friends, Happy National Coming Out Day!

I Am Very Nonplussed

  So you know that weird high school tradition of homecoming and football and weird things that some people actually care about? I was coerced into going. And the person I am going with? Apparently his family refers to me as "Princess Ariel".

...I have nothing to say about this. I am no princess.

And his older brother apparently calls me "Astrid". For anyone who knows me, what part of my name makes you think "Astrid"? 

   And of course, swimming and male drag suits. Enough said.

   In other news, I have got to start actually caring about school. And swimming. And violin. And basically everything else I do.

That Feeling

  You know that feeling when you've been looking forward to something for months, and the possibility of it happening has been fluctuating greatly, but you're really hopeful...and then it is almost certainly happening, and you are really really looking forward to it, and then it is completely screwed over?

Yeah.
That feeling.

I shall be back sometime next week with some installments of my adventures. Hopefully.

Biggest Flaw?

   I haven't posted in forever. I keep thinking I should, keep thinking I need to write something, and I don't, because I keep coming up with other things to do.
   Lately, life has been pretty difficult for me, so I guess that's another reason I haven't been posting as much. I shan't go into detail, because I'm too irritated about it to, but suffice it to say, I have not really been at my best at anything lately.

   So I am taking a summer PE course this year, and through it, I have made an acquaintance of sorts. We talk about a great deal of things, and among these things, we were discussing about our biggest flaws. He told me that my biggest flaw was being too much of a realist, that it was sort of depressing at times.
   At first, that was really shocking to me. To most people, I am insanely arrogant, judicious, intimidating, and honestly, sort of scary. (To back up this claim, someone wrote on my yearbook "Thank you for not stabbing me. Please don't hurt me.") I am the epitome of teenage evil--smart, sadistic, terrifying, arrogant. And then I realised that that's simply how most people see me, because I don't like associating with people much. I don't do that to my acquaintance guy, henceforth referred to as Runner (because that's what he does). So he sees me a little bit more clearly than the vast majority of people.
 
   In some ways, I suppose, my realism is justified. There is not a situation where I don't consider all angles and then make a judgment based on that. I also sort of knock over everyone else's beliefs if I think they're wrong, which is where I suppose the arrogance comes from. I like to think of it as I am simply stating my opinion, but it may come off a little more forcefully than that.

   In other ways, I have no realism at all. I’ve told Runner multiple times about my dream of breeding giant mantis shrimps that can breathe on air and are totally obedient to me. I’ve sung about ponies and ponies and ponies and ponies, and I’m pretty sure that I once tried to provide factual evidence that the Doctor exists (he does! Really!).

   I suppose he thinks I am too realistic because I have this really odd tendency to try to counter everything that everyone says. They see it as beating them down, but I see it as pointing out possible flaws and, well, actually being able to do it. For example, the other day, Runner was telling me about how he wanted to teleport, and I was coming up with all these scientific arguments that it wasn’t possible (even though it totally is, or will be one day), and he was just like, “It’s gonna happen!” It’s mostly that I want backup and proof for anything that people say, because I’m a scientist at heart, and that’s what scientists require. If you want to do it, okay, that’s great. But provide me with proof of how you are going to do it, and people get stuck.

Another part in my so-called realism is my life. So far, and especially in the past several years, I’ve not had the happiest life in the world, though I have been extremely lucky in some accounts (thank you, people who put up with me). After everything that I have gone through, the world is sort of bleak and unpromising to me, and that makes it so that I can shoot down most ideals. I just go, “But you know that’s not going to really happen, right? Because of this this this this and this.”

   But Runner is definitely right that I am a realist. One of my excellent, genius friends has a lifelong dream to go to MIT, and he gets a little bit depressed when he thinks about getting in. In this scenario, when someone is depressed about getting into their dream college, most people would probably go like, “I’m sure you’ll get in, you’ll have no problem! After all, you’re one of the smartest people I know.” I don’t do that. I do this: “Yeah, well, you might get in, but if you don’t, you have to learn to accept the possibility of going elsewhere. They only accept 7% of applicants; you have to admit the odds aren’t good. Sure, you can get in. But you also may not, and you have to accept that.” etc.

   I can’t tell if my tactlessness helps with this realism, because I have been told (several times) before that I have less tact than a rock, a rock having no tact at all. I guess it only helps in communicating my so-called realism to others. I have no qualms about stating outright what I think is wrong. My history teacher and I had a very intense argument about what makes someone evil, and I disagreed with him blatantly. Generally, talking to that particular teacher the way I did usually gets people detention, but I didn’t, because the teacher knew that I knew what I was talking about…and also because he knows my tendency to disagree unless I agree.

   There is a very fine line between realism and pessimism. Pessimism, to me, is seeing the negative side of everything, while realism is realizing that there is both good and bad, and having taken care of the good, must now take care of the bad. Therefore, realism is often seen in a much more negative light than it really is, simply because the bad (or the impossibilities) require more work and attention than the good (or the givens and dreams).

   However, as realistic as I am, I’m not sure that’s my worst flaw. I have another terrible flaw—holding grudges. In general, I have amazing patience when it comes to people I care about (seriously, ask a couple of my friends), but once they push me too far, I never forgive them. Ever. I forgive a lot, I tell people it’s okay a lot, but once it goes past a certain point, it snaps, and I don’t ever let go of it. I had a great friend once, probably the best friend I ever had, and then he went too far, and I just completely broke off contact with him, and now never want to talk to him again. I used to adore him, and now he disgusts me. I don’t think he’s even human anymore. And I can’t ever forgive him, because I did it a million times, and he pushed too far a million and one times.

   I also have a terrible temper. It rarely flares with people, either because I don’t care or I actually care about them, but if it is with one of those people who have pushed me a little too far…well, it’s really not pretty. I have no patience for them, and what would normally be a mere glance of annoyance with others is like an internal eruption with them.

   But personally, I think my worst flaw is caring too much. Despite being hurt by pretty much every friend I have ever made, I continue giving all of myself to every new friend I have. I don’t have many friends, but those that do hold my heart. It’s terrible. I forgive them for nearly everything they do, I hold on long past what is reasonable, and I honestly freak out whenever I think some of them are hurt in any way. It really is pathetic, but I can’t help it. Some part of me feels eternally grateful to every person I meet who can stand me, who I can personally deal with for more than five minutes without wanting to stab them in the eye with a rusty cuchara, who has some intelligence of some sort. Some I feel sorry for and I just help them along. And of course, there is that thing I read in a book once—“The most dangerous flaws are those that are good in moderation.”

   And because of this flaw, I am cold and sadistic and aloof to pretty much everyone. Sometimes I try to be welcoming, but for the most part, I am sarcastic and cynical beyond what is acceptable by any standards save mine. Anyone who can put up with that and isn’t annoying automatically levels up in my book, which is actually only a very few people. Since friendship is based on mutual feelings of “I like you, you like me,” and I like hardly anybody, I can afford to care more about those that I do like.

   I suppose the endpoint to this is that I seem to be a great many things to many people, and I am all of those things. One guy says that I am complete sentimental mush and passion-driven, someone else says that I am an emotionless robot cyborg android thing, someone says that I am the sweetest and nicest person they’ve ever known, and yet someone else says that I am the cruelest and meanest person they’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. Some see me as a scientist, others as a musician, still others as an author, a mathematician, an artist, a reader, and an athlete. One guy told me that I was the most self-interested, arrogant person he’d ever seen, and that very evening, someone else yelled at me for having no self esteem. One person told me I was amazing and awesome and completely brilliant and perfect, and then someone else told me I needed to go to hell. (yeah…people feel sort of strongly about me…)

   All of these are true. They are just different faces for different people, and how you interpret my face is completely up to you. I am most definitely not perfect (making the opinion of whoever called me perfect null and void), but I am certainly a lot of things. And to be honest, I like being those things, because all the colors of the rainbow make white.

Marching Band

            It is said that you never know how good you have it until you lose it. I can testify to this…today, today is the first day of marching band for the upcoming season, and it brings back memories, makes me remember things…

            Last year, I joined marching band as an experiment. I didn’t think I would like it very much, as I wasn’t into band very much. The first week or so was just as I expected—horrid and hot, with bossy seniors…then I met someone who became a good friend of mine who was in the trombone section, and then suddenly marching band wasn’t so bad. I started enjoying marching on the hot asphalt, even in the Southern summer sun. Still, though, I thought it was just ehhh, because I didn’t let myself think otherwise. The highlight of those days was probably the time I got to spend with my trombone friend.

            As the marching season began, I drifted away from the other flutes. I wasn’t good with people, and it showed—especially in my section, where everyone else seemed to enjoy hugs and parties and calling each other sisters. I didn’t do that—I couldn’t. Instead, I hung out with my friend from the trombone section. Practises were fun, and my friendship grew.

            At our first performance of the year, I remember wearing my marching band uniform and being proud of it. I remember kind of just sitting there, not knowing what to do. Though there was a lot of issues with the marching at that point, it was still pretty good-looking, because it was at least even. The first football game, I hung back, still unsure about cheering. As the season progressed and we went to more and more football games, I started getting a thrill every time we marched. I started joining in with the admittedly crazy dances and laughed doing them. For the first time, I was having fun outside of an academic life. One of the seniors even took a liking to me—impressive, considering that I had been nothing but a jerk to most of my section (my disdain was pretty plain). Still, a few people took a liking to me within our section, although not as warmly as they had with each other. But even so, they made those days in band so much better…

            By the end of the season, I had totally fallen in love with marching band, if not with my flute section. I realized that this was something I wanted to do for as long as possible.

            A few months ago, this was torn from me. I couldn’t do marching band this year, for a variety of reasons set forth by my parents, none of them good ones. I thought I had gotten over that loss by now. Today, a new kid in our school who became fast acquainted with me announced his dedication to marching band and the fact that he was going this afternoon. And immediately, I felt like this huge gaping hole had opened up inside my heart again. I’d never felt that way for anything other than Science Olympiad before. Passing our practice fields was painful, because I could see the memories behind my eyes as I gazed down it. The magnolia tree, where my trombone friend and I spent so many afternoons with each other. The back of the field, where the flutes marched. The fifty yard line, where we grouped for warm up. The field, which we had to run around.

            It is horrifying that I miss it this much. And I do. I do miss it. It was that one thing that allowed me to be a normal kid for once, to not have to worry about anything…to have fun, to scream and yell and let go once in a while. I would do almost anything to get that back. And I am inexorably angry at those who took it away from me.

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.