Wednesday Night:

We arrived in Detroit at around 9:30, and then proceeded to take a charter bus over to East Lansing, where we arrived at Michigan State at 12 am. During the bus ride, WFeng was saying some horrendous brainrot (a trend that you will continue seeing throughout this post), and JQCX was infected by the brainrot disease. For those who don’t know, brainrot is basically when people don’t stop saying “What the sigma” or “Skibidi.” We also sang a lot of karaoke, which was really fun since WFeng used a falsetto, and genuinely sounded like a girl (I thought he was a girl singing before I realized it was him after a “what the sigma” comment).

After checking in, some teammates tried to refill water, just to realize that all water fountains produced cloudy or unsafe water, which is when they started panicking. I refilled my water bottle when we landed in Detroit, so I was fine, but a lot of my teammates were thirsty and optionless, so they called for help (or something like that I’m writing off of memory). I joined because I genuinely had nothing better to do. After putting credit card info/money (WFeng), we realized that vending machines closed at midnight. How unfortunate! We ended up realizing that the breakfast place had water that was safe to drink, so the teammates that didn’t have water (serenaz26) decided that they’d push it off to the morning.

That night, I literally got near zero sleep. LL, my roommate, said “I’m going to stay up all night because I can’t sleep.” Meanwhile, I went to sleep (or at least attempted to). The train horn was loud (WHY ARE THERE TRAINS NEXT TO MSU COME ON NOW IT’S SO LOUD), and it was lowkey hot. However, I managed to sleep for like 30-45 minutes before waking up because I was cold?! What in the North Carolina weather?! Meanwhile, LL was fast asleep (He being asleep was the only reason that I realized that I fell asleep). I remember him moving from sleeping on his side to his back, and I said “Yo LL you awake too,” to which snores responded me. I ended up not being able to fall back asleep, so I did a little bit of Agricultural Science before trying to sleep again, to no avail.


Thursday:
Breakfast was amazing. We were one of the very few teams there, so we got premium access to the cafeteria, which is one of the best in the nation, all to ourselves. Needless to say, I took advantage of this by loading up 2 plates of food and devouring it all. After breakfast, I was very full, and I washed it all down with some chocolate milk and 3 bowls of fruit (Pineapples, blueberries, and strawberries. Thanks Coach Kristy (swim coach) for all the nutrition tips!).

After breakfast, I worked on my physics project (Tetris and rotation) before playing some tetris, and achieving S-. I’m so freaking happy. I went from D+ rank to S-. Needless to say, hard work pays off.

Lunch was also amazing. I had 2.5 plates of food and a drink, with some fruit as well. Enloe Science Olympiad took over the drinks machine, using chemistry-like formulae to concoct the perfect drink. It was pretty fun, and we made some mango sprite mixture and bubble tea. We were planning to make a root beer float, but that didn’t happen due to 50 million teams arriving for dinner (Note: At the time of writing, May 24th at 9:45 pm, this has still not yet been done to my knowledge).

After lunch, I went straight to sleep. I think the food coma hit, and I fell asleep from 1:30-6. In fact, I slept for so long that the only thing that woke me up was a text message from LL saying “Where the **** are you?” I rushed to dinner, only to find lines as long as a football field. I impatiently waited and finally got my food. After eating, we went back to our dorms (We slept in MSU dorms that have no AC and are currently being renovated). WFeng and JQCX kept on making “Erm… what the sigma” and “That’s so skibidi/s*xy” comments, which got to a point where it was borderline concerning and annoying haha.

That night, I actually slept quite a bit. It was very nice. According to my watch, I got 1.4 hours of REM sleep, which is typically how much I get on a school night.


FRIDAY:
Breakfast was so packed. When I say this, I mean it. I had to move to another table with a bunch of random people in order to eat.

After breakfast, I and VL went to impound our Agricultural Science notebook. Afterward, I checked in to my volunteering slot (I’ll be volunteering to grade Division B Fast Facts tests on Saturday), and got a lowkey boring and worse-than-mid T-Shirt that I will be wearing tomorrow). I bought a Monster (my first ever energy drink) that morning, since I was really tired.

Lunch came, and we went to eat. I missed out on the time when my teammates were eating, so I ate alone. I had two plates of food and an apple juice, which was quite filling. I rushed over to my dorms to catch up with LL and VL, where we would be going over to the STEM facility to do our respective events (VL and I are doing Agricultural Science and LL is doing Solar Power).

Upon starting the test, it went very mid. I definitely don’t expect to medal, and here’s a minor rant. For context, questions 36-40 had summaries of the questions on the answer sheet, so we assumed that those summaries were the actual questions. THEN, 10 MINUTES BEFORE THE TEST ENDED, WE REALIZED THAT THERE WERE ACTUAL QUESTIONS! LIKE WHAT THE HECK?! JUST GIVES US “37.” AND NOT “37. Write your hypothesis and why it is strong” LIKE BRUHHH WE LITERALLY LOST SO MUCH TIME. Anyhow, we scrambled and managed to finish and BS our way through some questions, and there were a few questions that we guessed on (Oops I should’ve trusted myself on Question 10 but whatever).

After our events, we headed back to the dorms, where we played some mini-hoop basketball. I’m apparently really good at it (those skills will definitely not transfer to real basketball), and I beat both Meena and VL. LL opted out, so I never actually played against him. We ended up finding a cheat code, in which you could jump over a 9-foot barrier and score, but it was quite taxing on the legs, as you can imagine.

Dinner came, and we went as a team. We came maybe 10 minutes late, but by the time, the line was genuinely a football field long (I swear I am not exaggerating it weaved through the entire building and 2 blocks outside of the building). There was another line on the other side of the building, so our team went there, and this time the line was actually reasonable. We ate, and I had some very good beans (Though albeit sweet), hot dogs, rice, corn, and chicken legs (THEY WERE SO SPICY because I have zero spice tolerance).

After dinner, we came to the opening ceremony. We did the Parade of States, where each school walked onto the stage with a banner and other props, smiled for the cam, and walked off. The most unique ones were when Nevada pulled up with a whole lightsaber duel, TJ (I think?) did a really cool banner reveal thing almost exactly when the beat dropped, and one team dressed up as Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and a bodyguard. Buccholz literally did nothing, and sent 4 people to smile and take a picture, while Enloe and NCSSM had really dull banners and nothing else after that (I should have at least given my Panthers cap to brianzjk).

During the ceremony, we got to hear a talk from astronaut Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger. It was very inspiring, listening to her story and her life lessons. We also got to hear a beautiful national anthem sung by a former Michigan SciOly competitor. After awards came trading. Each person had a free ice cream voucher, and I originally wanted to give it to brianzjk, but then realized that I could use it as leverage for trades. I ended up trading the ice cream into a pizza hat (It’s exactly what it sounds like, except they use fake pizza made of cloth). The trade went from ice cream to new york fake license plate to pizza hat. I tried to get a cheese hat from one of the Wisconsin kids, but none of them wanted to trade. It’s ok, net profit is net profit (Sorry brianzjk for not giving the ice cream to you). The dorms were about a half mile away from where we currently were (MSU basketball arena), so we opted to take the electric scooters. However, there were people with us and only scooters, so I volunteered to run. This ended up being a great and terrible idea, great being that I got exercise and didn’t fall off a scooter (I can’t scooter fr), but the terrible was cramps and legs being in horrific pain). I returned back to the dorm where I live, where I am currently writing this post.



Sunday:
I woke in the morning to LLyelling at me to wake up before heading over to Case Hall for breakfast. I knew that I had to go to volunteer for Fast Facts (A division B event) at 7:45, so I planned to leave at 7:15 just in case I got lost. After eating some yummy potatoes and sauage patties, I headed off to my adventure.

At first, I followed khhu and VZ because they were planning to run their flight build. We needed to rush, since we were already a little off-pace due to poor weather conditions, and I lost my right airpod while running (I’m actually still fuming about this like why did it have to be my right bruh now I have to change all my settings again). I searched for a while, losing even more time, and we continued. As I departed from khhu and VZ, the former gave me the directions to get to my building since I had no map nor any data. As luck would have it, I got lost. Then, I met up this other person that was heading to the Chemistry Building (I was going to Kedzie hall), and in a whim, I followed her, thinking that the circled building right next to Kedzie was the Chemistry Building. Funnily enough, it was pretty darn far from the Chemistry Building, and I eventually realized that I was not going the right way (At this point, it was already 7:45, so I was late). It took me another half hour trying to ask as many people as possible and accidentally meeting khhu, who told me directions again (I got lost again after he told me directions), before finally meeting a parent who had just visited Kedzie and gave me directions.

Sweaty and soaked from the rain, I entered the building with another Monster (2 in a row!) and my backpack. The event supervisor said “You’re not here” when I walked in since I was 30 minutes late, but I quickly explained that I was here to volunteer. At that moment, I was really scared that the Event Supervisor was a little mean, but she ended up being EXTREMELY kind.

Throughout the day, I handed out tests and graded them. Fast Facts in itself is not a very long event, so the 5 volunteers and event leaders had quite a bit of time to grade. Things were quite fun, actually, and I did so much math from mental mathing a bunch of scores, and being really good at trying to find two numbers that added up to a multiple of 5 or 10. During this time period, I realized that my chest was in pain (like pain to the point where I had shortness of breath). I freaked out because I thought that this may be a precursor to a heart attack of my own. I did some extensive googling, before deciding that deep breaths would help and that it was an asthma-like condition that I get occasionally. I also was unable to eat lunch, since they were Potbelly sandwiches and I have a gluten allergy. Even worse, the chips contained peanut oil, and I have a peanut allergy (I’m allergic to Gluten, Eggs, Nuts, and Seafood. And you wonder why I’m morbidly underweight).

After we finished up the last block of teams, I attempted to head back to the dorms in order to change into formal attire for the closing ceremony. As I was walking back, surprise surprise, I got lost. I ended up meeting AS and SR, who guided me over to the Enloe homebase. I chilled there before going to the dorms as a team. As we took the elevator down, we fitted around 12 people into the elevator, which was extremely cramped and borderline unsafe (airborne diseases go brrr). As we walked out, there was a guy who was waiting to go up (we had gone from the 2nd floor to the first), and as the first few of us came out, it looked as if he was preparing to enter the elevator before realizing a second wave of people were coming out of the same elevator, and we basically never stopped coming out of the elevator. You could see the shock in his face and also the confusion, since fitting that many people in an elevator is quite uncommon.

After changing into some more formal attire, we headed over to dinner. At this point, I was starving since I had only a coca-cola for lunch. Dinner costed 35 dollars, so I was really excited because I was expecting some extremely good food. However, upon entry, the entire team was met with mexican catering, which definitely should not have costed 35 dollars per person, as there were ~120 teams there. The food tasted decent, but I still firmly believe that it should not have costed 35 bucks.

Awards came and went, and Enloe placed out of T15 for the first time in many years. We sold some events, though I can’t even be talking since I’m really just invited to pay the bills. Unfortunately, VL and I did not medal in Agricultural Science (another failure added to the list).

At night, half of the SciOly team intended to pull an all-nighter, and we met NCSSM in the lobby on the first floor. Before then, I had eaten 4 bags of Cool Ranch Doritos in the same time it took MN to eat one (oops I was hungry ok). At that point in time, there were a bunch of NCSSM people playing Go Fish, and I saw PotatoMathster, as well as ACas and ASun. We got a little bored and decided to explore the other parts of our dorm building, since the building was quite large. We had a lot of fun before finally staying in the lobby once again. Yet again, WFeng would not stop “skibidi” and “Sigma”-ing, and it got pretty annoying. WFeng and TPat found some meter sticks, and recreated an MIT Invy moment by jousting and fighting with meter sticks (This time, however, they were sitting on rolly chairs with KN and SR as drivers). He was also pissing of PotatoMathster by saying some really dumb things, such as “You should make the codebusters cryptogram worth 520 points,” because apparently something important wrt PotatoMathster’s rizz occurred on May 20th? Speculation Eventually, WFeng pushed PotatoMathster past the edge, and PotatoMathster threw the pen which she was using to solve cryptograms with (ON A PIZZA BOX, MAY I SAY) at WFeng. WFeng followed this up by saying something along the lines of how he was going to see PotatoMathster again somewhere or something about not harming himself(? I don’t know it was something along these lines), to which PotatoMathster responded with “F**k” and “Darn it” (JOKE. SHE WAS JOKING (or mad). IT’S NOT SERIOUS). We also used rolly chairs to create a massive chain that essentially could not move because of the sheer mass of the system and frictional forces. There was also racing with the rolly chairs, and it essentially became an F1 recreation on a budget. We used terms such as “spinning out” and “DRS” and “Turn 1” etc etc. It was actually so fun, and is definitely the most fun that I’ve had in a long time. I raced KarNan and TPat and some others. Eventually, TPat called over a Montgomery competitor and West Windsor Plains North (WWPN) competitor, Sourish and Claire Lin (SORRY I THINK I MIGHT HAVE MEMORIZED YOUR LAST NAME WRONG and I don’t kow sourish’s because he didn’t have his last name on the back of his hoodie haha), who hung out with us until around 3:30 am. MAKE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE TO SOURISH'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL HERE. The former is a Physics Camper, and the latter is a biology main (Claire if you’re seeing this I NEED HELP AHH haha). TPat, Sourish, Claire, and I raced for a while, and we had a very good time. Eventually, I went back to my room, where I crashed and got a solid 3.5 hours of sleep.

SUNDAY:

We left today. After breakfast, I packed up my stuff and we walked 30 minutes to a very nice charter bus for the public. I’m currently sitting here right now as I reflect, remember, and smile at the wonderful moments and laugh at the not-so-wonderful moments (I’m looking right at you, WFeng). As my time at Michigan State University ends, I can’t help if this is my last ever Science Olympiad nationals. Will my parents be willing to pay an absurd amount of money again just for me to goof around and not gain anything? I’m never going to make varsity with the non-existent brain of mine, and things are just not up. I can’t do builds, I can’t do study events, so I guess I’ll just be the cheerleader on the sidelines. I want to make Varsity next year, I truly do. I want to put in work, but there’s this voice in my head that says “No it’s not possible. No all events that you can theoretically do are stacked. You can’t build. You can’t beat a camper in biology. You can’t…” I always put out inspiring quotes, yet when am I ever inspired? These negative thoughts weigh me down, and in the wise words of Witt Lowry, “I don’t mean to make you wait just the pressure’s been getting heavy.”

I feel like I should make an obligatory school year recap, but what recapping is there? The only recap would be:

Insert every math contest: Fail

However, I need to implant this quote into my brain, "Amidst uncertainty, any step is progress. Sometimes the only fault is standing still." I need to take a step forward. I can’t stay complacent with the fraud that I am.