I failed,,,

Ah yes, my first and last in-person MATHCOUNTS competition. So much has happened, and I have so much to tell you.

Sprint Round:

Heading into the competition, I was pretty scared. The Sprint Round had always been the round that I dreaded the most. I strategically picked my table to be next to some pros like SpeedyFalcon and Bluedevils so that discussion of problems would be simple and easy. All of my other teammates, with the exception of one who wanted to sit right next to his friend who ended up winning the State tournament, were pretty near me. The second I heard “Proctors please distribute the tests to the respective tables at this time,” I gave the people at my table a panicked look, then proceeded to consume FIVE Rice Krispies within a matter of minutes. A former student at my middle school, wolfpack ended up handing me my scratch paper, and was extremely disappointed(more jokingly than not) when I had only asked him for 5 pieces of paper. “You need the whole stack,” he exclaimed to me, bluedevils, and speedyfalcon. Feeling somewhat guilty, I took around 10 more pieces of paper and gave one to bluedevils. The test started somewhat abruptly, as I had expected him to say “mathletes, on your mark, get set, go,” yet the announcer had only said, “you may begin.” I wasted a couple of seconds starting my watch and turning the paper, but that was all. Speeding through the test at the fastest pace possible(and obviously bashing a couple of problems:blush:), I quickly looked at my watch once I was on problem 20. The watch said 25 minutes left. “25 MINUTES LEFT, WHERE DID THE OTHER 15 GO?!” I started freaking out and quickly finished any problem that I felt like I could do in a minute or two and skipped the rest. When I finally finished up everything, I started checking. My watch now said that there were 15 minutes remaining. “15?! BRO HOW DID I JUST SPEND 10 MINUTES OH MY GOD OH MY GOD AHHHHH!” I checked the first 15 problems and just gave up checking the rest(which was probably a bad idea), and I immediately went to solving more problems. I solved a couple more before the announcer said “you have 3 minutes remaining.” I freaked out, I started trying to bash a problem and ended up getting it wrong anyhow. After the test, I realized that I had answered all of the problems whilst guessing 4 or 5. I checked some answers that I had remembered with some of my fellow teammates during the break(while also going outside to get my other FOUR Rice Krispies) and while discussing, I felt somewhat confident. I talked to my teammates, and one of them only answered 16. Before the test, that teammate, eastzeus, claimed that he was definitely going to make Nationals(it was 100% a joke) and during the break, we started trolling wolfpack that eastzeus was in the Countdown Round(which is only for top 3 per chapter). Apparently, wolfpack actually thought we were telling the truth :rofl:.

Target Round:

When we were called back to our seats, I asked my tablemates how many they answered, and they responded with 19 and 17. I started feeling a tad bit more confident, and I headed into the Target Round with a pretty good mood and another Rice Krispy in my body. The first two questions weren’t bad, and I solved them, checked them, and chilled. During the couple minutes where discussion between me, bluedevils, and speedyfalcon occurred, I realized that I had gotten both right, while speedyfalcon had gotten number 2 wrong. I found this heartbreaking, as speedyfalcon was quite literally our only hope at who would be going to nationals from our school. Heading into problems 3 & 4 with yet another Rice Krispy in my body, I absolutely died on problem 4 and didn’t have enough time to finish. Guessing problem 4, I moved on. I discussed the answers with my friends and I got 3 right! My guess for #4 was nowhere near accurate :rofl:. This pattern continued, eat a Rice Krispy, get the first one of the set right, get the second one wrong, discuss, repeat. Thus, I ended up consuming all NINE of my Rice Krispies and got a 5 on target. This absolutely shattered my hopes for nationals. I hoped that I had a decent chance as my friends appeared to also be averaging 4 or 5 on target, but I genuinely felt like it may not be enough.

Team Round:

We moved to the team round, and once we got started, I panicked. I was supposed to do odd up(i.e. 9,7,5,3,1) and I couldn’t do any of 9,7,5. I did 3 and 1 and our team managed to get both of those right. I did 2,4 and 7 before time was called, and we hoped to get a 7. During the break before lunch, the announcer said that the highest score that was for the unofficial kids(those who had 4 people and didn’t have a school team) was 5. We had a good laugh at that, and my coach thought the announcer was mocking the team which actually had my teammate on it. wolfpack who had overheard our score, said we got a 6, and the highest scorer got a 7. We were kind of mad at ourselves, but we had lunch to vent it all off.

Lunch Break:

This was my favorite part of the meet, as I was able to meet coolbluealan and c4raymond, the latter I trolled by chasing him around and telling him that I worshipped him routinely and that I had “built a temple for him.” Anyhow, I met with wolfpack who ended up talking to us about some things we could have done better on. We, in turn, asked him about how he placed at Nationals and what his State score was(it was a freaking 45 I’m actually going to go cry now wolfpack orz). Anyhow, lunch was pretty uneventful with the exception of a pretty nice picture with the whole team and wolfpack, who was a former student so he was included in the picture.

Countdown round:

Our coach yelled at us a couple of times to shut up because we were being loud about how the other kids were so slow. This one dude who appears to be a 6th-grade AIME qualifier won because I’m willing to bet that he’s an absolute FTW sweat. coolbluealan ended up getting second place, which is pretty cool. Other than that, we were talking to wolfpack about the solutions and it was a vibe B-)

Placements:

The dreaded awards ceremony. I heard the names being called out one by one. speedyfalcon got 16th?! bluedevils got 19th?! Dude, I’m seriously screwed. My stomach started churning. I didn’t want to be called. “From Carnage Magnet Middle School…,” please be one of my teammates, I thought to myself. “[redacted for privacy reason]” Ah crud, 11th place. Are you joking?! THE TOP 10 GOT MEDALS! I felt so humiliated and disappointed in myself. The names went on, and c4raymond got 5th place. The threepeat had not been successful. I felt so horrible for him. He appeared to be crying as he quickly took off his medal and shoved it into his backpack. coolbluealan ended up getting first and I was super proud of him, though it was expected. I hoped that the team results would give me a medal. “In fourth place, from Raleigh…,” oh god no, please don’t be us, I thought. “Carnage Magnet Middle School!” YOU’RE JOKING RIGHT, I’M ASKING FOR A RECOUNT OF OUR ANSWERS! Harold Reiter, I beg for a recount! I headed home feeling so disappointed. I felt horrible and my sugar crash from those NINE RICE KRISPIES wasn’t helping at all. My teacher showed us our scores and it appears that I had gotten a 33(23 on Sprint and 5 on Target). Speedyfalcon had gotten a 32(26 on sprint and 3 on target). My coach was disappointed and I think she still is, although she told us to “proudly wear our shirts on Monday because we made it to States.” The shirt was neon yellow(a hideous color in my opinion). It stated “ ” With the most respect, I think that eastzeus’s(the one who claimed he was making it to Nationals) 23 kind of dragged our score down, but oh well. What has happened has happened.

Afterthoughts:

MATHCOUNTS has taught me a lot, from the sheer amounts of stress that one must undertake, to how to deal with failure. However, most importantly, it has helped me become self-cognizant. I now realize that I am absolute dogwater compared to those such as speedyfalcon and bluedevils, who only got one point below me while not even being close to as sugar high as I was. I also realize that I am little to nothing to those who made it to Nationals(why had I even thought that Nationals was achievable anyways?). They spend hours and hours just preparing and I just spend hours and hours wasting time and doing non-math-related things. No wonder why I didn’t make it. I am, however, thankful for meeting legends that I will forever look up to, such as coolbluealan, wolfpack, and vulcanforge whom I ended up meeting during the countdown round as he had classes that day(wolfpack had class too(at NCSSM), but was allowed to skip to proctor and grade tests). I have started to pick back up on working hard in math and I hope to make AIME next year(heh, no chance). I hope that my hard work(what hard work?) will pay off.


This took so long to write. Can we get one comment?

oh wait what the heck this is my first post of 2022