A Reflection on Saturday's Decathlon Scrimmage

Quote of the Day: “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”

― George Eliot

          A few days ago we had our first decathlon scrimmage. It consisted of seven tests crowded into six hours. After the second test I started to have trouble focusing. One of the worst parts about decathlon is the tests are designed to be so difficult that even the ones pertaining to subjects such as art and literature require deductive reasoning. Decathlon tests take the idea of educated guessing to a new level.
          After about the third test I started to get drowsy and hungry and I started pausing between questions to think about how much I disliked the sweater of the girl sitting in front of me and what would happen if, hypothetically, I dropped out of choir second semester and took an art class instead.
          Around the fifth test I started thinking about how, since it was a scrimmage, these tests really didn't count for anything and maybe it wouldn't be all that terrible to just give up and allow Vanessa to get the higher score for once. Then my mind started to drift away to explore new thoughts and ideas and I started thinking about how I could avoid the last few tests. I briefly contemplated pretending to faint but that seemed a bit excessive. Besides, I'd never actually tried fainting before. Then I thought about pretending to take a phone call during the break and claiming some relation had died but I figured that since that didn't physically prevent me from taking the test, I'd probably have to finish it. I would also have to create a back story to deal with any questions regarding my loss from my decathlon coach who is a very shrewd and threatening person. One day after school my sister called me during a decathlon meeting to tell me that she needed me to drive her home. When I asked my decathlon coach if I could leave he told me no, I could not and if she really needed a ride he would drive her. He also has a history of calling both me and my parents whenever I'm absent from a meeting (which, by the way, has been happening quite frequently ever since they added three hour weekend review sessions).If my mother was to suddenly die, he would probably reason that an extra hour or so taking a decathlon test wouldn't make much of a difference.
          Anyways, by the seventh test I felt thoroughly disgusting, lethargic, and ill. I was tired of hearing Vanessa complain between tests about how stupid she was for forgetting whether Ernst Ludwig Kirchner or Wassily Kandinsky was associated with the Die Brucke movement and I was thoroughly irritated by  the two students in front of me who were laughing and poking each other with their pencils. I was exasperated by the phrase "In the Decathlon Resource Guide..." and questions that asked which of the following did NOT pertain to this movement or that time period. My sweater felt constraining and uncomfortable and I wanted to go eat the leftover sushi in my fridge before my dad did. By the time I finished the seventh test my vision was a bit blurry and I hated decathlon. I spent the rest of my day lying supine on my couch, eating cashews and listening to Barbra Streisand. I think instead of going to the next few meetings I'm going to sleep instead.

Painting of the Day:

Madame Henraux by Edouard Vuillard