◎ Tiffany Liu
Developing Virtue Secondary Girl School, Grade 7
When I first heard that there was a Chinese competition, I wanted to join but I didn't at the same time. I heard that it was fun but I also heard from Alisha that it was scary. When I heard Alisha's opinion, I thought, "If it's as scary as what Alisha said, then I don't want to go." At first I decided I didn't want to go, then one day Jasmine came up to me and begged me. I wanted her to stop so I said okay. After a while, I found out that Jasmine persuaded everyone in the class and she succeeded, so Alisha, Kelley, Angelique, Jasmine and I all joined together.
Every time it was Chinese class, I would always be confused. I never knew what Jin Yu Shr was talking about. After a couple of weeks, it was spring break. I went home and studied a little bit with my dad. When I came back from spring break, I noticed that things were a little bit easier. I started to understand what Jin Yu Shr was saying.
During the first mock, I thought, "Wow, we're only going against little elementary students." However during the second mock I didn't think it was that easy anymore. Boys' school's high schoolers knew all the answers and they were a lot faster than us. Every time I went up, I was nervous and didn't know what to do but at the last mock, things were easier.
The time that we spent preparing was finally put to use. On the day of the competition, we had to wake up early and get ready. In the car Jin Yu Shr and some of us were praying for the team. After she was done praying, most of us went to sleep and one of the people was me. I remember myself dreaming about what the competition place would look like.
When we arrived at the competition, we were one of the first people to get there. It was nothing like I imagined. I thought it would be at a high school with a lot more chairs, but when I walked in, I thought of Cherishing Youth Day. When I sat down I thought, "I won't be able to see if the person in front of me has a big head." When all the other teams arrived, indeed, the person in front of me did have a big head.
I would have fallen asleep if our team wasn't one of the first teams to go up. The host was going through all the boring rules and regulations. After all that boring stuff that no one was listening to ended, the host told each team's captains to go up and choose a color. Alisha came back with the color green. Although I didn't like that color, it did bring us luck.
The first round was scary. The teams weren't as good as the other people said they were. Everyone said that they had fast reactions but I saw that during the competition, the teams that we went against were really slow. Although the first round was scary, it was also fun. The questions were pretty easy.
During the third round, the questions were a lot harder. Most of the teams didn't know the answer. Every time I went up, I always went blank. We were losing and it got to a point where everyone on the team was starting to get nervous. I was expecting us to lose because almost no one was getting the answers but when it came to the group work, all of a sudden, our points started to go up.
After the third round, I was surprised that the team that got second place came over and shook our hands and told us that we were so good or good job or all those other complements. The four of us went down the stage with very happy faces. When it was our turn to go up, everyone was happy. I could tell that everyone was hyper on the inside but was too tired to show it on the outside. They gave out certificates and said our names out loud. When they got to my name, the person that gave out the certificates said my name wrong. I wanted to correct her but I was too tired to. The certificates came with one hundred dollars. The first thought that came into my mind was, "I'm RICH!!!!!" At first I thought that the whole team would get one hundred dollars but instead it surprised me that it was actually each person on the team getting one hundred dollars.
After that, we all went to eat dinner. We decided that we would trick all the dorm students into thinking that we lost. When we got back to the dorm, it was already ten o'clock. There were some people in the gym room and they asked about what happened and we said that we didn't want to talk about it. In the inside, we were really hyper and we were trying not to show it. It was really hard with so many people asking you about it.
That day we all got what we wanted, no dorm duties, no kitchen duties, no Evening Ceremony, and most importantly, getting first place. That day was an amazingly wonderful once in a life time experience.
