Once the practice ends, and all the trophies have been ordered for hosting ACF Regionals, Imélie suddenly gets a before-after image of Tulane's quiz bowl team, that is, when she was playing as an undergraduate vs the team now. What I value most about quiz bowl these days is the breadth of knowledge playing it makes me acquire. After all, you hear and read questions over a wider range of topics than I would have had otherwise. And, of course, this is the main reason why I intended on attempting to relive my high school and undergraduate glory days: because this is where I feel valued most for a well-rounded education. In the real world, however, the benefits of a well-rounded education are not always readily apparent. But at the same time, finals time roll around the corner so I can't hold practices this week at all; I have 2 finals, and, while I'm fully confident I can ace the business stats course, strategic management doesn't feel the same, and I am writing a packet about it; doing so forces me to review each key concept and their relationships to each other, especially in writing tossups, Imélie then reflects on why she even played quiz bowl well beyond this stint as a high school rental player. But I didn't come to this realization until I scored eleven powers during day 1 of my first HSNCT. My stat line was 11-10-0 and 31.55 PP20TUH for that day, and for some reason is the first stat line I remember. That was enough to convince the coach for me to keep playing the following season.
But once the finals season ends, she sends out a new message to her players concerning a final holiday activity that she purchases for: a frozen log, cranberry sauce, apples, pork chops and the like. And red candles as well as white ones. "I invite you all to my home before you return home for the holidays. Consider this the Christmas party of the team" she then announces to each player by texting.
"Tomorrow night I'll be hosting the Green Wave quiz bowl team's Christmas dinner" Imélie announces to her husband.
"I never met any of the players before. I think it's a good idea for me to meet them" Sun comments while he starts cooking the pork chops.
"Promise me that you will keep watch on how much alcohol you serve them. We might be able to serve them alcohol since it's in a private residence, however"
"I always forget about how eager college students are to drink alcoholic beverages, especially with underage students. But I trust the players are smart enough to control their drinking habits" Sun continues while his image of collegiate quiz bowlers surfaces in his mind: smart people who have immense memories.
"Time to roll out the red wine! Imélie exclaims while preparing a bucket of ice as well as two bottles of it, expecting both bottles to be drunk in full that night"
And, of course, the candles are put in position, while she readies the packet of questions for him to read during the second stage of the Christmas dinner, which is the half-packet Imélie wrote in full for the purposes of entering the team for ACF Winter, but other players had no access to, and the rest of the packet is made up of questions in other areas.
Once the candles are properly positioned and the table is set, with side dishes including sautéed rice, both get dressed wearing formal clothing before Xavier arrives with the other three players in tow.
"For the ACF Regionals, which are scheduled to be held at Boggs next month, I want you to keep scores in a game room" Imélie then formulates her wishes to Sun.
"While you made me watch quiz bowl games at State in March, I have no clue as to what to do when keeping score in a quiz bowl game" Sun tells Imélie in turn, a little nervous.
"The most important things, when keeping score, are paying attention to who is whom, whether it's a tossup or a bonus, which you know by now that it starts with "For ten points each", and the following signals: neg fives, ten, but, unlike State, which ran on NAQT rules, at ACF Regionals, there won't be a fifteen signal to watch out for"
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
"Understood"
Of course, the dinner seems to be happening smoothly, at least at the beginning, especially since they seem to be talking about things other than quiz bowl or school. Until Sun makes a comment that steers the convo towards QB.
"You all seem to be absorbing knowledge like sponges from what I keep hearing all night. You are talking about things I have no idea about"
"That's what it takes to play quiz bowl. Even though we often specialize for the purposes of playing the game, sometimes we do learn about other topics" Alyssa comments on what Sun said about the players talking to one another about topics he doesn't know anything about.
"But why do you want me to keep scores in a quiz bowl tournament?" Sun asks Imélie.
"It appears that one of the teams that promised a staffer is unable to do so now. To fully staff the tournament, we need six game officials on top of me, the tournament director. We only have six teams in our region, here in the South interscholastic collegiate competitions aren't valued much" Imélie explains to her husband about the realities of ACF Regionals.
I really hope that we'll face new opponents later this year; therefore I want us to qualify for either ACF Nationals or the ICT, Derek reflects on Imélie's comment on the limited field size, and the entire field consists of opponents that all played each other earlier in the season. Playing Texas, Rice, Oklahoma, Texas A&M or Ole Miss is fine and dandy, but we all know the strengths and weaknesses of each other by now. Part of what makes quiz bowl exciting to play is playing against opponents that we don't always know much about. The Red Army quiz bowl team, assuming it even exists in the first place, would have been a change of scenery for us, even, and especially if we were to play them in some Moscow oblast VVS base (i.e., airbase), or even elsewhere in Russia, really.
"You see it now that, while the coach has been hard on us for this part of the season, she isn't completely bad. Her husband seems to understand the realities of playing quiz bowl, but I wonder if he played it himself" Nolan asks Sun.
"No. I never played quiz bowl, all I know about it comes from spectating State in March. When I was in school there never was a quiz bowl team" Sun explains to the team.
Even if there was a quiz bowl team back then, I am not sure I have what it takes to play the game... the way everyone here keeps talking about collegiate quiz bowl, Imélie the first, not sure I could have played it at their level in college, Sun reflects on his own experiences with quiz bowl in school before he opens a tablet so that Imélie could load a sample scoresheet on it for him to use for the training packet she is about to read. However, the players know going into this slap bowl drill (because she didn't bring home the buzzer system) that the first half-packet will be science and history-heavy, and the second half-packet will include other topics chosen in an attempt to get closer to ACF topic distributions, and with these questions intended to be at the level of the harder ones at either ACF Regionals or Nationals.
At the end of the slap bowl drill, intended to get Sun some scorekeeping practice, he comments on the contents of the set...
"The questions asked at the college level are much harder than in even LQBA State! While at State I would have been able to answer some questions, here I feel I can answer only the easiest bonuses" Sun comments on the difference between high school and college quiz bowl.
"Now you have a better idea of what we are facing next month, going into the ACF Regionals I want you to keep score of. With that said, until classes resume, I want you to read past ACF Regionals and Nationals sets, as well as SCT and ICT sets publicly available, then fill in any gaps in your knowledge bases in the topics; at this level you cannot treat quiz bowl as a word association game" Imélie then instructs her players.
And then I am reminded of a comment made that relatives of players that have no quiz bowl experience are often poor mods, and they are better suited for keeping score if they still insist on staffing a tournament. That is why I didn't have Sun mod ACF Regionals. The two people that I told back in April that they would be better served playing intramural quiz bowl, on the other hand, played for Vandebilt Catholic and some out-of-state school I know nothing about other than its not-that-stellar involvement in quiz bowl, with Oliver, the ex-Vandebilt Catholic player having modded the LQBA Fall Invitational South, Imélie reflects on the background of those two players.
And then Imélie has the home's sound system play the Tulane Green Wave's fight song alongside other Christmas songs of all sorts for more activities after the practice packet being read to have Sun practice scorekeeping.