After the Fall finals end, in December, Glen meets with her daughter in her bedroom about the roadmap for the second half of the year. By then performing is a coping mechanism for Valerie, who seems to have dragged some of her teammates into it. Especially Faith, Nicole and Salome since Chantal was far more interested in the VMC than she was in the IMO. Yet even Chantal knew there was no way to compete at the VMC for the VAs if she didn't enter the Math Madness or the AMC12 first.
"Here's the plan: for the holidays, you will train with Nicole and Chantal for the VMC. After the first round of the VMC ends, go back to IMO training with all speed until the USAMO ends, but leave Chantal out of this; take Faith and Salome instead" Glen explains to her.
"I assume what happens after the USAMO will depend on whether I go to the EGMO or not. But it goes pretty much without saying that, if I don't attend the EGMO, I won't qualify for the IMO either, since the race to the IMO tracker pegs at least two male mathletes in the top six, as of the first TST" Valerie then voices her concerns.
And the parochial newspaper is perhaps the only resource in the country that actually covers the race to the IMO with any systematicity. It provides results for both the overall race and the girls in a separate leaderboard.
"If you don't attend the EGMO, focus on the VMC for April. However, it goes without saying that the next four months will be the most important of your high school mathletic career! You might have beaten Svitlana at the first TST, you will have to do so in the next four tournaments to get to the IMO!"
Both Gen and Jennifer, from what I heard about them, were able to perform just fine at the VMC final with only the extra credit assignments throughout the year and a week or two of accelerated review of multi-variable calculus post-EGMO. Dad seems to act as if I am the same as them, and that's stressing me out! Valerie looks at how much she has on her plate with mathletics, causing her to curtail her rehearsing for band to the strict minimum. Even so, there is no "first-chair flutist" the way there is a "first-chair violinist" (Anna) on the band so she isn't fazed by how the intensity of her mathletic training regimen has been affecting her life on the band.
"For years now, I was told, study for such-and-such tournament, and I did that believing the payoff would mean a better college and/or better financial aid. I am well aware of how critical extracurricular stardom is!" Valerie vehemently protests.
"Think of your teammates; last Spring, Faith had to do everything in the Math Madness. Winning a nationwide math tournament will help your teammates when their turn comes to apply to college, so you must step up to the plate this spring" Glen tries to allay her daughter's concerns.
"The VMC is more realistic if I go that route! Even though we must not take for granted that we will make it past the threshold for the final..."
"Four seasons of disappointment in the Math Madness must be avenged! Success in national tournaments like these, the HSNCT or NSDA Nats will reflect on the whole parish! The reason why Chantal is spared from this intense mathletic training regimen is because extemp is her vehicle for bringing in extracurricular glory! Now, go study for the VMC preliminary round!"
The list of do-or-die things to accomplish before the end of the school year threatens to crush Valerie under a mountain of stress and pressure. First the prelim VMC round, then the AIME, then the 4 tournaments remaining in the gauntlet of the race to the IMO and the Math Madness concurrently... After Valerie returns to studying single-variable calculus, as well as multi-variable calculus...
"This I vow! I will either serve as the parish superintendent until death does me part or the parish both gets someone to the IMO and wins the Math Madness!"
"But as superintendent, you are not able to do a whole lot directly to ensure the VAs' success in mathletics!" Selena counters. "Also, would you consider the mission accomplished if a school other than VA accomplishes either goal? Like Lacassine at the Math Madness"
"While I believe we will see improvements in a year or two from every school in the parish now that items more directly relevant to the kids' future will be covered, and mathletics is used to raise expectations, to answer your question, Lacassine is a long way from a national title, or an IMO berth. So while, technically, this condition could be met by Lacassine in some future season, our best hope for the short and medium term is VA. However, since the parish paid for Lacassine's AMC-twelve entry fees, we had Lacassine report who they had the parish pay for and how they perform"
And it appears that Lacassine just didn't even qualify for the AIME. However, because Valerie had the VMC to deal with, he couldn't compel Valerie to have Faith and Salome practice with her for the AIME until the VMC's first round was over.
Speaking of the VMC, Valerie feels confident about how she performs in it, about the long hours of study she endured over the holidays with her teammates at the VMC. However, as soon as the first VMC round ends, and Valerie returns home...
"How much do you have on the AMC-twelve? Sorry if I didn't ask it earlier, the TST was the priority over the AIME last month" Glen asks his daughter while his blood is about to boil.
"One hundred thirty-two?" Valerie tells him, doubting that she would trigger him.
"Then aim for an eleven on the AIME! Do you understand the consequences of not making it to the USAMO this year?" Glen then yells at her.
"I will need to transfer out of VA?" Valerie asks him, believing that it's the most important consequence of not making it to the USAMO.
"And more specifically to Lacassine! You will probably find Lacassine's student body much more hostile to mathletes than VA is! You WILL make it to the USAMO, you WILL bring back gold at the VMC! Understood?" Glen keeps yelling at his daughter.
"If I may, dad, Lacassine is not doing the VMC! What do you think IMO qualification would bring to the parish that winning the HSNCT or NSDA Nats won't?"
"The department in Bâton-Rouge is more inclined to provide us more funding for achievements of this size. It will help everyone in the parish provided it's spent properly"
"Why does it have to be me? Why can't it be, like, Salome or Faith?"
Maybe I've been pushing my daughter a little too hard for the past 3 years, but if it works and she makes it to the IMO, it's all going to be worth it for the whole parish, and the year after we will get more money to carry out major repairs, and maybe even without the need to rely on a bond issue! Bond issues can be a nightmare I'd rather avoid! Glen reflects on what he plans to use the funding he'd be getting from the state government should Valerie, or really, anyone from the parish make it to the IMO at some point during his tenure as superintendent.
"Valerie, you're the closest one to the IMO; for Faith and Salome it's going to be years away and we need the funding soon! It's significant in that Title I schools usually don't amount to much in any of these things!"
"What do you mean, Title I schools don't amount to much in mathletics? Is VA a Title I school?" Valerie asks some questions to him, but not about what Title I is.
"Yes, VA is a Title I school. In general, because Title I schools service impoverished populations, they tend not to offer a whole lot of extracurriculars, and focuses on what can be offered on the cheap"
"And did we receive additional funding as a parish because Gen and later, Jennifer, won gold at the EGMO?"
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
"Not as much as we would have liked because the EGMO is considered by the state legislature as a substandard tournament. Now, study for the next TST!"
"Fine..." Valerie sighs, now armed with the cold, hard truth of why her dad keeps pushing her towards the IMO, even with him as a superintendent rather than as VA's principal.
For years now, I've been carrying the expectations of the family, and later on, the town and the parish's... when is this nightmare going to end? Is it going to end at graduation or before then? Valerie ruminates as she returns to studying for the second TST, and the USAMO, EGMO and IMO along with it. Dad makes me feel like I would be a failure if I don't make it to the IMO! And I don't even want to imagine the amount of debt I would have if I go to, say, MIT but dad doesn't pay anything just because I bombed the AIME! So I MUST study harder for the IMO! Will dad forgive me if I lose the race to the IMO? Probably depending on how this loss occurs: I can kind of feel he might be more forgiving if I end up, like, in the top-12, than if I bomb at the USAMO. Who would be best positioned between Faith and Salome to take over if push comes to shove? She keeps attempting to solve some older IMO problem, but she doesn't seem to be able to function as well as she would like.
She then attempts to determine when she can go meet with her teammates at either Faith's home or Salome's to train for the IMO, and contacts them for that purpose. Especially critical to the trio of girls will be, of course, the week prior to the second TST since training for the IMO is, in their eyes, the same as training for the AIME. Nicole, on the other hand, since she is already admitted at Tulane in early decision, wanted no part in such intense training, wanting senior year not to be as stressful as the rest of her high school life up to this point, and would rather stick to the Math Madness and the VMC.
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Unfortunately for Valerie, the other two girls instead insisted that, the Saturday before the TST, late in January, they meet at Valerie's home to train for it. After dinner, the trio of girls can hear Daisy shout from several houses away before her octofinal debate game at the Columbia Online Invitational begins.
While Daisy wins her double-octos matchup against some New York prep school, her octos matchup is released and her reaction to it is simply priceless to her:
"Detroit Catholic Central? Wait a minute, DCC does progressive LD?" Daisy asks, in a tone that leaves no doubt as to her surprise. "I always pictured this place as some school doing traditional LD"
"What's all this noise?" Glen wonders in his home, while his daughter and her teammates prepare for a math training session in the homestretch.
Oh boy... that guy managed to win a ToC bid by winning Michigan, but Michigan is perhaps the worst inter-state LD tournament I can ever imagine. Even I could have finaled there, Daisy muses, upon looking at his tournament grid, while making one final remark:
"Here's my chance to prevent DCC from getting to the ToC! Down with the Shamrocks! Down with DCC!" an over-excited Daisy shouts, with their neighbors even hearing about that LD round.
Shortly after the game begins, the neighbors come over to Daisy's home and ask some explanations from her or her parents regarding how noisy a debate round can get. And especially what makes the Venomous Agendas rivals of DCC in a debating context. And, obviously, to ask Daisy to calm down.
Glen then leaves the house to attempt reasoning with Daisy's parents and, upon arriving, it appears that Faith's mother was asking questions about DCC and debate. Once Glen's turn comes, during that game:
"Hi, this is Glen; I could hear Daisy shout from across the block. Could your daughter please calm down? I get that DCC is a school Venomous Agenda debaters seem to have strong feelings against, but my daughter and her teammates are busy training for the IMO! They can't do so with all that noise!"
"I hope Daisy doesn't speak that loudly during the round" Faith's mother sighs, while the three could overhear Daisy's opponent talk about the ethics of retirement reforms, but they understand almost nothing.
"Totally not. You don't win debate rounds by speaking faster and/or louder than the opponent" Daisy's parents explain to the two.
As tempting as it is for me to tell Daisy's parents that their daughter could have been in the race to the IMO herself, were it not of the decision she made in freshman year to play on the debate team instead, I think it would have been inappropriate. She's still good at math, just not on the level required for the race to the IMO, Glen muses upon looking at Daisy's parents, while doing what he can to not let his disappointment show in front of them. About how flying under the radar for so long made her less intellectually intense. But, if Valerie falters, is Faith up to the task of getting in the race to the IMO? What about Salome? Sorry but, at this rate, it would take perhaps my entire life to get that one girl to the IMO! It would not matter anymore who, if it's not my daughter, but VA is light-years ahead of Lacassine in the mathletic arena right now! He struggles to avoid voicing this deranged discourse in front of Daisy's parents, before returning to his home.
Meanwhile, the three girls keep studying projective and complex geometry since their previous sessions were more about algebra, number theory and combinatorics. Valerie in particular doesn't feel as stressed out because her father left home to complain about loud noises caused by some... progressive Lincoln-Douglas debate game?
At the end of the night, well after that game causing these loud noises ended, and Daisy won, the trio finally stops studying for the TST.
"For months now you pushed us to study such exotic topics as projective and complex geometry, and I wonder what purpose is there to knowing this..." Salome asks Valerie.
"We're all at the AIME, are we not? And we are all poised to make it to the USAMO. Well, Nicole, too, but she repeatedly refused to train with us this month" Valerie's brain then shows signs of frying. "Even after the AIME, we must keep training for the USAMO; that material could appear on the USAMO!"
"Why is it that we can't relax like Nicole or Cristiano?" a tired Faith asks Valerie.
"They're seniors and the USAMO is kind of pointless to them. Cristiano is focusing on quiz bowl, Nicole on the VMC"
"Speaking of quiz bowl, our middle school team won a MSNCT berth for the first time! We placed third at the TQBA Winter Roundup!" Selena announces to them. "You know what that means?"
"Yes, I know, going as deep in the Math Madness as we can..." Valerie sighs. "It's the sad truth of being a VA mathlete"
It seems like, with this new principal, the pressure is on the math team to win at the spring Math Madness so that they can pay for everyone else's post-season, be it sports or academic teams. Not sure it's a good idea. However, the MSNCT would not have been possible without them training with the high schoolers, Selena comes to the grim realization that, while VA mathletics might be the pride of the town, the current principal is not making the mathletes happy.
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Yet, driven not only by fear of her father, but also for revenge on Svitlana at the TSTST, Valerie stays the course and performs as best she could at the second TST a few days later. That being said, a Damocles sword still hangs over her head come the AIME, and for the rest of February, she seems to have difficulty functioning since she has a lot to worry about. The race to the IMO, the ACT (for which some practice time is devoted in English class), the Math Madness...
And a strong TST or RMM performance (in her mind anyhow) would be of no comfort knowing it could all come to a screeching halt if she fails to qualify for the USAMO. Especially since she dragged her non-senior female teammates into training for these tournaments. I really hope Lacassine is not a mathletic pressure cooker the way VA is; all I know is that, at Lacassine, mathletics don't bankroll other ECs. What would happen to me if I fail at the AIME? For college, for my teammates? I think college is the most important implication of the AIME for me; going to Tulane ED may not be worth it if dad doesn't pay for it, Valerie keeps ruminating when she wonders how much she has gotten on that God-forsaken AIME, as well as how much her teammates have gotten. Of course, she'd be happy for her teammates should any of them make it to the USAMO, but the town's spotlight is on her. Would I be better off as a Cardinal? (i.e. attending Lacassine)? The Cardinals' fanbase isn't nearly as hard on its mathletes as the VAs'... on the other hand, will I be able to make it to the USAMO at Lacassine? Will I also be on the radar of the parochial media, just playing for Lacassine instead?
On the night after the RMM, for which only a select few are invited to compete in person in its entirety and everyone else in the race to the IMO compete remotely only on the first day, Glen gets a nightmare.
Svitlana caused a scandal to erupt about how Valerie was abused by her father in the pursuit of institutional glory through mathletics. But what surprised so many in the parish was just how the scandal erupted, and he was promptly arrested as well as fired as a superintendent. But no other wrongdoing was charged against him, and a foster family in Lacassine pitied Valerie so she wound up transferring to Lacassine. Faith and Salome therefore were forced to take over from Valerie in an umpteenth attempt to win this God-forsaken race to the IMO. Then he awoke while his oneiric self was getting handcuffed and lynched out of town ...
"Eeek... what did I do to get nightmares of getting fired as superintendent because of a mathletic scandal? While Bâton-Rouge does consider extracurricular achievements garnered by the parish when allocating funding requests, exactly how is a complex operation I never dealt with!" he screams when looking at his budget requests to make for Bâton-Rouge, under the Education Excellence Fund as well as the Mathematics and Science Partnership Grant Opportunity, both being state funds given to parishes.