my THIRD mit science bowl [liveblog] by Suzuko O. '30

 when i was in high school, the thing that took up the most amount of my time was science bowl.⁠01 science bowl is a government-sponsored competition where you win if you push buttons faster and answer questions more correctly than the other team does. want to see how it works? go watch last year’s mit scibowl finals video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW-jb2qBkXo for hours upon hours every week i would find myself sitting in mr maine’s well-ornamented room after school (tuesdays and thursdays, until 6!), or back hunched leaning over my computer, thumb poised over my space-bar like a trigger, or closing my eyes and waiting for sleep as the seeds of questions and the skeletons of tournament brackets raced through my head. 

picture of a nats competition stage!

my junior year mit scibowl was the first time that i remember coming to mit. it was a magical time – on friday night, we got dinner with alumni at saloniki’s; afterwards, steph and boheng, then freshmen in college (now juniors!), led me and my team and my friends on a wild-goose chase through the tunnels of mit. on saturday we played the tournament; after dinner with friends, we watched mit spinning arts club’s novemburn show and then my team stayed up playing party games until 4am.

in senior year, remembering all the fun i had the year before, i counted down the days until comp – until i could visit alumni, until i could play against disembodied friends from across the country, until i could hug people i hadn’t seen since summer. 

there were probably more but i gave up on finding them

it’s not an exaggeration to say that science bowl is the main reason that i’m here at mit now. science bowl gave me the community and the enrichment and the challenge that i craved in high school; it gave me a reason to drag myself through the drudgery of a school day to make it to practice and dopamine and friends. with everything scibowl gave me, i was certain i wanted to give back. 

mit scibowl runs on an annual cycle: question writing begins and is completed in the summer; editing starts with the school year, slowly transitioning into logistics; the tournament itself runs in mid-november, just as the air chills and starts to bite. this summer i wrote questions for biology, earth science, and energy, showing up to weekly playtesting meetings.⁠02 when i could - sometimes travel got in the way

school started and i started showing up to mit exec meetings. more question-editing, some logistics – me and some other frosh brainstormed mit scibowl’s first set of friday night activities, for students the night before the competition. yet even as i committed weekly time to scibowl, i eventually realized that somehow – without me really noticing its happening – it had slipped my mind, like a skate on ice. no longer did science bowl occupy dozens of hours of my brainspace a week. 

yet i’ve still been counting down the days till this mit science bowl! now my excitement is driven not by my desire to play (because of course my role is no longer to play). now i want to put on a good show, help our tournament directors make sure everything runs smoothly. and honestly the biggest part is that my brother !!! and my mom !!! and friends !!! are coming !!! to visit :) 

this year’s mit science bowl will be the largest ever. we’re inviting 60 teams of 5 players each to campus, relying on a team of over a hundred volunteers, games stretching from a crisp 9am⁠03 volunteers need to be ready by 8 - i don't know when the last time i woke up before 8am was to 8pm if necessary. this year, i won’t be in the game rooms themselves;⁠04 or at least i’m not planned to be instead i’ll be running whatever administrative errands are necessary to help keep the tournament going smoothly. over the next 24 hours, i’ll be writing about this event i love so much – now from a different perspective. 

if you’re playing, good luck! i hope you have fun C: 

if not, stay along for the ride :)