reflections; part 1

It’s 22:24. Not too late, but I’d rather be in bed right now. Why aren’t I in bed? Because I’m way too stressed out for that. And what do I do when I’m stressed? That’s right, work. So I’m going to start a series of posts in which I talk about… Well, anything. I guess that’s how most posts work, but I’m going to title them with numbers to make them special. 

The first story is about a math contest:

I was in eighth grade. 

I can give you a little more background knowledge on that. Eighth grade was interesting. I had a fascination with gore and horror, and I liked anything quirky. These two interests had a cross-section on a specific series of online videos. Yes, I’m talking about Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. My partner-in-crime, Bold, still enjoys those very much.

It was the first contest, regionals, so we had two eighth grade teams and one ninth grade team. We sat around on the floor and on some ratty armchairs and ate our lunch, and we showed our math teacher Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared 1. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know why we thought that was a good idea at the time. 

And then we headed back. The math contest took place in one of the universities in the area, and we were in one of the lecture rooms that have those incredibly large screens. I’m talking larger than your averagely-sized wall. And there were two of them. The way the projector in that room worked, all you had to do was put something under the special light and it’d project onto the mega huge screens.

It was also unsupervised. 

What is a group of bored, math-obsessed eighth graders going to do with an unsupervised projector? Why, play with it, of course! The first idea was to play DHMIS under the screen. It was eventually overridden, however, on the possibility that someone may get emotionally traumatised and we’d be held accountable for it.

The second idea was My Little Pony, because of course it was. And because I was the Team Leader of our math contest group (and also because I was the only one who had cellphone data), I opened up YouTube on my phone, searched for the latest MLP:FiM episode, and played it under the projector.

The response… Was astounding. There was one group of students from this particular school. They all wore uniforms, and were all Asian boys, and they were the ones who would get 5 out of the top 10. There’s always one group of students like that at every math contest. They cheered for me. They literally stood up, clapped, and cheered for me from the back of the room as I held the phone under the projector, shaking with laughter. The other students looked at us with bemused expressions, or clapped humbly, or both.

None of us got in the top 10, though we ended up in second place and got a tacky trophy (which we all kissed, for some reason). We didn’t take back any medals, but I had that memory.

It was a dumb idea. I probably could’ve gotten in trouble. But I didn’t, so I’ll carry that experience with me. The amount of energy in that room, in that instant, convinced me that it’s always worth it to do things like this.