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Competitions lost

Yesterday I went to a math competition with my friend Mark and our geometry teacher from last semester, Miss Cale. Since it was called Math Day, they just had to make it the whole day. I didn’t have a watch, but it lasted from about 9:00 to 4:00.

I had to get up early. I wanted to get up at 7:10, but I accidentally set the alarm clock for 6:50 and just about jumped out of my skin when it went off. I had a good breakfast of two Pop-Tarts. (Hey, it’s more than some people eat.) Then Mark’s mom picked me up and we were on our way to FAU, not too far away, for the competition.

We had a hard time finding the right building to go to. There weren’t many people there because we had gotten there so early. A light breakfast was served, but I didn’t have anything. I guess I just wasn’t hungry. After a while, Miss Cale arrived. We had a problem getting Mark into the competition because he failed to register on time. They squeezed him in somehow, so all was good and we entered the auditorium-classroom where we were to watch a video about careers in math and then take the test.

The test was two hours and 24 questions long. The first few questions were fairly easy (that is, I could do them), and taking Algebra II this semester helped on some of them. The rest were really difficult. I tried to do almost all of them, but I ended up guessing on a lot. By the time I was done I had the most massive headache of my life.

After I finished the test, I met with Miss Cale and Mark, who had finished way before me. We talked math some, discussing problems Mark and I had smuggled out of the room via our brains and scratch paper. Mark said that he was done within 10 minutes because he didn’t try to answer a lot of the questions. Then he had doodled for a while.

After a lot of discussion about some of the problems, we meandered on over to the FAU cafeteria, where I ate a breakfasty meal. I so rarely get to enjoy a good breakfast that I thought I’d take it instead of lunch. The topic of conversation moved off math and we talked about normal things. It was cool being able to have a conversation with Mark, who can tell a great story, and Miss Cale, who is really nice. She, after all, was the one who invited us to be in the competition. (She had even said she wouldn’t bother going if Mark couldn’t make it.)

We were talking about the rest of the day’s schedule when we realized how boring the next few hours were going to be. It was going to be people talking about how great math is, and why you should have a career in math. Miss Cale had an idea. FAU is a stone’s throw away from Boomers, an arcade that has two miniature golf courses. Since she’s a miniature golf junkie, we decided to ditch Math Day for a few hours to pass the time. It actually wasn’t the first time I’ve been miniature golfing with her.

We played one of the courses and then went backwards through the other. Mark won, but Miss Cale said that he cheated, so I won. Later we got back to the university in time for the awards. I think all of the winners were from the same school. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners all got every question right, so they were ranked by how soon they finished. I was hoping for the $500 first prize (pretty much the only reason I went to the competition), but at least I got a free t-shirt and some promotional material from FAU.

When we were talking about colleges, Mark mentioned that he wanted to go to FAU. Miss Cale told him to go for better things; it’s practically a community college, she said. I must say it didn’t seem too good, but what do I know?

After the competition I went to Mark’s house for a card tournament. We stayed up late to play poker and blackjack with (*gasp*) real money. I’m surprised Mark’s mom would allow it. Mark’s friend Matt ended up winning something like $78, but he was nice about it and gave everyone their money back when we decided it was over. Had he kept his money, I would only be left with $5.50 out of my original $20.

NameVoyager is a Java applet that allows you to see how popular various first names have been over the past century. It’s fun to plug in your parents’ names to see how much they’ve slipped over the past few decades (or try your own if you want to feel old).