Son of a Bysshe
So today was the academic team tournament, and because Lisa, Mom and I are nerds we went to watch it and cheer Bethel on. It was so ridiculously disorganized it was almost funny. The readers couldn't read, the moderators didn't know the rules, and one of the classrooms they were using was absolutely full of posters with maps and presidents and the Constitution...which is called "cheating." (That room did, however, contain a British poster of bad Bush quotes that I desperately wanted to steal.)
Lisa and I have discovered that we are the two old crotchety Muppets on the balcony at academic team matches now. We sit there and scribble things down and criticize questions and moderators and the other team's coaches...in short, we are absurdly rude, and the guy next to us really hated us.
And we almost won, which would have been a miracle since this year's team is...not so good as last year's. (Duh, Lisa was on it last year.) But we were doing really well up until the second-to-last match, where things kind of went to hell. Two questions were flagged due to moderator assclownery error, worth two points each. We lost by six points, but that's not what burns me.
The question: This poet died in a sailing accident off Italy in 1822.
The other team's response: Percy Brysshe Shelley.
Lisa and I did the twitchy look-at-each-other-and-squint thing, because it's "Bysshe," not "Brysshe." And technically that's not correct. Then, not five minutes later...
The question: When was the term "United States of America" first used?
Our team: 1776 by Thomas Paine.
The answer was 1776, but we didn't get credit because we'd given extra information that was incorrect. (You guys see where this is going, don't you?) So Lisa and I had hissy fits back in our row, because the other team had given extraneous and incorrect information and they had received points for it. And the two points the other team would have lost, coupled with the four points flagged and left out of the match, could have been enough to tie the game. Buuuut no.
Yet more evidence of the moderator's stupidity: "Was there more than one President Adams?"* She is apparently a home economics teacher. So presumably, she finished high school, graduated from some kind of college, etc. I honestly would have slashed her tires after that match, except it was ten of three by that time and we were too faint with hunger.
In other news, I reread Beowulf today and I have two full pages of notations as to its similarity with the Aeneid, including about forty passages describing armor and weaponry and two notes that just say "Hrothgar/Aeschere OTP". I have not really worked on my story, and I imagine this is eventually going to be worrying. But it's almost four in the morning, and I'm too tired to worry. Also too tired to go downstairs and get my pajamas out of the dryer.
*For those of you not in these Benighted States: There were two. John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Related, but not the same person. I honestly don't know how you could not know that. But then again I don't know how it's possible never to have heard (ha, you thought I was going to split that infinitive, didn't you?) of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," either. Damn, that sounds snotty. But what I mean is that I clearly have no idea what is common knowledge these days and what is esoteric bullshit that only people who read Trivial Pursuit cards for fun would know.