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.

The team, coached by Peggy Carlock, includes seniors Elise Cai, George Shan and Benji Kessler, junior Jamie Lincoff and sophomore Corwin Shiu.

More details upon the team’s return from D.C.

This places the Cougars within the top 16 Science Bowl teams in the county.

After the double elimination round this evening, the top four teams compete for the championship on Monday May 4.

Albany’s Science Bowl Team includes seniors Elise Cai, George Shan and Benji Kessler, junior Jamie Lincoff and sophomore Corwin Shiu. The team is coached by Peggy Carlock.

Stay tuned for more developments.

Today was a pretty chill day. In the morning we all went to a series of lectures. In one of the interactive lectures, I was called upon to answer a question, but I respond so blatantly wrong that the scientific geniuses think I’m hella dumb. Well, I got a ruler in pity.

In the first lecture, our entire team fell asleep. Although it was about science, which happens to be a common fetish of ours (note to all the ladies out there), we all succumbed to sleep.

After these lectures, we got to do the first part of the actual competition that would determine the winner in an event of tie. Our score was lower than Dow Jones and the air pressure during El Nino. We aren’t going to go into the details because we are embarrassed and the details of the experiment still confound us.

Once again we were shamed in front of the scientific community.

We had another scrimmage with a team from South Carolina. Amazingly enough, people actually live there (contrary to popular belief). One of the guys was even Indian. Exotic! We plated them like galvanized zinc. This was the first scientific achievement since this trip began. In other words we were like a hyper-toxic solution to their plant cells. If you know what I mean. Yeah, like that.

We showed up at 7:30 for a meeting that started at 7:00. We were ushered to the front row where the director of the Science Bowl disdainfully asked why we were 30 minutes late in front of the entire Science Bowl. We eventually apologize but we could never save our reputation with the other teams.

At Lunch, while I was eating a saltine, Corwin told me a scientific factoid: “Did you know you cannot eat seven saltine crackers in under 20 seconds?” He just had to use the pronoun you. He was obviously challenging my manhood. I return a minute later with a pile of saltines, a glass of water, and iron determination.

After about 22 seconds, I realized Corwin was right. I couldn’t form a bolus, if you know what I mean. So I ended up finishing them in a minute and two seconds.

Later that day, unprompted, another Science Bowler told me it is impossible to eat five saltines in under a minute. Elise was quick to let him know I finished seven in a minute two. Elise rhyolites.

One of us, who will to remain anonymous to protect his identity, got rejected after using a line that is practically infallible. “Short Answer, do you want to kiss me?” Apparently it does not work too well. Good thing this anonymous Science Bowler still has tricks up his sleeve such as: “I wish I were a crown of thorns sea star so I could nibble on your polyps.” With lines like these, next time has to be a success.

So, tomorrow, we are doing the bulk of the main competition. Wish us luck (actually by the time you are reading this, the competition will be over and we would already be champions but you can read anyways).

I, and the rest of the Science Bowl team, apologize for representing Albany High so terribly.

– Benji Kessler

Today we scrimmaged against a friendly team in the neighboring dorm. They crushed us woefully under their iron fists of doom. We are facing them in the first round of the competition. FML.

Everyone on the entire trip has to wear the most abrasive green shirts ever known to alienkind. We literally can see them from more than 500 rods away. There is a mobius strip and the word “Science” written in letters made out of frogs and other science things on both sides.

Once again, we went to the Smithsonian. The first museum we hit up? You guessed it, the National Gallery of Art. After looking at some art, our primal urges finally set in and we went to the Natural History Museum. There, we admired the Hope Diamond and drooled over the mineral collection.

As we made our way to the dinosaurs, I decided that with the glamour of every other Smithsonian exhibit, that I would lose my mind if they didn’t have an Archaeopteryx fossil. As I was preparing to break the priceless fossils in frustration, we came upon this priceless specimen. Jamie was too busy sitting on the priceless femur of a Brontosaurus to notice the priceless Archaeopteryx fossil.

Perhaps the best part of yesterday was lunchtime. George, who we initially thought was tempted to eat healthy, ordered a chicken Caesar salad. Just as I was about to be impressed, I saw him pull out the four Big Mac-ly fattening packets of dressing of 300 calories each. As he squirted the pure essence of arthrosclerosis all over his edible foliage, I could do nothing but squirm in disgust. Thanks to George, I actually had a negative net input of calories for lunch due to the repetitive fits of vomiting I experienced after witnessing this atrocity. (That last sentence isn’t exactly true but it might as well be.)

After the museum trip we went back and had our scrimmage and did some other stuff that I don’t remember. It was sort of a blur, since I didn’t have enough electrolytes after vomiting to maintain my memory. Anyway, goodnight dear readers. I’ll update you soon.

– Benji Kessler

Yesterday’s blog update left our team of holy science warriors in a restless mood. Corwin, George and I were naturally were unable to sleep. Thanks to us, Jamie was unable to either. For about five hours of dorm conversation, your very own Science Bowl competitors have discovered the meaning of life. The meaning of life is beside the point of this blog, but if you are still curious about it, ask me during U.S. Government and Econ class.

A few hours after this conversation ended, we had to wake up for breakfast. Elise was granted the rare opportunity to see me scant naked because I did not know she was in the room when I peeled away my covers. The other science bowl teams were not here because we were here fashionably early.

We had a free day so we would spend it like any other teenage boy would with a free day. We went to a science museum. Ms. Carlock made the mistake of leaving us unsupervised and our rebel spirit led us to spend an extra hour past our curfew learning intense science. We are so badass.

Somehow we managed to take public transportation to get to the Smithsonian Aerospace museum. Thanks to this random-ass really cool old person who lived in D.C. I now know where the embassy of Chad is. Step four of my plan is complete.

The museum was amazing but it would not be humorous enough for this blog. There are only two things worth mentioning. First of all, George is no longer the most likely the to get lost. We thought Corwin was dead for 15 minutes. Luckily he wasn’t, and now he is typing up this blog (I was buying freeze dried ice cream.)

The other amusing thing was the rather sad story of Michael Collins. He was left stuck inside Apollo 11 as Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin were chilling out on the moon. At least he had stunners, which he donated to the museum. While he was missing out the event of a lifetime, he was doing it at the pinnacle of fashion. I wonder how he feels about that.

After the museum, we were a few miles away from the 4H center and we were planning to take the bus. The next bus was in four minutes. Being the impatient time ones we were, and not wanting to pay the combined $6.75 to get back, we ran back. We also had 11 minutes before the deadline to register to compete in the competition. Somehow we got back in time. I guess we just ganstaz like that.

After this, we did other stuff that I forgot. And then we went on a night tour. Apparently the team got into a brawl, but I didn’t participate. Jamie gesticulated wildly, whacking George in the head several times. This was our first opportunity to meet other teams. We were unimpressed. The competition was scarce (Benji is being an egotistical narcissist).

Other than our social lepidoptery, the monuments were pretty cool too. I never knew that Abraham Lincoln was that big. Hard to believe he died from a single bullet, considering he’s made out of pure quartzite.

The sky was pink with photochemical smog. Oh yeah, we know what that means. We smartz likes that. In addition to all of this, we took a picture with the melted chocolate statue of Einstein, and I took a picture with a girl who plays Fall Out 3.

We decided FDR is America’s least favorite favorite president, because his statue was only moderately enormous, and his monument was not made out of pretty white rocks, or as we like to call it, Subclavian gypsumnium 117 (we actually have no idea what kind of rock it is). We took a core sample to check, but our core samples didn’t give us any usable data.

Until next time, just remember this: It is both sweet and becoming to die for one’s country.

Today’s dress code was disgustingly green over-the-top science clothes. Me and my druids were at the height of fashion.

- Benji Kessler

Editor’s Note: Among Albany High School’s most successful endeavors is the Cougar Science Bowl team, coached again this year by science teacher Peggy Carlock. After laying waste to scores of regional competitors, the team is again competing for the National Science Bowl Championship this week in Washington, D.C. This year’s team includes seniors Elise Cai, Benji Kessler and George Shan, junior Jamie Lincoff and sophomore Corwin Shiu. For reasons not wholly apparent, we asked senior science bowler Benji Kessler to blog during the competition. Here’s his first missive.

Fear and Science in D.C.
April 29, 2009

We had two bags of chocolate covered espresso beans, seventy-five chapters of Biology, five units of high powered calculators, a book full of multi-colored galaxies, nebulae, emission spectra, quasars. Also, a quart of Mountain Dew, a quart of muscle milk, a case of pencils, a pint of raw knowledge, and two dozen pocket protectors. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious science competition, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

We woke up bright and early at 4:45 a.m. Wednesday morning to catch a ride at 5:30. Good thing too, that way we made sure we would be able to catch our 11:30 flight. I never knew there were so many subtle nuances at the San Francisco airport. I quickly emptied my wallet on bread bowls and guava smoothies, and my comrades did so likewise. This killed an hour: only four to go.

When we finally knew every last corner of the airport like the backs of our hands, we decided to go hit up the bookstore. The four not-George members of the science bowl team (because George is the front-runner for the Science Bowl Most Likely to Get Lost Award) gathered together camp-fire style together on the floor of the bookstore. We burnt through another hour with an odd British book of random facts and got our learn on, science style. But, like all things, the book eventually had to come to an end.

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention something funny. While we were trying to self check-in, I locked us all out of the computer terminal by trying to go through the process in Tagalog. Everyone was pissed, but I thought it was funny. Plus, it’s not like we were in a hurry.

In the hour before the plane departed, Corwin attempted to teach me how to solve a Rubik’s cube. My short attention span proved to be too formidable of an opponent, and I still don’t know how to solve it.

When we finally got on the plane, we got economy plus, and we got it for free, so we got economy plus for free. Score. My legs felt like an Alaskan’s or an alien’s because they were surrounded by so much empty space. We, as a team (except for Jamie, who was passed out. He’s lucky we didn’t have a permanent marker, because if we had, he would’ve spent the rest of the trip with an inappropriate tattoo on his forehead) watched the Big Bang Theory, a show about nerds with whom we identified because we’re nerds.

After that I fell asleep, and then I woke up about an hour before we landed. I spent that hour reading a biology textbook, what else? During this time, I turned to Elise and said, “This is an interesting chapter. I’ve never read this before.” To which she replied, “Aren’t you supposed to know the whole book?”

Haha. Whoops!

We then checked into the hotel, waded through wave upon wave of young women, and then ordered some delivery food. I got Chinese, and everybody else got Italian. My fortune cookie told me to bend the rod while it’s hot. I’m still not sure what it means. I’ll never make eye contact with that delivery man again. Each of us ate a cannolli except for Corwin, the cannoli hater.

We all then went and brushed our teeth and went to bed. Well, all of us except for George, who, invoking Fat Bastard from Austin Powers II, spent the first hour in bed finishing a pound and a half of beef salami. That was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

So, anyways, I think we’re off to a good start. We have no idea what the hell we’re going to do tomorrow, but I have a feeling it’s going to be epic.

Saturday was Science Day, the day that we finally engaged in what brought us to DC. There were three lectures, and then an Interactive Science Discovery (believe me, not as exciting as it sounds…).

The first lecture was held in the auditorium, and everyone attended. It was about solid state lighting, which is basically creating a “lightbulb” of sorts from organic molecules, rather than gas or a metal filament. From the program, “This lecture will explain why it is so hard to make an efficient lightbulb and how you might light the energy-efficient home of the future, from glowing semiconductors to light emitting plastic.” The lecturer was Dr. Paul Burrows, and it seemed like most of us were feeling like we had heard enough about how we needed to be energy efficient and blah blah blah, but then he pulled out a plastic sheet that looked like it could have been normal, 8.5″x11″ sheet of paper that looked completely normal on one side but was lit up like a fluorescent bulb on the other. It was very cool. Apparently this type of technology is already being used in some cell phone screens, and one company in Japan is making a TV with it. Eventually, manufacturers will be able to print them out on huge rolls, like newspapers are printed. My big question is whether they will try to shape this material to look like light bulbs.

The the remaining two lectures, the science bowlers got to choose from a menu of four to five different lectures. The first one that I went to was called “Exploring Extinction and Invasion in Ecosystems with Network Science.” The lecturer, Dr. Neo Martinez, was a total Berkeley hippie. His labe is the Pacific Ecoinformatics and Computational Ecology Lab, or PEaCE Lab. In the lecture, he told us about how he and his team were able to learn about ecosystems through creating mathematical models that mimic what happens in the real world. He showed us 3-D digital models of complex food chains that pulsated and fell apart when keystone species were taken out. He described predators that wait for their food until the opportune time as “chill-out” predators. It was great. For pictures of food webs, visit foodwebs.org. The pictures are in the food web gallery (link on the left), and apparently there’s a video on the site as well, but I haven’t been able to find it yet.

The second lecture I attended was called “Science and Storytelling in Forensic Pathology.” The woman who gave the lecture, Dr. Wendy Gunther, was obsessed with DEAD BODIES, which made some sense, seeing as she is a medical examiner – a person who does autopsies. In any case she spent the lecture telling us, and showing us (through pictures), the DEAD BODIES that she has had to work with. And yes, she did put a lot of emphasis on the DEAD BODIES. It was very gruesome, but I did learn to tell a bullet entry hole in a skull from an exit hole.

After the lectures, all the teams participated in the part of the competition called the Interactive Science Discovery, which is a convoluted way of saying hands-on lab test. Every division had a different task with each task matching the subject area of the division’s namesake. For example, Arrhenius was chemistry, Bromery was geophysics, Curie was earth science, Darwin was biology, and so on. This part of the competition wasn’t really part of the competition, but it did serve as a tiebreaker for round robin disputes. And the winner of each division got $500 for their science department.

Albany was in the Fermi Division, which made us general science. We had 30 minutes to build a submarine out of a film cannister, pennies, and antacid that would sink to the bottom of a large graduated cylinder, stay there for a second, then float back to the top. We were told that we could use any of the materials on the table. That was a lie. We spent half the time designing a submarine using the plastic bag given to us before being told that we actually couldn’t use the bag. Thank you science judges. We did not do so well in this part of the game (seventh out of eight), and we were glad that we didn’t need to use it to break a tie (as you will see in the next post). Don’t blame us – we just clearly haven’t gotten enough training in dealing with incompetent administration.

And then – I can’t believe I almost forgot – was the Rules Review, everyone’s favorite part of the entire event (yes, I’m being facetious). In the Rules Review, chocolate mini-brains and ears are given out as prizes for the scavenger hunt I talked about earlier and various science activities, people are admonished for doing things wrong, and the Science Bowl alumni go over the rules of the game. It’s all very fun and most teams bring along study material. The best part is the end, where everyone gets to ask questions about all the nitty-gritty rules about interrupting and blurting and who loses points if the buzzer system catches on fire. I do give props to the presenters for dealing with the questions with a piercing air of authority and disdain. It was quite amusing.

Coming up next, the actual competition…

Almost every day at the National Science Bowl starts out with some sort of assembly. These are mainly to tell us what we will be doing that day and to give us directions, but also to call out people for doing things wrong, such as running around the halls after curfew (midnight). Part of these assemblies is also roll call, to make sure all sixty-four of the teams are present. Historically, there have been teams that announce their presence in a somewhat choreographed manner (the brown-nosers…), but this year roll call has been disappointingly bland. There’s not much more to say about the assemblies, though if someone decided to streak at one I’ll let you know (hasn’t happened yet, but you never know).

A large chunk of Friday’s morning meeting was a description of the optional scavenger hunt that the organizers of the competition planned to facilitate teams meeting each other. Each team received a digital camera (that we had to give back) in order to take pictures with other teams at specific landmarks and an obnoxious neon green sign with our number. The idea was to answer the questions on the scavenger hunt sheet and take pictures with as many teams as possible to get the extra “mingling points.” Albany was F-2. We didn’t get any mingling points, or any points for that matter. We figured that we knew how to look at museums and landmarks without assistance.

Part 2: Security Clearance

Friday’s official activity was a trip to the Smithsonian, but before hitting the museums the Albany team took a detour to the Executive Offices of the White House. Albany alum Sharon Hays, currently the Associate Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President, invited her former teacher, Coach Peggy Carlock, and the rest of the team on an exclusive tour. The building is under high security, so we had to be cleared twice, IDed, scanned, and tagged upon entering the building.

Anyone who has taken art history would call the building, as Ian put it, “A conglomeration of every style period of architecture.” As we were told multiple times on the tour, the structure was built to impress. And impress it did. The rooms we looked at were quite ornate. We were mostly in the restored side of the building, which had been renovated, as we were told, to be able to withstand a bomb blast from 17th Street. There was still renovation going on, and repair had just finished from when the Vice President’s offices caught on fire. We even visited one room which had just been restored to look like it had in 1875 that the president hasn’t seen yet.

Dr. Hays and the other government officials who gave us the tour talked to us about their jobs and the huge bureaucracy that they have to deal with and add to. Note that this is the executive office which currently is highly conservative, so we were talking to Republicans (how someone from Albany became a part of this administration we have no clue). We behaved ourselves. It was a very neat experience, and we learned how much emphasis the government likes to put on security.

Part 3: A Day on the Mall

By the time we finished at the Executive Offices, most of the day had been taken up and we figured it was time for lunch. Everyone at the competition was given a lunch coupon for the Natural History Museum Cafe, so that’s where we went. It was museum food, nothing too exciting.

After lunch, we headed over to the Hirshhorn Museum of modern and contemporary art and saw a great cinema exhibit. Some of the displays were rather creepy, especially the projections of talking faces upon dolls strung up on the wall. Ian got really into the exhibit, George not so much, and Elise and I were somewhere in between. We didn’t have time for much else, so once we were done we headed back to the buses to be shipped back to the 4-H Center.

In the evening there was a nighttime tour of the monuments, but being sick, I opted out. I’ve been on this tour twice before though, so I can still describe exactly how it goes. A few hundred students get on buses wearing name tags and “blinkers,” which are light bulb shaped flashing pins. The buses drive to the Lincoln Memorial, everyone gets off and admires the statue, and then walks to the next feature. This is repeated, the whole group blinking like fireflies the entire time. Nearly all of the memorials in Washington D.C. are visited at some point, the most appropriate (for this particular competition) being the large statue of Einstein that everyone gets to climb all over.

Up next: roll call, security clearance, and a day on the mall.