The Semi-Finals
What a whirlwind week! First off, let me fill you in on the Student Bowl Competition. I was so nervous all day leading up to the competition and so were my teammates. We had our strategy down--go for 10 points, only go for 20 if the other team got one. We didn’t play in the first time slot, so we huddled in the corner cramming as much last minute stuff into our heads as possible. Let me tell you, that was a fast 30 minutes!
Our first match was a team from UW Madison. Some questions were OK, others were CRAZY! It really is a slap to the face to see how hard it is to put everything together. In 30 seconds, you have to confer with your teammates, decide on an answer and figure out how to verbalize that answer so it makes sense to the judges. Thirty seconds is not a lot of time. We ended up winning the first match by a pretty big margin, and we were on to the next round.
Our second match was another team from UW Madison. This team definitely had their game faces on. But we did our best to just worry about us and stay focused. I was the team captain, so it was my responsibility to do all the speaking on behalf of our team. I tried my best to be polite and say "please" and "thank you" when choosing categories and answering questions. It was a stressful match! We did win again, although this one really came down to the wire. Those ladies put up an awesome fight.
On to the third round. This team was from Marshfield and it was their debut in the Student Bowl. The captain of that team was one of my UW Oshkosh classmates. If I could pick any person from my campus who I was afraid to go up against, it was him! Let’s just say it was an interesting match…there were moments of brilliance, and moments of…well, not so brilliant. Phil, the opposing team captain, definitely caught us off guard by throwing out the PASS option. In the end, Marshfield took us out, by 5 points, I believe.
Marshfield went on to lose the championship (by 5 points) to another classmate of mine, Robert, representing Zablocki Veteran’s Hospital. Robert’s team was responsible for taking out my fellow Affinity team.
In summary: the Treacherous Kidds (me, Tamesha, Desirae) and the Schistocytes (Anna, Sarah, David) both from Affinity each lost to the team that went on to the final round. All I can say is, semi-finals ain’t bad!
In addition to the Student Bowl, there was also a poster competition. There were close to 80 entries in three different areas: Literature Review, Case Study and Research. I’m proud to say my classmate Desirae took third place in Case Study and I ended up taking first place in Case Study.
The remainder of the convention was spent in different seminars, keynote speakers, loading up our bags with vendor goodies…the usual convention stuff.
I had a blast and I’m looking forward to the ASCLS National Convention this summer in Chicago.