NAL

As this year started out I thought I had a great team, don't get me wrong, I do, I just wish I'd done more with my team. NAL has been hectic from the very start. We couldn't get people to even look at the applications then they did and we just took anybody we could get. We were so frustrated by then it didn't matter to us anymore.
Then Profa T had trouble with her lungs(?), so, obviously, was out of commission for at least 3 weeks. she literally runs the whole thing, I do a little, but she knows where everything is and we don't (we being Mrs. B and myself).
Another thing that I wasn't thinking of when I signed up for Davis Youth was that I'd have to leave practices an half an hour early. I couldn't see who would be good in what quarter or anything. And since I'm team captain I sort of needed to know.
With all of our complications it was hard to put together quarter teams. When we finally sat down to do it, it was about a week before Christmas break, immediately following Christmas (excuse me, Winter) break we had our first game.

Our first game was against Mueller Park Jr. High. They were good, in 4th quarter. In all the other quarters we beat 'em! but then they got us in 4th and won by one point. Third quarter was great that week, Pampered pets wasn't that hard a topic to research.

This week was bad. Today was bad, NAL was bad today. we played Milcreek. They were a huge, and very, very good team. From the very beginning they trounced us. In first quarter they got a total of 5 points, us 4. In second quarter they got us at 32 to 4 final score of second. In third quarter they knew what they were doing, had facts et cetera and we had know idea. They got 16 points we got 13. in fourth quarter, well lets not even go there. by the end it was about 51 to 22 or something similar.

In third quarter, because we didn't know what we were talking about, all of the other people went for about 10-20 seconds each. That left me a full minute and a half to fill so we would get docked points. I stepped up to the mark, and you don't even know how nervous I was. I had to just ramble! I was so nervous. I looked at all their bright pink shirts (yes, bright pink shirts, the majority were boys and the back of their shirt was punny) and had to look away, I know this is odd but I looked straight at the judge the majority of the time. sometimes I looked at others, but mostly the judge. I repeated myself at least 3 times and winced inwardly every time, but What else could I do? When I knew I could do no more I stopped. I had dragged it out just long enough that we were over 3 minutes by 11 seconds. if I hadn't kept going for that much longer, I don't even think about it.

In fourth quarter I was very frustrated by the lack of knowledge on books. One of the questions asked, "who is the author of Little Women" or something similar. NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY on either team that was up knew they answer was Louisa May Alcott! The math questions were easy, we just had a hard time getting them before the other team. Oh well We can do better next week. Thank you for being patient with this rambling blog that was a way to get my frustration out!