Hurrah! We were very happy with our performance today. We were hoping to get in the booklet for next year by getting a first place…we ended up with quite a few: Ric’s individual first on Algebra I Written, our Algebra II Team, Calculator Team (95! my event!), and our Junior/Senior Relay (39, a perfect score!).

While I didn’t place in the Precalculus Written, which I hoped to do, I somehow pulled off a fifth place in the Oral Presentation. At any rate, our Precalculus Team placed, so I was happy about that anyway. And I came home with a trophy for myself, at any rate.

All in all, we got fourth place. A pretty good day. I even saw a good number of Scholastic Bowl friends.

Daydreaming lazily of Shakespeare, reconciling the great characters and the great existential void to be filled…

It comes in and out of focus, a field of blurring thoughts, visions, imaginary landscapes…

Waiting, wishing, hoping, dreaming–filling my mind with outlandish fantasies that only further break my heart; wondering whether to close my eyes and savor the future, or stare at the calendar with unfathomable dread of the present.

What shall I make of myself before I shuffle off this mortal coil? What is my part in this play?–for all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. What will the audience remember, mulling over my cameo, my brief candle‘s flicker of life? For some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Or perhaps a pair of star-cross’d lovers, though the stars have not yet proven kind. But what better reason to live than to complement another being, to fulfill myself by fulfilling another?

Look on her, look! Her lips! Look there, look there! I toss and turn uneasily, stuck between my reality and my equally real! unreality. She is so close, so close, I can hold her in my arms, feel her warmth–and yet, so far.

Lord, what fools these mortals be! Maybe I’ve got it all wrong–there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

All wrong! All wrong! How beauteous mankind is! How inordinately caring we are, how deeply committed we are; how spiritual, religious, irreligious; how caring, how caring!

Gentle breath of yours my sails must fill… 

Since I don’t really have that much homework nowadays (except a large project for English which I’ve been trying to avoid), I’ve been trying to spend more of my time working on Aegis, especially because we have a big season ahead of us. (Oh yeah, I should also study for the AP Spanish test. I’ll get on that eventually.)

I’m starting by reworking my QED database program for next year. Last year I tried to guess the features that we would need to manage all the questions that we wrote and compile all the packets we had to produce. While it was invaluable for our first year of operations, we came up with a long list of additions that could help us even more. Now that I don’t have much to do anymore, I’ve been spending time programming and refactoring the very disorganized code that was already there.

I’ve been pleased with the writers that have applied this year; while their experiences writing questions vary dramatically, they all are very dedicated to our cause, and I can already see some of them getting better at writing.

I’m itching to start working on next season; our first season was very successful, and we’re even more pleased about our opportunities for next year, as we will take on our biggest and most exciting contract yet. We’ve also got some other initatives in mind, which we will make public later.

All in all, I’m glad that we have so much support from the Illinois (and to some extent, even national) quizbowl circuit, coaches and students alike. In my opinion, it is yet another testament to the pyramidal cause.

Is getting to make important decisions like these that will shape the future of Illinois quiz bowl.