Winner!

The past week or so has been really hectic - so much so that I haven't been able to document a momentous occasion until now. What might that momentous occasion be, you may ask. I will give you a hint. It happened last Saturday. Haven't guessed it yet? Well, I suppose I'll tell you. Both the middle school and the high school Science Olympiad teams won the Regional competition on Saturday!!!! Before I talk about that, though, I must backtrack a day to March 18th - my brother's birthday. Although it's kind sad to say this, but we didn't have anything planned for his birthday. It was the day before Regionals, and the week had been hectic. My mom did make a white chocolate chiffon cake, which was delicious, and my brother did get a few gifts (actually he just got one of the main gifts promised yesterday - an electric guitar), but other than that, it was kind of boring - no fanfare or excitement. But enough of that; on to the Science Olympiad competition, which I know you are just full of anticipation to hear about. Well, the day began early, as usual. Actually, it was the same time that I get up every day on school days - 5:45 AM. We left at about six in the morning, and drove for around an hour to get to our final destination - Mott Community College. I tried to sleep on the way there, but my sister was blasting the music super loud, so that plan went out of the window. Once we got there, we had to unload all the stuff from the car, which was jam packed, and haul it up to our room. As you can imagine, that was tons of fun. From then to my first event at 9:00, our homeroom was bustling. Both the high school and the middle school were in there, so, with so many people on both teams this year, it was packed with participants, coaches, parents, and siblings. The rest of my day wasn't much more relaxed. Although my schedule had been fixed so that I didn't have to run between two buildings after every event, I still had to run up and down flights of stairs. Luckily, though, most of my events finished before the end of the hour, so I had time to kill in between what was supposed to be back-to-back events. One thing that was really stupid, though, was that the Anatomy test was the same exact test, except for one question, from last year!! And that test, as well as this one, was only four question long. Not to mention that the questions weren't that good. One asked us name ONE (that's how it was on the test, no joking) hormone from each of the organs in the endocrine system. Not two from each, just one, and we didn't even have to say what was their purpose or anything. If someone just had a list of muscles and a list of hormones, they probably would have done just as good as we did (which was fifth place - what are you going to do?). Although the day was a little exasperating, the award ceremony was very fun and exciting. While waiting for the ceremony to start (and trust me, it takes a long time), a bunch of us on the team played the game, Apples to Apples. It was really fun because we were all on different bleacher levels, so the playing itself was a little difficult, but still, amusing. When we finally started the award ceremony, both teams had good rankings. In fact the middle school had ll first places, and everyone, on both teams, as well as the alternates, got at least one medal. Pretty good, huh? My placings were first in Optics (which is an event where you take a test on, well, optics, and then have a demo portion where you use lasers and mirrors to shoot the laser around a obstacle onto a designated point), fifth in Anatomy, third in Sounds of Music (an event where you have to build two instruments from scratch and answer questions on the physics of sound), and third in Ecology. When it came around to the overall placements, it was very suspenseful. All the people in our team were holding hands in a "circle of love." The problem was that the middle school was announced first, so by the time they got around to announcing the high school placings, all our hands were warm, sweaty, and uncomfortable. Pleasant, I know. Anyway, when it came to it, both teams won first place in our region!!!! The margin of winning wasn't as large as it was last year, but still, it was nice that both teams won. Not expecting anything to come from our double win, I was surprised to learn that the school board had decided to give both teams a "shining star award." So while I know that may sound very prestigious, it wasn't. All we got for all the hard work we put in was a certificate and a handshake from everyone on the board. Exciting? The ceremony itself was really stupid - we were only three minutes late or so, and the people had already given out the middle school awards without us and my mom, the head coach for both teams. It seems that they just couldn't wait to get rid of us. The world of school, however, has not been as rewarding as receiving that award. I've been so busy working on my Honors multigenre project, it's not even funny. I spent last weekend, which was a three day weekend, writing a 12 page essay. Granted, it didn't need to be twelve pages, but still. I just couldn't par anything down. I have finished one of my two genres - an oil pastel portrait of my poet, Dorothy Parker (if you don't know who she is, look her up), but I still have to do a ton more things. Overwhelming, someone? That's pretty much all there is to recap for now.