A lucrative weekend.

It's been a VERY lucrative weekend, to say the least.
I attended the HOSA state competition on Thurs/Fri, and came away with two gold medals (Medical Terminology and Job Seeking Skills), one silver medal (Pathophysiology) and a $2500 scholarship.
This is how it all went down:

I sat around most of Thursday, because my friends had competitions. One of the girls I was rooming with had all the room keys, so I crashed in some other girls' room with my laptop and LOST episodes, formulating answers to interview questions and reading random medical literature to refresh my terminology. Everyone came back around 8, though, and we had pizza for dinner in a teacher's room: a raucous, messy gathering where you could hardly hear yourself think. It was fun...for about ten minutes, after which my friends and I went out into the hall to shoot caps off water bottles and discuss the physics behind reprogramming hotel room keys. Science in action. I ♥ being a nerd. Anyway, the girls and I went to bed and had girl talk for a bit, where I told everyone who I liked. I have this strange feeling that it's going to get out, which would be kind of awkward, but I can't say I really care--I mean, I'll only be in school for two months more, so I figure I can handle pretty much anything. This'll be interesting. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. Anyway, I woke up early (5:30) on Friday morning to get into my business suit and look decent for my first competition: Pathophysiology, which was scheduled to start at 7. When I got to the conference center, I saw that I was signed up for one of the first National Recognition Program interviews (at 7:45). I figured I could speed through Patho and get to the interview without much of a problem...until it was 7:15 and we hadn't been given our tests yet. I was INSANE with impatience, and eventually one of my roommates went up to the administrator and calmly asked if I could get my test (I'd been up there earlier, trying to stay externally calm while freaking out, and it didn't do me much good). I got my test at 7:20, leaving me 25 minutes to finish a complicated 100-question multiple choice test and a tiebreaker essay, which happened to be on SARS. I couldn't remember what the first S stood for, and I had WAY too little time to sit there thinking about it, so I just scribbled about generic symptoms (dyspnea, shortness of breath, chest tightness, etc.) and treatment involved with "systemic acute respiratory syndrome." Though "systemic" obviously contradicts "respiratory" (the correct S-word was "severe"), I seriously had NO TIME AT ALL, so I pretty much wrote the test off as a sacrifice to my National Recognition Program interview, which I figured was more important because it could be financially lucrative. I quite literally ran my hastily completed test up to the proctor and raced out the door, making it seriously thirty seconds before the interviewer opened his door and called my name.

Gathering my emotions and making some attempt to keep my throbbing heart from shooting through the wall of my thoracic cavity, I smiled, shook his hand, and followed him into the small room. Three judges sat at a table in front of me, and one sat behind me in armchair next to the door (strange). I introduced myself and watched as they pulled out the massive portfolio I'd compiled as per their requirements. Seriously, that thing must have taken me 12 hours--if I didn't get something out of all that work, my sanity would have undergone some kind of fatal combustion. The people asked me questions about my most memorable service accomplishments, my strengths and weaknesses, and my choice to pursue a health care career, and I felt like I answered them pretty well, all things considered. I've always considered myself a weak public speaker--I'm not able to command attention or exude eloquence, but I felt all right about this because I knew my academic and service records made me a strong candidate. I crossed my legs, though, which I regret (don't all the interview technique websites say to keep your feet flat on the floor?).

Anyway, after my National Recognition interview, I headed off to the Job Seeking Skills competition, the one I joined on a whim at registration because I figured I needed all the interview practice I could get if I wanted to succeed in life. I didn't expect to even place, let alone win a gold medal and the title "best in state." Walking into the room, I surveyed my competition and sat just to the left of the of the second row's midline, where our probably-right-handed administrator was most likely to focus her field of vision (a trick I'd learned from Model UN). I knew it was time to apply every strategic get-noticed strategy I'd ever learned, so I struck up a mildly pitched, lively conversation with the girl next to me, who turned out to be about as interesting as oatmeal. The administrator gave us some instructions and told us they'd already reviewed our resumes and cover letters, so all we had left was the interview part. We drew numbers for our order, and I pulled #7, which was at 10:30, so I figured I had some time to kill. I went to Barnes and Noble and picked up the book "Bringing Down the House," which was a true story about six MIT kids who form an intense card-counting blackjack team and take Vegas for millions. It was absolutely fascinating (I finished it tonight); thrilling, informative and impossible to put down. I love reading about really awesome nerd kids. It gives me hope for my future. :-) I met back fifteen minutes prior to my appointment time (which turned into forty-five; they were behind schedule). The admin asked me an offhand question about the book I'd bought, so I took the chance to bring it up to the front, explain the plot when she asked, and talk about the movie ("21") that was being made based on it. I scored some real points here, as we kept up happy conversation through the wait time (the other kids were just kind of sitting there in nervous silence). I was able to carefully segue in my competition at HOSA Nationals last year and my medical humanitarian aid trip to the Philippines, in which she was extremely interested, asking me tons of questions and exclaiming over the things my group had accomplished. It's deceptive and calculating, but I can surely be social and charming when I have to be, though by nature I'm the reserved, inwardly cynical type who never really wants to talk to anyone save a select few. As for the interview, I got lucky enough to score a positive first impression, making the judges laugh during my first couple of "tell me about yourself" sentences as I gave them my carefully formulated speech about my inhuman love for Honey Bunches of Oats and the fact that I asked for a skeleton for my seventeenth birthday, making it sound absolutely spontaneous. Yeah, right. Their questions were straightforward, so I could answer them pretty easily, though I kind of went out on a limb talking about human papillomavirus and Gardasil, the vaccine for cervical cancer, as my most important teen health issue. I should have picked something more prevalent like obesity or mood disorders, but whatever. I only said "um" (consciously) twice, which was good, and I asked questions at the end (when prompted), so I came out feeling all right. The thing about competitions like this, though, is that you have no idea what your competitors are saying. I didn't think I'd do as well as I did, that's for sure, because I figured that there would be people there who put all of themselves into the competition, the kind who speak easily and articulately by nature. I still don't know if everyone there was just like the oatmeal girl or if the interviewers actually liked me. Later, I was told by the NRP people that I "interviewed so well!!" so maybe I don't suck at this as badly as I thought I did.

Let me tell you, by 12:30 (the starting time for Medical Terminology), I was already burned out. I was sick of wearing a high-maintenance power suit, tired of wearing painfully high heels, fed up with smiling and self-promotion, and absolutely worn out from having to work so hard to make myself the center of attention (and making it seem effortless). Needless to say, I dragged myself into the massive ballroom (lined with literally hundreds of chairs at almost as many tables) entirely grateful that for the first time this day, I could be competitive without being conspicuous. Taking an unremarkable seat near the middle left, I relaxed into my cramped table space with my new book until I was given my test, which turned out to be just about as hard as the one I'd taken at Nationals last summer. There were three questions I didn't know for sure (I mean, they were insane; you try naming the serum test necessary for detecting ovarian cancer or the name for a cell-specific malignant tumor of the adrenal medulla), but the others went well. However, I walked out feeling unsure of my performance (it kills me not to know questions in a subject I'm supposed to be an expert in) but was reassured later when I was called up as the first place winner.

The awards ceremony after the Med Terms competition was wonderful. They called me up for my scholarship, first of all, followed by my Job Seeking Skills and Medical Terminology gold medals (placed around my neck by my nice Homecoming date from this year, the Utah HOSA president-elect) and my silver Pathophysiology one, which I felt entirely lucky to receive, seeing as though I couldn't remember one question from the test because I was flying through it at somewhere around lightspeed.

Well, that's the gist of my competition weekend. I think I've covered most of the bases. All in all, it was amazing, and I'm overjoyed with my performance. During the opening ceremonies, I was very close to just running away screaming because everyone had such high expectations for me, but it ended up working out rather nicely.
If nothing else, that's an incredible relief.