The Surreal Life

Last night, I was trudging through the mall parking lot in sweatpants, surrounded by a flock of teenagers dressed in black suits and ties. I had in tow a coffee mug, a pink shoe box, and an obese backpack.

These things only happen in Acadec.

States was actually a bummer. After the adrenaline and oxytocin pumped meet in November, states was so much of a letdown. As the perpetual state champs of MA, we carry the arrogance and expectation of winners, so a win, even one by the same 5000 point margin as in November, was just not good enough. Crick was giving us the death glare during the entire team-wide Superquiz fiasco. (Correction: Honors totally pulled its weight in Superquiz and was then awarded a magic 200 extra points. Either my ditziness worked in my favor or something very very strange happened.) We won states with the lowest score ever and even lost Superquiz. Though we were somewhat vindicated when we got 2nd in Superquiz when Crick had predicted 6th or 7th.

But honestly, I'm more disappointed in myself than the rest of the team. I have plenty of faith in my teammates to step it up at nationals, while I apparently need to magically acquire more charisma.

It's days like these that I wonder why I do Academic Decathlon. Back when I was a wee freshman, my parents picked Acadec as one of the activities I had to join to get into college. That's right: they picked it for me. Freshman year was also the year of 2004, the year of CM and VW--the epochal year of ABAD. With this mantle of expectations upon me, I tried Acadec junior year, bombing a few math tests and doing surprisingly well on a well econ ones. When I realized the amazing awesome of last year's Honors team, I promptly slinked away and disappeared from Acadec. But this year, I was determined to try again, even before Crick started his guerrilla recruitment campaign and even before I found out Nationals was being held in sunny Hawaii. But why? It wasn't my parents any more. I had long stopped listening to them, snubbing piano and athletics in favor of less college-worthy but more enjoyable activities.

Maybe it's for the glory. Long ago, I realized that my true strength in academics lay not in a photographic memory or innate smarts, but my ability to take multiple choice tests. In US and World history classes, I'd fly through the MC in less than 7 minutes, as the rest of the class was still puzzling over question 15. And while the rest of the class bemoaned MC questions, I aced them, banking points and time for my essay scores. (Euro is an entirely different story, but let's not go there.) So Acadec is my one chance to capitalize on the skill that frankly is useless in real life. I might as well make the most of it while I still can.

But glory is short-lived. Even if Crick harps incessantly on the 2004 team, nobody outside of ABAD knows what he is talking about. People study, win medals, and move on. In the world of college, Acadec is just another activity you did in high school, and you'll be just another person who won some competition.

What I've always regretted most about high school is never being part of a team. Participating in athletics is an intense bonding experience while you push yourself to your physical and mental limits. Acadec is a "team," even if it often doesn't feel like it and the limits are only mental. During the awards ceremony, our school got accused of having no team spirit, which may be true to some extent. (It's also because we get too many medals to properly cheer without being obnoxious, and by the time golds are announced, half the team is already on stage...That sounded obnoxious, but that's only because MA Acadec is just not that great. I'm really puzzled why other schools don't do better since our team doesn't study or practice, at least compared to CA and TX, but I digress )

There definitely some weird team dynamics, but I'm being wistful if I wished everyone would love each. When you combine students from all strata of high school (as Acadec does attempt to do), you will doubtless have tensions and cracks. But I really do like all of the team. Maybe even love the team as a whole. And yes, I would gladly keep in contact with all of my teammates next year regardless of whether I'm in Illinois, Texas, or New York.

After regionals, I came back replete with <3 and joy abound, but yesterday evening was much more subdued. Superquiz meltdown aside, subjectives were also surprisingly low, but we can do better. We will do better. If we don't, there's too much talent and intelligence on the team going to waste.