JSHS: Sub-regional competition

Today was a nervous day! It was the sub-regional competition for the JSHS in my area. Basically, a two county fair that decided who would go to the regionals in Albany. I was nervous, since I had only gotten down my powerpoint presentation to 11:30 minutes yesterday, and I really did not want to go over the 12-minute limit and get deducted 10 points because I left out the acknowledgments.

When I got the to SUNY Purchase, the college that sponsored this sub-regional competition, my nerves were a little calmed. After the introductory note in the “big room,” all the students went to their respective presentation areas. I was in the Biology II category and the room was somewhere in the basement. Where the heck was the basement?

I walked around, asked people (who didn’t know), finally found a stairwell and went down. But oh, when I opened the door, it led to more doors, but none that were marked “basement” or anything similar. Actually, the doors weren’t even marked anything; they were just brown doors. So I went back up the steps and into the lobby, where I looked around at all the students rushing to their rooms, finding their rooms, and making the number of people in the halls thin out.

At that point, I was scared. My nervousness was coming back: If I’m not in the room and they take attendance, I might be disqualified! Where is the room though? No one knows!

But I finally found a second stairwell and gladly went down the steps, noticing that a middle-aged to older man was following behind. He was definitely a judge. I asked, “Are you going to the basement?”

“More like trying to find the basement.”

“Haha, oh yes. Well, I hope this door leads to somewhere.”

And when I opened the door, it was another hall: the basement!

“So you’re a presenter?”

“Oh yes!”

“Well, good luck! I’m here too, but I’m not presenting; I think you know what I am–a judge. Which category are you presenting in?”

“Biology II.”

“Oh, that’s the category I will be judging. What did you research?”

“I did a research on mosquitoes–”

“Oh, I read the abstract and it was quite interesting.”

“Oh, thank you!”

And we arrived at the correct room. Attendance was taken and afterwards, I noticed a boy and a girl took furtive glances at me. I thought I may have heard, but I may also have conjured up what I heard out of nervousness, “She’s the Intel semi-finalist.” Well, that would have been something logical to say, since in my school, once we received the category assignments, the seniors had poured over the rooms and pointed out any Intel semi-finalists. The one finalist in our county (Byram Hills) was presenting against one of my school’s semi-finalists. But, as my teachers said, “You never know the outcome. A junior had actually beat two semi-finalists in his room, before.”

The judges also introduced themselves, and I was quite surprised that three out of the four judges came from colleges–all colleges I had heard of, too: Columbia University, Fordham University, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Only one out of the four teachers was a retired high school teacher. This was much different from when my sister presented last year, and she was crushed because all her judges were basically high school teachers, so her presentation was a bit over their heads (especially since she had to present quickly in order to be within the time limit) and she placed third in her room (she didn’t get to present powerpoint at Albany, so she didn’t have much of a chance to move onto nationals). With judges with a background in research, they could observe the information from these presentations more easily, thus talking rapidly might not be too much of a problem for their comprehension of the material. This was definitely good for me.

But at that point in time, I was just staring as the first three presenters got up and tested that their presentations worked. They presented, each one a little worse than the preceding, in my mind.

When the five minute break came up before the second group began, I left the room and decided to take this time to practice. I basically had all my slides memorized anyway, so I didn’t need my slides to practice. I tried to find quiet places to practice, but there were none. I did spend some time in a dingy space in the first stairwell where I had met two doors with no signs. I did finally present in the room where the boards were being kept, but having the noise of my classmates chattering to the side was a bit distracting and I was worried I wasn’t going to fit into the time requirements.

When it was 10:45, I went back down into the basement and waited next to my room. I whispered my presentation to three sophomores from my school, who had come to the competition as observers. Then I chatted with them for a while, in order to calm my nerves. Soon, it was the break after the second session and I went in. I had to watch through two presentations before it was my turn.

The first presentation was–I can’t even remember. I was way too nervous to even pay attention. The second presentation was about horses and their cribbing problems. She was from the “sister school” to my school–apparently, our schools are rivals, but we always beat them in the presentation fairs. However, our school has never achieved an Intel Finalist before, but theirs had.

Anyway, through the horse presentation, my palms began to grow sweaty and I was focusing on breathing in and out. She finished, it was my turn. I stood up and plugged in the laser pointer USB (my teachers gave them to people from our school to use; I received them during the break of the second session from a classmate, since there weren’t enough to give every student an individual laser pointer). I heard the moderator in the room say, “I’ll stand up at 10 minutes and when it’s 12 minutes, you can finish the slide you are on but then you will have to stop. Do you have any questions? Okay, I’ll start the timer when you begin.”

I began. “Hello. My name is Yingna Liu and the title of my project is….”

Wow, I rushed through that presentation like wildfire. When I got to my Discussion slides, with only five slides left, I was wondering, Why hasn’t the guy stood up yet? Has it really not been 10 minutes? If not, I must be rushing so much! Wow! This is terrible if they can’t understand me! So I slowed down for the last four slides, the last slide being the acknowledgments. I answered the questions and afterwards, I scolded myself for forgetting to repeat a question after it was asked. My sophomore classmates said my presentation was good, even though I felt a bit scared because it went by so fast. I mean, I had trouble getting my presentation down to 11:30 minutes!

When the awards ceremony finally began, there were a few surprises. A few of my classmates who I thought was going to place did not place. When my room came, I was just thinking, Second place won’t be that bad. I’ll still be able to go to Albany and speak and have a chance of placing there. It didn’t help that much that the person sitting to the left of me was also a person from my room.

“Wait, you’re from my room, right? The mosquitoes?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think the judges actually understood my presentation? I just hope that they did.”

“Were you the second session?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, I wasn’t there.”

“Oh.”

One of my science researcher teachers (my teachers were also on the committee organizing this sub-regional competition) started calling out the placements, starting from fifth place. The top two speakers in each room went to the regional competition as powerpoint presenters, and the third and fourth speakers went to Albany as poster presenters. Fifth, fourth, third–my name wasn’t called yet. Second, no, not me. First, oh, please, please let it be me. Please!

“And the winner of this room, a speaker at Albany…is from Ossining!” I smiled and got up. Oh, yes, I was smiling. A little numb, too. The feeling that you get when something just whams into you. I shook hands and got my medal, smiled for pictures, then went back to my seat. I thanked those who congratulated me and stared at the checklist sheet for those who would be moving onto Albany as I waited for the next room’s placers to be called. Two other students from my school, Intel semi-finalists, also placed. We’re all going up to Albany and powerpoint presenting at the end of March! I am excited!

When my parents came to pick me up, I told my dad, “I only got third place….”

“Oh, well, you tried–”

“Just kidding! I got first.”

And then my mom hit me because she was happy for me. When I related this to my sister, she was like, “That’s a mean thing to say to dad! I would’ve hit you too!”

Oh yes, hitting. What affectionate physical actions.