Science Bowl 2009 – The Real Story

Washington, D.C. – Science Bowl Day 5 – May 3, 2009

Let the games begin. Round Robin Competition.

We got up disgustingly early to eat our breakfast. Afterwards, we tried to play Risk before brunch, but it turns out we are not good at taking risks.

We established the Albany Science Bowl theme song: “Every Time We Touch” by Cascada. All of us sang this all the way down to our first match — Albuquerque. That is, all of us except Jamie’s nerdy ass.

We eviscerated Albuquerque.

The next team was Lafayette, and they were supposed to be pretty smart. Turns out, not as smart as us. Ha ha. Earlier we overheard a team complaining, “Mira Loma, Albany, and Parkview are all in our division. Crap.”

Lucky us. Our next match was Parkview. We were slightly nervous because… (we interrupt this blog because George had the best quote of the week: “Pretty Asians who are hella pro bring out the worst in me.”) Anyway, they were the team that won hella chocolate last night for having the best structure made out of spaghetti and other stuff.

Our next competition was against Mira Loma. We lost by a smaller margin than any other team, so that was kinda good in a way. Did we mention Mira Loma is hella pro? So pro that they’re gonna win the whole Science Bowl.

Unfortunately, George and I are both attracted to their alternate. Intersexual selection anyone? Digression to the third power.

Did we mention how little the three seniors actually studied? Over a period of 2.73 months, we have only studied a combined total less than fifteen man-hours. Anyhoo….

George: “I shouldn’t kill someone just because they want to have a good time.”

We apologize for making this into a George blog, but he is pretty hilarious. We actually have lots to write about.

The other teams in round robin were too bad to mention except for one team. In our divine brilliance, we somehow managed to lose to Cherry Creek, a team that had lost to four other teams before we played them. Because of the two losses, we were afraid we had lost our spot in the top 16. We were afraid we would tie with another team, which would be broken by the tie-breaker, an experiment in which we pulled out 6th out of 9th. Long story short, we somehow pulled out of it alive. If you are wondering about the details, ask me during Government and Econ.

Double Elimination Round
Props to Woodrow Wilson. We would have won if we got the 10-point bonus at the end of the round. That was our most epic match of the day.

Our next match was against Brophy, a dark horse team that sweep their round robin division. They came out of nowhere like vacuum energy. They plowed through Homestead and Thomas Jefferson. It was another close match and we were ready to take out the heart medication. Albany came out on top.

Our next match was against MSJ (Mission San Jose), our archrivals. MSJ is to Albany in Science Bowl as Piedmont is to Albany in nearly every sport. We pulled through and beat them by a narrow margin, thanks mainly to an epic challenge by Benji that made the epic match even more epic than usual. We were extremely pleased with ourselves at this point. We had surpassed the results of last year’s team and had escaped elimination three times. Everything else was just gravy on the cake.

Our next adversary was Homestead. We were in the top eight and this was when visual bonuses started. All you need to know about visual bonuses is that they are ridiculously hard. Think of answering an AP FRQ with 30 seconds on some random topic. It’s like going on four first dates in 30 seconds without it being awkward. We won 62 to 34. We were now in the top six, and we were all deliriously happy, but the night was not over.

Our last match, which would determine top four for tomorrow, was just about to begin. We were going up against last year’s champions, Santa Monica. Oh, I forgot to mention, I was wearing my pink bunny ears as an intimidation tactic. However, when I went to say hi to the other team, a short Russian guy from Santa Monica asked me, “Are you homosexual?”

We had an intense match, but it ended in our defeat. At the end of the match, the same short Russian guy accused Albany of cheating. What a jackass. To refrain from vulgar language, I will not go into the details in this blog. Ask me during Government and Econ for the full story.

Although we missed top four, and a mention in Wikipedia, we exceeded all expectations and are extremely content with our fifth-place performance.

Congratulations to the Albany High School Science Bowl Team and their fifth-place national finish: seniors Elise Cai, George Shan; junior Jamie Lincoff; sophomore Corwin Shiu; coach Peggy Carlock and blogging senior, Benji Kessler.

4 Responses

1. 10:48 PM on May 6th, 2009Kioma:

   BENJI!!! THIS IS AMAZING!! I almost thought I was there with you in DC!

2. 11:58 AM on May 10th, 2009Fircoal:

   This made me lul. Good job. XD

3. 5:55 PM on October 7th, 2009Anonymous:

   Ahaa, Mira Loma PWNS. I go there. I’m on the Science Bowl.

4. 12:31 PM on October 18th, 2009Rishi:

   That definitely wasn’t me.

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