Another week closer to graduating, another trip down memory lane. This week’s destination: high school. Good ole 9th grade.

I’ve always been and always will be a nerd. Today I’m more interested in literature and politics, but back in the day I was really into math and science (still like the subjects, but I’ve kinda moved away from them). So, when Boyfriend-at-the-Time wanted to try out for Science Olympiad, a school science competition team of 15 competitors, I went with him.

Though we were in high school, the 9th graders got to compete on the middle school team. I went, made the team, and decided to join the team. Boyfriend-at-the-Time either didn’t make it or dropped out, probably the latter. We broke up not long after that, but I definitely didn’t mind being on the team without him. That’s where I got to know My-Next-Boyfriend too, and compete awkwardly beside him the next two years after we broke up.

The thing is, my middle school’s Science Olympiad team was really good. The several years before I joined, they had won regionals, won state, and went on to nationals. Everything was in place for us to do the same.

We flew through regionals and went on to state. Only the 1st place team was guaranteed to go to nationals, and sometimes the 2nd place team got to go, too. Though all the individual event medals are awarded separately to large schools and small schools, the all-around team medals were given to the best teams, regardless of their size. We were a large school, but our biggest competition came from a small school.

We appeared to be neck-and-neck going into the all-around awards, and we were about jumping out of our seats with nervousness when they started awarding the team medals. Third place…not us or our biggest competition. Second place…not us or our biggest competition. First place…us! We were so excited, especially since that meant that we were getting to go to nationals in Michigan, with days off school, free travel, and a lot of fun and studying (hey, we were nerds). We also found out we would be joined by the second place team.

After all the celebration was done, we went home with pleasant dreams of all the fun to be had in the coming weeks. I’ll never forget where I was the next day when I got the call, in our garden. It was from our team’s coach. She called to say that they forgot to include the small teams when considering the best team all-around. Not only were we not in first, but we were not in second. We had gotten 3rd place and were not going to get to go to the national competition.

Despite the disappointment, I went ahead and competed the next three years in our high school’s Science Olympiad team. Though we went to nationals each of those years (to Chicago, Spokane, and Colorado Springs) and I won two 4th place individual medals (man, it’s a rush to realize that you’re the 4th best high school in the nation, at anything), those celebrations weren’t as big because each time we were afraid that our win would be taken away from us.

Other school day memories:

Kindergarten and First Grade: Kisses and Skunks
3rd grade: Childhood Games and Railroad Ties Don’t Mix
4th grade: Watching Whales
7th Grade: Teacher Review
8th Grade: 100 Marble Pick Up
College Senior Year: Why Procrastination Might Not Be My Thing