Buzz In!

I love quiz bowl. I really do. I've been involved with it since the eighth grade, so that makes five years, three schools, and more tournaments/practices/meets than I can count. I have heard thousands of questions and read hundreds by now. I've even written a couple dozen. But this year, for the first time, I just can't get excited about it.

For those of you, imaginary readers, who don't know what quiz bowl is, here's a very unhelpful explanation via Wikipedia. The best way I can explain it without getting bogged down in the details is as competitive team trivia. There are two teams of four who compete against each other to see who can answer the most random trivia, mostly academic, correctly. Yes, it is kind of like Jeopardy!.

So much classier than any team I've been a part of...

I've played one tournament this year so far, and it was fun, but I realized that I didn't really care if I played or didn't, or that I did well, or about the outcome of the tournament. I still enjoyed it; it just didn't seem as important as it used to. I would have rather stayed in bed, and then spent the day with my friends and being productive, rather than spending the day in Northfield with a group that only contains a couple of people I like.

One of the reason's I got so into quiz bowl in high school was because I was good at it. I was a solid high school player. Not amazing, not even the best on my team, but well rounded and versatile. It's always fun to be good at something. But in college play, I'm not as good as I was. I'm a decent B player, but I'll never be an A player, which is okay with me, but it gets a bit discouraging when half of the freshmen on the team are better than I'll ever be. I don't need to be the best, but I do need to feel like I'm doing well, and I'm not sure I'm doing particularly well anymore.

The other reason I enjoyed playing in high school was the people. They were fun to be around, and despite the few I didn't like, the people made it way more fun than winning ever did. I enjoyed hanging out with [Inauthentic Irish] and [Spelled Like It Sounds], so it was always fun to play a tournament, no matter how well we did or didn't do. There are a couple of people I like and get along with on the college team, mostly [Short and Spunky] and [If It Sounds Ancient...], but also a few others, but they are far outnumbered by people I'm either ambivalent towards or outright don't like. Even though [Not The Boy Wonder] has been less annoying lately, I still want to punch him in the face every time I have to interact with him, and most of the freshmen this year are either annoying or so arrogant it's hard to be around them.

I got really into the team here last year. I went to as many tournaments as I could, and I staffed if I couldn't play. I went to most of the practices, and every social night we had. This year, I just don't want to. I think it was so important to me last year because I came to school not knowing anyone, and it gave me a group of people that I knew, even if we weren't all friends. It gave me something to do outside of my dorm room and people to do things with who weren't [Clothes Don't Fit]. But now I have friends who I'd rather spend time with, and other things I'd rather do. And since I've lost the social aspect of it, or no longer need to social aspect of it, the competitive aspect of it isn't enough to excite me.

I'm going to stick out my obligations for this year, with the tournaments I've already signed up for, and the ones I'm going to write for, but I don't think I'm going to play as much as I did last year, and I don't know if I'm going to come back again next year. It's just weird to think about not doing quiz bowl, because it's been such a big part of my life for so long, but I don't want to waste my time on something I don't enjoy anymore. At this point, scaling back and ultimately stopping will be a good thing, because it will give me more time to focus on things that are more important and things that I enjoy. Sorry [A-PUSH Not A-SLACK], but I just can't do quiz bowl anymore. It was one of the best things in my life for a long time, but I've changed, and it's changed, and we just don't get along so well anymore.