Washington, District of Columbia

I'll cut to the chase. As of today, Ari Allan-Feuer, Colin Corbett, Erik Werstler, Carlin Kersch, and I are headed for Washington DC at the end of April. Wilson's team just had a complete outright victory in the 2006 Regional Science Bowl for Oregon and Washington. Maybe it was because of Ari's "intimidation tactics," or perhaps it was our fantastic team dynamic, but it was nonetheless. Because there are apparently other parents who read my blog for information on this matter, I'll give a "brief" account.

The field of 64 teams was broken down into eight preliminary divisions of eight, which played four randomly seeded matches. In our first three rounds we went up against Catlin Gable, McNary, and David Douglas. In each of these rounds we scored roughly between 110 and 160, while always holding our opponents to less than 25. The initial victory over Catlin was particularly heartening simply by virtue of Catlin's reputation and our uncertainty of our abilities in the first round. It always inspires confidence when the public school "delinquents" route students in academic competitions who pay $30,000/year for their high school tuition. The fourth round was similar: we scored a shade over 100 and held Canby to 18.

Entering the double elimination bracket, the trend continued as we beat Wilsonville by about 40 points. A little bit of sense was smacked back into us in our next and closest match against Woodinville. Colin and Ari each made a crucial error, but we scraped away with a win by a margin of one question in overtime. Woodinville only survived a round or two longer in the consolation bracket before being knocked out by Lincoln. Here we were at a critical junction. I know that I felt a little bit of shell-shock from the round against Woodinville, and this feeling was not assuaged by an upcoming round against Oregon Episcopal School. Two OES students had just been featured in an Oregonian article one week earlier for being finalists in the Intel Talent Search--arguably the most prestigious science competition in the country. The school is notorious for its success in science competitions, and students there are paired with researchers and engage in projects that span many years. It goes without saying, then, that we were quite relieved to beat them by something like 20 to 100.

We spent the next half hour analyzing the brackets, and listening to Ari rant about calculating the probability for our victory in the next round against Jesuit. The girl on the OES team mentioned that Jesuit was rather good. This concern was furthered by our observation that Jesuit beat Lincoln, who beat Woodinville in consolation, against whom we only persevered by the skin of our teeth. The afternoon was filled with this type of neurotic bracket analysis, which invariably left us only more worried. Yet, even with a couple of odd challenges to procedure, we came out with a win of about 50 to their 20. After the consolation bracket shook out, we marched into the final round, once again facing Jesuit. And once again, we took them down, this time with a 66 to 22 victory. And there you have it. Wilson will off to nationals to have a blast in DC and get slaughtered by the Neo-Nazi teams from East Coast schools like Thomas Jefferson in Virginia. I'm content being merely mediocre or "pretty good" compared to these teams if it means that I get to actually enjoy life a little.

The distinctly wonderful thing about this year, more than our scores and victories, is the team dynamic which materialized today. To be sure, we are an odd lot. Ari, for instance, spent a significant amount of time this morning lecturing us about how one of the most defining characteristics of humans is neotony. Carlin's personality, on the other hand, may best be exemplefied by his hair, which has only been cut once in the three years I have known him. Indeed, Colin Corbett or I may actually be the most socially "conventional" people on the team--considering how odd and grotesquely nerdy we are, you can get a sense of the team's incredible quirkiness. Yet, even with that, we have a remarkable ability to cooperate to construct answers to bonus questions, work out substitutions, and complete all team functions like a well oiled machine sans a shred of conflict.

Unlike last year, the team is no longer entirely dependent on Ari. Certainly, Ari is still the backbone of the team. But when Ari has a sour round, the rest of the team can compensate extremely well. The scores are proof of that. True, Ari usually dominates, but he is in fact human. Our remarkable consistency of wide margins of victory is evidence of a highly balanced machine.

So what can I say? We're going to nationals! It's nice to be on a team with such flawless execution and cooperation. It's also comforting to know that, although we may lose to them in sports, we from Wilson can still rise above our west-side rival, the rest of our PIL bretheren, and the "superior" private schools in academic competition as diverse as science bowl, speech and debate, and even mock trial (on a good day). Maybe public schools aren't so bad after all, eh?

Addition: ... And the stupid response of the day goes to... Colin Corbett! We were ahead in the match and no one seemed to know the answer to a short answer toss up about an obscure physical law. Colin buzzed in and said, in an attempt at humor, "Article Thirteen of the US Constitution." Sorry Colin, but the constitution only has seven articles. No offense intended. The distinction did have to go to someone.