Ten Reasons Why I'm Thankful for Quiz Bowl

Today is for us to reflect on the things that make us thankful in life. All of us have different reasons for continuing to do quiz bowl, and I'd like to share the 10 things that make me grateful for quiz bowl.

1. Free food for modding

This first reason may seem a bit shallow, but it's really more about a deeper aspect of the community of friendship between quiz bowl players as a whole. Being offered free food for volunteering demonstrates how grateful our community and network is when we help each other out. Sometimes we might have complaints about the job tournament directors, especially new ones, do organizing, but we cannot deny their efforts in managing fun events on their weekends, nor their gratitude when the rest of us, when possible, help them out and eat our pizza together.

2. Being able to get up early on weekends

Most people, especially my age, value their sleep, considering how stressful and somniferous school may make us feel. However, I appreciate the drive to wake up early in the morning. When we are able to accomplish a small goal like waking up at 6:30, we can build habits that will motivate us later in the day to strive and achieve greater things. After all, it's difficult to get yourself to write an essay or compete if you can't get out of bed on time and set yourself up for failure first thing in the morning. On the flip side, I'd like to make a public service announcement that waking up early is not beneficial if it limits the amount of sleep you're getting, however, trying to make up for sleep hours on the weekend is not a healthy strategy either.

3. Getting to learn new things

Of course, this is one of the main points for why people like to play quiz bowl: our enjoyment of pursuing knowledge and learning something new every tournament, practice or scrimmage. Chances are, the hunger to keep learning new things was one of the main reasons why you joined quiz bowl in the first place, and the satisfaction of knowing more than we did before will propel us towards greater things. Quiz bowl has encouraged me to learn many new topics on things I did not even know existed, like Operas or psychologists or medieval history, and I am both grateful and motivated to learn more and become an even better, informed global citizen than I was before I started my study session, tournament, or practice.

4. Getting to travel to different schools

One part of being a more universal individual is by learning about other people's perspectives, and how their way of life is different from yours. By getting to travel to many different schools, I've gotten to see how other students' daily lives might differ from mine (a suburban magnet school) in settings like the city, specialized programs, or even just a standard district high school. It's only by getting to see where my friends and peers spend most of their daily lives that I can truly appreciate how their backgrounds might shape them differently than me, and gain new perspectives for myself not rooted in academics.

5. Showing off how much I know

The end goal of accumulating new knowledge is to put it in practice. Quiz bowl has given me an avenue to show off and get even more satisfaction from studying the topics that interest me, and validates my time spent on studying. While we may not get much immediate gratification from studying about ocean currents in the southern Atlantic, all of us feel a deep surge of adrenaline when the topics we study finally come up, and we get a power (ideally). Sometimes we might get fun of for knowing so-called "useless trivia", but as long as I keep getting satisfaction from the esoteric things I learn, I am the one who feels empowered in the fun of the moment.

6. Showing off how much I don't know

In spite of how cocky some of us might feel when we first line a random tossup or 30 a bonus, at the end of the day we still have much more to learn about the world. None of us can manage to score 900 points in a single game, and we are constantly humbled by the reminder that our teammates and opponents know things that we don't. While sometimes getting destroyed by another team might make us feel frustrated and useless, you should keep in mind that this is just a reminder of how much is still left out there for you to go and learn, and an example of why we should stay humble when we are victorious against another team.

7. Being able to set and try to achieve goals

When I began doing quiz bowl in middle school, I had no motivation to study except for the Geography Bee and AMC 8, both of which lasted 1 day, after which it would be another year before I could try again to do better. In quiz bowl, I've been able to continually strive to exceed my performance in tournaments throughout the year, sometimes on back to back weeks. Getting the opportunity to compete without lengthy breaks in between has forced me to mentally bounce back and recover after rough tournaments, and has made me stronger mentally. Additionally, getting so many chances to prove myself has gone hand in hand with getting me to learn more things and become a more informed individual. Overall quiz bowl has given me a greater sense of purpose than I've ever had before.

8. Making memes about the experience

Even though quiz bowl has given me so much to be grateful for, sometimes tournament experiences can just suck. Making memes has helped me bond closer with my teammates and peers, and has helped push me through rough experiences as well. Making jokes about the how miserable our situation can be has been a great strategy for me to improve my mindset; the idea that every awful event can be a funny experience in retrospect that I can share with my friends.

9. Making new friends

The second part of getting to share and meme over our funny experiences is that we get to make so many new friends from quiz bowl. Some of us might feel lonely in school, where not many people talk to us because we might not share the same topics of interest. However, in quiz bowl, we are all united by our common love of learning. No matter how our backgrounds may differ, our love for the game bonds us together, and allow us to build friendships with people all over the country.

10. Hanging out/talking with new and old friends :)

Out of all the gameplay and social aspects of quiz bowl, getting to interact with my friends in tournaments, either during a game or waiting for pizza to arrive in delayed lunch, is always the part I look forward to the most. Getting to see so many of my friends from far away every tournament makes me feel like I am part of a greater community, and that I have a place where I belong. Regardless of how poorly we might do on our off days, all of us are there to support each other, and our great community continues to celebrate how this game has made us grow both individually, and together as a group.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

By Nick Zhang, Teterboro