So, let's briefly go over what it is, since I just love talking about it. In the months leading up to the science bowl (which is, of course, the day before the Super Bowl), the team meets weekly after school and, with slight variety, does sort of an informal practice science bowl, where one of us reads questions and everyone else answers them, with variety as to how strictly the rules are enforced. Then, sometime around November or December, we find out how many teams we can have. It's usually one or two, or maybe three if we have enough people and we get super duper lucky, which is pretty unlikely. This year we had two, but it worked out since we didn't really have to cut anyone. It did, however, mean that our second team was almost exclusively freshman, which is good for some things, but not good for them this year. Anyway, we pick our teams after we know how many we get. Then, come the first Saturday of February, we all wake up at an ungodly hour and carpool to the University of Portland. Once you get there, you collect all of your free shit (and they give you a lot) and you go to the opening session in the majestic Buckley auditorium, where you find yourself in a room of approximately 85% males and approximately 75% Asian people. There, you have your team pictures taken. Then you sit down with your (free) breakfast and free shit and watch Leilani Russell give a little motivational and logistical speech. They do a big, loud roll call, and I try to be as loud as possible. I can think of one baseball game in modern history in which I have tried to be as loud as possible, and that was by necessity. Science bowl is the only time I really do that by choice. Anyway, then the coaches go and get their schedules, and you go to your first round (if you have one at 9:30). You have four rounds, which are round robin, meaning you play all of them, no matter how much you lose. So, that's where you pray to God that you get easy teams. The way that the rounds work is that you have four people in at a time (your teams very often have five people in them. When that is the case, you have one sit out and they switch with another person halfway through). They read a question (sample round 1 [easy] questions found here: http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/nsb/hs/PDF/ROUND1.PDF), and you buzz in if you know the answer. You may not confer with your teammates during a tossup question. If you get the question right, your team receives 4 points and gets the chance to answer a bonus question, worth 10 points. Your team may confer during a bonus question, and the other team does not have a chance to answer it. If you got the original tossup question wrong, the other team gets a chance to buzz in. If you interrupted the question and then proceeded to get it wrong (if you get it right, the same rules apply as if you had not interrupted), four points are awarded to the other team, the question will be reread in its entirety, and the other team will have the chance to answer. If you buzz in for a tossup question and then answer it without being recognized, four points will be awarded to the other team and they will have the opportunity to answer. For multiple choice questions, either the letter of the answer or answer itself may be accepted, but if you choose to give the answer itself, it must be worded exactly as given. As you can tell, I have heard the rules a couple times. Anyway, after the four round robin rounds, you go back to the auditorium for lunch (they have a mobile Round Table Pizza come and they crank out like 70 million different pizzas) and a show thing. They recognize the all-stars. The last three years, we have had all-stars on one of our teams. I fear we won't next year. Two years ago, they had an all-star round, pitting the all-stars against minor local celebrities, such as weathermen or news anchors. The all-stars killed them. Starting last year, they did away with the all-star round (which is a bit of a pity, but I also like what they do now), and instead had a guest speaker. Last year it was a "golly-ologist" from OMSI who did some pretty awesome things with physics. This year, it was astronaut Stan Love. They were both awesome. After that, Leilani comes up and announces the teams that make it to Double Elimination. Basically, they take the teams with the highest win percentage from Round Robin. Since there are only 4 rounds, the tie breaker is points, though I don't know if it is total points or net points. If you don't make it, you either watch your other team dominate if they made it, you do an engineering challenge thing, which I've never done, or you go home, which I've never done either. Then you do Double Elimination. There is a bracket, and you can lose twice before going home. The questions are harder, as are the teams you are playing against. And that is my description in a nutshell. Well, maybe a clamshell. If it's a giant clam. Uh, you get the picture.
So, you might be wondering, why do I love it so much? Well, first of all, it's AWESOME! Also, I get to be a complete and total nerd and not only not get judged, but actually get embraced and even outdone. Also, they give us not only a bunch of free shit, and I'm Jewish, so I'm totally down with that. Not only do we get the aforementioned free shit, they also have a nearly endless supply of free soda. I usually drink responsibly, but if I can have 27 Dr Peppers once a year, you bet I'll have 27 Dr Peppers. Okay, 27 might be an exaggeration, but I do enjoy me some Dr Pepper. Also, we have plenty of running jokes. One such running joke is the infamous short kid...
Short kid is my age and he attends Grant high school. I hate him with a passion. When I was just a freshman, I was sitting in the front row at the Buckley auditorium, watching the semifinal (the first rounds are in Franz hall, but by semifinals, or maybe quarterfinals, they move it to Buckley). Our team one had made it there, and this was competing for a shiny trophy. They were pitted against Grant, an inner city Portland school. One of the people on their team was this short, unassuming, white freshman. You might think that Grant killed us, but that is not true. Short kid killed us. He was the smartest frosh I had ever seen. Ever since, I have hated him with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. I have never had to play against him, but I feel like if I ever do, I will give something of either the Inigo Montoya sort ("Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.") or of the Lone Starr sort ("So, at last we meet for the first time for the last time."), and then sheepishly run away. The funny thing, also, is that he's not very short anymore, but I still call him short kid, even though I actually do know his real name. Anywho, this year, I saw the Grant team in their ugly blue "General Knowledge" T-shirts, but I didn't see short kid, and I was really excited. Then, as I was sitting in Buckley, I saw him walk in. I swore. Very loudly. He didn't hear me, but it was still hilarious. To make matters worse, his team sat right behind ours (here is a picture of him staring me down. I'm not in this picture, but I'm sitting exactly where he is staring: http://www.bpa.gov/corporate/education/Science_bowl/pics/11-HS-Gallery/SB-11-HS-0044.jpg). Anyway, I have a friend who goes to Grant and she's actually friends with him, and she thinks it's hilarious that I hate him.
Now, Short kid is no longer the only malicious midget at the Science bowl. Yes, this year we encountered an entire team of sinister shorties. We were in double elimination, and we were pitted against Westview-2. We figured that Westview was probably a challenge since they beat us last year, but it was team 2, so we didn't have too much to worry about. Our fears were further quelled when they introduced themselves as entirely freshmen. They were all Asian, but that is a common occurrence at the Science Bowl. Anyway, it goes without saying that that was our biggest loss of the day, by far. After the round, I asked what math one of the kids was in. Calculus, he says! I'm a fucking Junior, and I'm in pre-calc, and I'm a year ahead! That makes him 5 years ahead! FIVE FREAKING YEARS!!!! What's perhaps more upsetting is that they didn't even get in the top 3. We looked respectable (though we did lose) against the winners, but we looked like horse shit against Westview-2. So, we get to deal with them for a while. A couple days later, I was talking to my physics teacher (our coach), and he was saying that he talked to their coach, and apparently the school is running out of options for these kids. So maybe they'll all graduate three years early, who knows...
Anyway, Science Bowl is an amazing experience. I love it, and I will be super duper depressed after next year, which will be my last. Even if there is a college version, it just won't match up to the BPA regionals. We have the biggest and the best region, even if we never win at nationals. We have the most fun. We have the short kid who, though I hate, I really do love to have there to joke about. I love my team. I love the 27 million pizzas. I love the free shit. I love the Dr Pepper. So, with that, I shall be asking my school administration if I may be held back four years. Not really, but I probably will volunteer there if I'm able to make it up to Oregon that weekend, or at the regional science bowl that my college is nearest to, though it's just not the same when it's not BPA.
And by the way, if you were wondering, the free waterbottles they gave us were, in fact, BPA free :-D...
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