Inside Reach for the Top battle of the brainiacs
I was a shy 8 year old who loved two things: whales and the Old Testament. may be putting it lightly. I was a four foot tall encyclopedpatagonia south america picturespatagonia south america picturesia, the kind who could recite the 10 plagues of Egypt and explain the evolutionary differences between British Columbia three orca whale populations. You didn even need to ask, I just tell you. I was that kind of kid.
But it wasn until I found tripatagonia better sweater fleece 1 4 zipvia competitions that these obsessions had an outlet.
Every Wednesday night, my dad took me to the local East Side Mario a fine Italian eatery by our Kingston, Ont., standards. Above the bar kitschy plaspatagonia better sweater beanietic grape vines hung a TV, broadcasting questions in rapid fire. I took no interest in the game, but my dad was addicted. He punched his answers into a clunky digital keypad connected to the TV. He was known to clap for himself when he was winning. In those moments, I slink deep into the booth. It was the blue whale; they bigger than the biggest dinosaurs, measuring on average 30 metres in length. They double the size of humpbacks huge.
the blue whale, I told my dad, shielding my lips in a stage whisper, suddenly engaged. know this. I knew something that could help me win. job, buddy! he said. go play at the bar. My dad and I went every Wednesday for Countdown, the general trivia night that drew on a potpourri of topics. At least a decade below legal drinking age, I flouted Kingston bylaws by sitting at the bar, wanting to be in the thick of the action. Fortunately, the bartender, a motherly figure named Stephanie, thought I was cute and overlooked the rules so long as I kept ordering root beer.
I still didn know many answers, but I realized that didn matter. The game was largely abpatagonia better sweater beanie2out speed. There were five possible answers, and the wrong ones slowly disappeared, taking point values with them. The faster you were, the higher you scored. I started winning games with quick fingers, beating out the adults only half focused on the game while drinking with friends. In my mind, I was a genius.
Over time I started to actually learn things. Germans are especially good car racers, so it was always a safe bet to guess or when asked about Formula One champions. Yo Yo Ma plays the cello. The big dipper is also known as Ursa Major, the big bear, and it upside down in Australia. is Spanish for grapefruit.
Trivia became my new mania. As I progressed to middle school, I graduated to Boston Pizza, where the city best players gathered. (It had HD TVs.) I knew who was good at which categories, developed arch nemeses and learned who couldn handle their alcohol. The atmosphere was always friendly, and people started asking me for answers. I gradually came out of my shell. I, whaleboy59, was one of the adults.
Then high school happened, and with it, the anxieties of being a pimply faced over achiever. Being smart was suddenly out, popularity was in. I joined student council, tried out for sports I had never played, made friends I didn particularly like and tried to keep my good grades a secret. I still went to trivia each week, but I always scanned the restaurant for signs of my classmates before grabbing my keypad.
It was around Grade 10 that I heard about Reach for the Top. Essentially, it a team based trivia game that pits high schools against each other in a battle of wits. It has been played in Canada since 1961, when CBC Vancouver first tested it in a TV studio. In the early days of Reach for the Top on television, Alex Trebek hosted in Toronto, and notable alumni include Stephen Harper, Jim Flaherty and Kim Campbell.
My school, Holy Cross, never did very well at Reach, but for me, it seemed a decent excuse to play trivia over lunch period. They even had buzzers, just like on Jeopardy!
I finally mustered up the courage to try out for Reach in Grade 12. Maybe it was the realization that I would be off to university soon and my classmates opinions wouldn then be worth much, anyway. When I approached the coach, I learned that I wasn the only one with reservations.
you the only one interested, said Mr. Coleman, a rather prickly history teacher and part time Reach coach. The last team had graduated the year before. have to find players. A few ads on the morning announcements and a plea to my friends did the trick, and within a week we had a team: Emma and Daisy, two Grade 9 girls, my friend Catherine, new to the school and therefore ignorant of the Reach isn thing, and me. I named myself captain, because why not?
We practised weekly at lunch hour in Mr. Coleman classroom. Our strengths were quickly apparent. Catherine knew science, Emma had a surpripatagonia outlet store 3abnsingly vast knowledge of history and I knew a smattering of pop culture, literature and facts I had acquired at the bar. But it wasn exactly a balanced lineup; whenever a math question popped up ( is the square root of 1,369? we just laughed.
There something about high school competitions. If you ever been on a football team or in a school play, you understand. As we edged closer to the regional competition, where the top team would be chosen to go on to provincials, our practices intensified. We met more often whether or not Mr. Coleman could supervise. We bedazzled green shirts with glitter glue, dubbing ourselves the (Our school teams were the Crusaders.) We dedicated one person to memorize world capitals, another to research sports. Our slapdapatagonia better sweater beanie0sh group of nerds wanted to win.
The city competition was held in April 2009 at a downtown high school. Our hard work seemed to be just enough to get by, and we won nearly every match, usually by a tiny margin. Much to our shock, we made it to the finals.
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But there was one tiny problem: Frontenac High School, the defending regional champions. patagonia discount code zalesThey werpatagonia better sweater beanie1e another level of brainiacs. The entire team was taking advanced placement classes, extra tough courses that shave time off an undergraduate degree.
Before a game, they all meditated on the same vegetable, humming or in unison like conference of yogis. Quirks aside, their reputation preceded them; they had won nationals just a few years before, beating out every team across Canada.
Befpatagonia everlong review kimberore the match even started, Mr. Coleman told us, you played very well today. Second place is great! You should all be very proud. I knew we probably wouldn win on merit, so we had to mess with them, I said. I asked each team member to stare down a single Frontenac competitor, unblinking, with a big smile on her face. The idea was to disarm them with confidence. In our matching glittery shirts, we probably looked a little unhinged.
Round one began. We kept up, but barely. I got lucky on a 40 pointer answer on Bertolt Brecht, but a series of questions on integers set us back. By the end of that round we were 50 points behind. Still, we kept smiling.
we 50 points behind! exclaimed the other team captain.
we just always like to pretend we have the losing team score. Round two started, and with it, a string of good luck. There were team questions on translating pop stars from French to English ( filles to Girls and a round on identifying animals in kids movies (Free Willy, killer whale; Babe, pig). This was our kinpatagonia guide jacket motorcycled of trivia. By the final round we were 50 points ahead. Not a giant gap by any means, but enough.
50 points behind, guys, 50 points! I jibed, rather immaturely. Members of the other team eyed one another, betraying a mix of nerves and surprise.
The last round is one of speed. There are 90 seconds to answer a quick succession of relatively easy questions. Since we knew Frontenac was empiricpatagonia better sweater beanie3ally smarter than us, we buzzed in to every one, simply trying to run the clock to zero. Likely not used to losing, Frontenac seemed to crack in that final round, slipping up on easy questions.
Our strategy worked: the final score was 300 Frontenac, 380 Holy Cross. We leapt to our feet and into a group hug. Across the desks, one student walked out of the room in tears.
It a moment I thought a lot about since. It wasn a clean win. We played with our minds rather than our brains, and in hindsight, our strategy sounds a lot like bullying. At the time that didn matter our school won gold for the first time in municipal Reach history. We celebrated over Blizzardspatagonia insulated powder bowl jacket reviews at Dairy Queen.
Weeks later we were in Toronto for the provincials. That where we got our rude awakening. Out of 43 high schools across the province, we came dead last, losing every match. Our smile trick didn work.
