Zhanga: October 19, 2008

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Sunday, October 19, 2008 (0 comments)

I went home last weekend, which was fall break, with some Duke kids from Walton (Yujing, Scott Brothers, and Debbie's sister Michelle). I volunteered in the tournament center for this year's Walton Academic Challenge, which is always fun because what's better than hanging out with Mr. Edelstein? A brief recap of that day follows.

After getting up at 7 AM, I drove to school, reminding myself of zero period and all that fun. Oh, the joys of eight classes a day, beginning with Kelly Bryan.

I walked around the halls for a few minutes wondering if I was that small when I was in high school (I wasn't; I was smaller), then found the tournament center and went in. Mr. Edelstein started showing me how to keep score using the score sheets I made 4-5 years ago. At first I didn't understand why he was telling me how to use my own creation, but then it started making sense...

Edelstein: You just type in the score here, then a 1 or 0 for a win or loss, and it automatically computes everything for you. You don't even need to do macros or anything!
Me: Yeah, I remember. I... um, I wrote this thing.

I'm not sure we were on the same page though, because he laughed and responded with, "You probably did!" as if I was kidding. I got really confused and just started talking about something else.

After the competition began, since it was a divided round-robin tournament, not all rooms and buzzers were being used during every round. I played against some of the other tournament workers and Edelstein, and learned two things:

  1. I am really bad at academic bowl now.
  2. There's a Duke freshman from Walton who I didn't know about.

The first may have been obvious, but the second one was really strange. I sat down with one of the Duke guys on one side of the room, and on the other side were two other guys who I just assumed were still at Walton. Somebody asked about the teams, so I said "Duke vs everybody else." One of the kids on the other side got up and we had approximately the following exchange:

Guy: I go to Duke too!
Me: Oh, I didn't know.
Guy [laughing, as if I was kidding]: Haha, fuck you!
Me: No, really, what's your name?

He never did tell me his name. On the trip back with the others, I asked them who this guy was. Apparently, he is "not worth knowing" but expects everybody to know him. How he knew me is an unsolved mystery.

I joked that I'd run into him on campus, he'd say hi, and I would again not know who he was. Sure enough, I was returning to my apartment from an interview on Friday, and some random guy said hi to me so I meekly said hi back. Only now, with the help of Facebook, did I confirm that it was him.

Isn't it exciting being an a-bowl nerd alum?

7:16PM

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