Phew.

Guys, guess what? Guess what? Guess whaaaat?

We won! Yes, we won our first ever competition in high school, the Battle of Brain competition of the 2013 English Week which is held by Universitas Mulawarman (the #1 university here in Samarinda). Well... even though it's a very "modest" competition and we didn't win first place (we got third place), I was so happy and yeah, I put pretty much a lot of my efforts on it and man, I guess it was worth it.

I was in a team with my friends Cita and Husna, and we didn't attend a few of our classes just so we could practice for the competition. When I first saw how my competitors were, I gotta be honest, I felt scared. I'm like, the youngest between all of them. Most of them are seniors, 11th graders, and I'm a 10th (a piece of information: here in Indonesia, we start high school as 10th graders; so yeah, I'm a "freshman"). 

A lot did happen in this competition. I learned a lot by competing; making strategies, scanning your opponent, figuring out what choices are best and what are worse... a lot. I tried and I prayed, and I know that next time we could do SO much more better. 

There are four segments of each round. The regular(?) (I don't really know what segment it is called) round, the bounce round, the choice round, the takeover round, and last but not least, the "yes or no" round.

In the first segment--which is the regular round--the MC asks each of the teams questions, and we are given 5 minutes to answer 10. When we give wrong answers, there are no point subtractions. We could also pass if we don't know. Whether we get it wrong or we pass it, the questions swirl back again, unless if we get it right.

Next up is the bounce round. So the MC reads each teams a question in turns, but this time, if we don't know, we can "bounce" it to another team. If we don't and we answer wrongly, our points will be subtracted by 50 (each right questions is worth a 100); but, if we bounce it to another team and they get it wrong, no points will be subtracted. If a team that gets a bounced question gets it right, they obtain a hundred points.

After the bounce round, there's this round called the "choice round". We are given choices of questions in envelope, categorized as "Regular" and "Jackpot". Each of the regular ones are worth a hundred points, while the jackpot ones are worth two-hundred. But, when we get a regular one wrong, we'll lose a hundred points, and the same goes to the jackpot ones... we'll lose two hundred. Me and my friends screwed. We were so big-headed by our victory in the first and second segment, we decided to go for the "Jackpot". We got a question about Michael Jackson's deaths's exact date, and... well, none of us remember so... we bid farewell to our lovely 200 points... (*le cries in the backgroud*)

Takeover round. This is the most intense to me, because the fastest hand that raises the flag that is given by the committee, will have a chance to answer a question and their team will be rewarded again, a hundred points. So far I didn't screw up in this round, so I was happy with it.

Lastly, the "yes or no" round. As intense as the takeover round may seem, but to me, this round is the "make it or break it" determination so... yep. Here, the MC reads statements to each teams and we will decide whether the statement is true or not. If we think that it's true, we say "yes"; but, if we think that it's false. We say... no.

I didn't regret participating in this competition at all, because well, even though we didn't win first place and got our names on #1 and all, we learned a lot of things from here and to me that's all that matters. Learning something is priceless, you know.

(Btw I would like to say HEAPS of thanks to Miss Diana & Miss Novi who has trained us from unready to seemingly ready[?] and giving us encouragements tee-hee!!!)

Yay!