Tentacle Rape and Mary Jane Watson: Comicbook "Respect" for Women
Marvel has recently been hit by a deluge of criticisms regarding two of its — well you’ll see:
Exhibit 1: the cover to Heroes for Hire #13
… so, Marvel is taking scantily clad women with 6 inch wastes and 90 inch chests in costumes that can’t possibly work except with enormous amounts of superglue and subjecting them to tentacle rape. As one can imagine, the comic blogosphere is not very happy. This of course, inspired one enterprising individual to take the original Heroes for Hire before this incarnation (Luke “I am Powerman” Cage and Danny “Iron Fist is an awesome name” Rand) and subject them to similar treatment:
Mmmm… titillating
Exhibit 2: Sideshow’s new Mary Jane figure designed by renowned artist Adam Hughes
Ahh yes, Mary Jane Watson — in all of her impossible bodied, sexually posed, big boobed, LAUNDRY-DOING goodness. As before, the comic blogosphere is not happy. And it’s not just the comic blogosphere, as the New York Post, MSNBC, and Fox News have also commented negatively. Creator Adam Hughes attempts to defend the work by stating that it wasn’t his intention to make this a piece about the proper role of a woman (as a sexy laundry washer) and was supposed to be a playful piece about Mary Jane discovering Peter’s identity…
Right. So, why not create something with an equally sexy Peter Parker doing his own damn laundry — oh wait, like this one?
Gee, why didn’t they make this into a toy?
In all fairness, while each piece may have its own legitimate merits as to why they’re not misogynistic constructions (although the Heroes for Hire cover has, in my humble opinion, absolutely no excuse or redeeming qualities whatsoever), they do seem to underly a very disturbing trend of employing the sexual and physical demeaning of women to sell comics to a male-dominated customer base who seem to not only turn a blind eye to it but seem to encourage it. Comic writer Gail Simone crafted a website Women in Refrigerators which details some of the worse aspects of this trend (the name comes from the fact that Green Lantern Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend was cut up and put in his refrigerator in one of his earliest adventures as a means of … character development), showing just how prevalent and far-reaching this goes. This is not to say that any particular comic book company or author or artist is particularly at fault — many of the stories detailed in Women in Refrigerators were, in my humble opinion, good stories — and taken one at a time there is no problem with the occasional “pinup girl” or use of the “damsel in distress” motif — but the far-reaching trend suggests that this is, above all, a trend, not an imaginary excusable problem, and it’s a trend which I think needs to be whittled down if the comic industry is to grow beyond its current diminutive out-of-mainstream mode and if society as a whole is to progress beyond traditional conceptions of femininity as merely subservient and sexual.
Risk
Eight Years
Date: (May 2007)
What do Harvard kids do for fun? Play meaningless trivia drinking games? Watch marathon sessions of extremely nerdy television shows? Discuss the finer points of random philosophers? Yes, yes, and yes (all personal experience).
But, what better way to spend the month leading up to finals in a school full of nerdy people, than to play a massive online multiplayer game of the classic world-conquest board game, Risk?
The game was put on by the (Harvard) College Events Board using a platform by Gabe Smedresman. While in traditional Risk, players face other players for control of the world, this game of Risk pit Houses against Houses in a bid for control of all of Harvard, with students joining a particular House team and being allocated units. Each player could move these units according to standard Risk rules (they can move to adjoining territories, they can attack neighboring territories, etc.) but there were a few twists (such as territories were allowed to be unoccupied, the game was turn-based to the point were units could only be issued one order — one could conquer territory after territory with the same batch of soldiers as in the board game, combat is issued by randomly pairing attacking and defending soldiers, increase in unit count was given to each student equally and contingent on territorial conquest and control, etc.). Each House thus had a message board which allowed a House war council to issue commands to the students.
What started as a very nerdy game quickly became something which sweeped the Houses, as more and more students in each House participated. Soon, allegations of cheating (there were apparently hacks which allowed some houses to vastly increase their unit count) and espionage (students looking at other War Council orders).
The precise war history is recorded in very precise detail. Early on Lowell, through superior coordination and luck, steamrolled its neighbors and quickly gained control of a vast empire in the South, seizing two continents in short time. It aligned itself with Mather who also quickly seized control of a continent — leaving the two most powerful armies allied to one another and with a territorially contiguous empire. In the north, Pforzheimer House and Quincy House established an alliance to cyclically control a continent. Towards the middle of the board, however, the unluckier houses, including, sadly, mine of Leverett faced an endless battle for survival. Much like the middle of a chessboard where the fighting is fiercest, over the next couple of turns, Leverett saw its ancestral territory (Leverett House proper) become conquered by enemy forces, as Leverett units retreated.
This is around the time when I entered the game — and to my dismay, for the next almost 10 turns, we did nothing but retreat and consolidate. It was a big blow to our morale, being forced to retreat constantly in the face of superior military force as we fled battle after battle. All the while, the battle was being split into three zones — a Mather/Lowell alliance dominated in the South, eventually crushing the armies of Eliot, Adams, and Dunster. In the North, the Pforzheimer/Quincy alliance expanded form their sole continent into the regions dominated by Kirkland and Cabot. And in the middle, little Leverett constantly ran, surrounded by hostile forces and with insufficient political and military capital to execute any offensive strategy.
Over time, however, it became clearer what the War Council was doing — essentially the only (and quite possibly the best) strategy: it was impossible to destroy us if all of our forces were concentrated over a small area. While the vast “evil empire” of Lowell was difficult to defend due to its accessibility on multiple levels, our small area made it very easy to defend, and also very difficult to attack in mass force through coordination. There were certainly moments when the general populace of Leverett demanded a more aggressive strategy, the war council held firm and while our neighbors fel, Leverett survived and even re-established its own military presence in the dangerous middle of the map — the so-called “Gold Coast.”
However, time was not on our side. Lowell’s evil empire sought our destruction once again and with a massive army, besieged the center of our forces. And with a single blow, they massacred the vast majority of our armies. The consolation, however, was that our line held against their massive assault — and we retreated so that we could live to fight another day. Yet, our trials were not over. During our retreat, we were again assaulted by the forces of Kirkland, once a if not friendly, then neutral “we stand against Lowell” neighbor, in a vicious backstab as we retreated — again decimating our lines.
Yet, in our darkest hour, we still prevailed. Beaten, but not yet broken, we forged a new alliance — with Quincy and Pforzheimer who had witnessed Leverett survive two frontal assaults, one by the supposedly invincible and unbeatable Lowell. With this new alliance in place, we quickly rebuilt our forces and, through coordination, our three forces launched a new offensive. Within a few turns, Kirkland’s treacherous forces retreated into the protection of Lowell’s territorial domain. Mather’s forces were beaten down by Pforzheimer’s. Quincy pushed against Lowell. And within several more turns, the Quincy armies decimated Lowell’s remaining armies, and our armies entered their territories.
On the 45th turn, the alliance of Leverett, Quincy, and Pforzheimer declared victory.
And this is why I failed my stochastic processes final! 
Opera
Eight Years
Date: (spring 2005)
At Harvard, we have a set of General Education requirements which have been pigeonholed into specific components of “the Core”, 7 subjects outside of our field which we Harvard students, as we are getting a “broad liberal arts education,” were supposed to experience.
In January of 2005 (second semester sophomore), I was considering the answer to that semester-ly question: “So Ben, what core do you think you’ll take?”
I had decided at the beginning of the school year in the Fall of 2004 that I would just get the Literature & Arts requirements out of the way — especially as I was not a big arts person. Yes, I loved listening to music and browsing art galleries, but I never really understood it in the sense that a music theory/musicology (whatever the hell you call yourself) does or an art history/artist type does. To me, art was just something that you took in — studying it seemed, at least to me, contrary to the purpose of it — the pure, raw enjoyment that it’s supposed to just elicit.
Of course, that was probably just my philosophical rationalization for why I didn’t take art classes — the real reason was because I wasn’t any good at it. I can talk endlessly about economics and comic book stories, but ask me to talk about music or art — and I can’t. I can say that a painting “looks nice.” But I can’t talk about its composition in any sensible way. I can’t remember the names of anything — is it Picasso? Or Pointillism? I don’t know. Is it Brahms? Or Bach? Oh wow — they’re two different people? Is this an oboe, or a piano? Uhh… I don’t know?
But, surprisingly, the previous semester (sophomore fall), I had taken a Literature & Arts C course on the concept of the Hero in Greek Mythology — something I had actually done well in and enjoyed. Fresh from that victory, I was willing to take a chance on the Lit&Arts B straight Music/Art requirement.
But what to take? I scanned the course listing and the syllabi for the classes that were available. No — I don’t care about the art of people conquered by the Mongols. Yes, I suppose I could learn about “the American city” but that seems a little too crazy/lefty/out-of-the-box/neo-modernist-whatever for me. “Frank Lloyd Wright”? Interesting — but, having written a biography on him a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away (7th grade I think) I know that I can’t stand writing about buildings. Uhh… Modernism… no. Bach? Who’s that?
And then . . . Opera?
It was a new class. No prior ratings, but the first lecture was nice and simple-seeming. The lecturer, Professor Anne Shreffler, seemed kind and seemed to emphasize that the class had no prerequisites. I had a couple friends in the class — making it more fun and likely that I’d attend lecture and making it more easy to find help if I needed it.
And besides. I rocked last semester’s “Literature” class — something I was positive I would fail no matter what. And opera is one of those upper-class things that I’m supposed to pick up while at an Ivy, right? So — I’ll take a nice intro class on opera and then *bam!* entertaining cocktail party stories. [You think I'm kidding with my thought process here. Believe me, I'm not.] Besides, how hard could this opera class be?
Sure enough, it started out nice and slow and easy, and it was certainly interesting hearing about the history of opera, its basic structure. “Yeah, I can handle this,” I told myself. “I can identify instruments… kinda. I can sorta understand rhythm . . . barely. Yeah I… a what paper? On what? Composition? What?”
And before I knew it, I was spending every free waking moment listening to opera. Handel’s Rinaldo. Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Rossini’s Barber of Seville. Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. And — it wasn’t that bad. As I said above, I actually do like a lot of music. So, even if I didn’t understand what was going on — hey, at least I was learning some of the more famous operas, and I was learning something interesting.
And then — I learned what atonal (or pantonal) music meant. I listened in agony to Berg’s Wozzeck — “Jahwoll… Herr Hauptmannnnnnn” — and with the papers with topics I didn’t understand piling on, any illusion that “this class is okay” vanished.
So, end of the story, what did I get from this? An abysmal paper, crap final, and enough experiences with atonal music for several lifetimes — that and one of the worse grades on my record. Oh, and a re-affirmed fear of the study of music.
But– if I were to be perfectly honest, I would have to admit that I did gain an experience into the actual study of music — however superficial — that will last with me. I can now talk to F. Chen about what she sings without being completely lost. And when P. Kehayova (new postdoc in the Maniatis Lab) invites me to an “opera night” at her house or plays the new Don Giovanni recording that she is absolutely raving about — I can politely decline but still discuss what she loves to listen to and sing without sounding like a total fool. Yes, you lose some — but you win some.
Leverett Dining Hall
Eight Years
Date: (fall 2004 – now)
I’ve been to almost all the dining halls at Harvard, and I have to say that while the architecture/lighting for some of the houses may be better (ie I love Mather’s setup), while the dishes or view may be better in some, and while the food is better in some (I think that the Eliot/Kirkland kitchen is as good as dining hall cooking can get), I have yet to experience a dining hall staff as nice and as helpful as the staff in my own house, Leverett.
Almost every time that I go to the dining hall, I see our dining hall manager Arthur Robbins briskly walking about, making sure that everything is running smoothly, helping to handle spills and shortages as best and as quickly as he can. Given that he has to manage a fairly large staff and feed several hundred angry, busy, and demanding students, its safe to say that he has a very difficult job to do. Yet, never once have I seen him angry or impatient, neither with the students nor with his staff. He is almost always talking to some student or another, asking them how they’re doing, what they would like to eat, how they are enjoying the food, if there’s something else he can bring out or do to make their meal a little more enjoyable. And, there’s something almost intangible about it — but the way he goes about doing it is, unless he’s an amazing actor — sincere. He is sincerely nice, not merely saying platitudes because that’s what one is supposed to say, he seems genuinely happy that you are there, and genuinely interested in how to help you.
When I visit other dining halls most of the time, the staff is disengaged. They’re not doing anything wrong, they don’t seem too particular about whether or not you’re enjoying yourself. They don’t seem too particular about whether or not they can do anything to help you. And, while they are courteous and helpful if you approach them, there’s a lack of the congeniality that I’ve come to experience from Leverett (and in some particularly bad cases, they seem annoyed or impatient when you make a request and they even seem to pick fights with one another).
Robbins isn’t the only friendly face. His dining hall staff, while not up to Mr. Robbins’ degree of hospitality, are also very nice. They greet us warmly at the checker line, they are nice, and they do go out of their way to make sure that we get everything that we need.
And, I’m not alone in this. There is a chance at every dining hall to provide feedback, and although I haven’t read the feedback from other houses, I know that in our house someone replies to all the feedback cards promptly and considers the suggestions seriously. And from the cards that I’ve seen, it seems like those of us in Leverett House are very happy with the staff and what they do for us [not to mention the Facebook group "Arthur Robbins Brightens My Day"].
I can’t honestly say that I have enjoyed the food that the dining hall has provided me these past four years. To be perfectly blunt, there is a reason that I eat out so often. But, with that said, I will say that I am very grateful for the efforts of our dining hall staff — they provided us with meals, of which I was probably not sufficiently grateful for or appreciative of, and they did so well and with a friendly face.
Wedding in Style!
I will make an Eight Years post later, but this was too cool of an article to pass up posting on.
How do you get married if you’re one of the world’s richest tech nerds? Answer: you avoid the paparazzi and fly somewhere nice and tropical:
Google co-founder Sergey Brin and long-time sweetheart Anne Wojcicki, a biotech entrepreneur, exchanged vows recently in the Bahamas, guests confirmed to the Mercury News, in a ceremony so hush-hush that word didn’t leak out for more than a week.Even the date remains secret: All sources would say was that it occurred sometime between May 4 and May 6.
The secrecy surrounding the ceremony was extensive. Wedding guests who boarded the jetliner owned by Brin and Google co-founder Larry Page on May 4 were not told the destination, for instance.
Awesome. And how did these two star-crossed (and unbelievably rich) lovers meet? He was trying to sublet an apartment from her older sister (who was then a friend of his girlfriend!)!
Silicon Valley cognescenti, however, have known about the Wojcicki-Brin relationship for some time. It is a kind of only-in-Silicon Valley romance – a tale of two brainy entrepreneurial spirits that involves a garage.
Said garage was part of a rented Menlo Park house that Susan Wojcicki, then a recent UCLA business school grad, sublet to Brin and business partner Larry Page in 1998, after they had left a Stanford graduate program to launch Google. They knew Susan through Brin’s girlfriend at the time, and later, Susan introduced Brin to her sister Anne.
The arrangement worked out well. Susan is now a Google vice president of product management. (And Brin’s ex-girlfriend is still said to be a friend.)
And, I thought I might as well add that Benjamin tenOever, the postdoctoral fellow that I have worked with for the past two years, is getting married tomorrow (May 18, 2007) in Harvard’s Fogg Museum to his lovely bride Loveena (who has a last name that is so incredibly long and hard for me to pronounce that I won’t even try to butcher her last name). I want to wish the two of them a very happy wedding, a very wonderful honeymoon (in the fabulous land of prostitutes and transsexuals, Thailand), and a very delightful time together [I posted on the cute story of his engagement back in June].
Binoculars
Eight Years
Date: (fall 2000 – summer 2001)
Ms. Graves. Second Period. Honors Integrated something (whatever came before pre-calculus). Sophomore year in high school. While most people can only remember sleeping or making snide remarks about Graves, I remember my awesome math group which included A. Phan, myself, A. Cheung, and some other Asian who’s name slips my mind at the moment.
There are two distinct eye-problem memories from that period of time that made that class, despite how stupid the Integrated program was and how menial the class was for me, memorable. The first was that it was in that class that I got the set of glasses that would serve me into my senior year in college. They were a set of black, thin-frame Calvin Klein glasses which, at this point in time are beat up and dirty like crazy and have finally been retired as my casual glasses. Up until receiving them, though, I had been using these tacky old glasses which had lost one of their screws due to mis-storage. To remedy that problem, I took staples and molded them into a screw-like contraption. Whether or not this was good for my eyes, I don’t know, but it was essentially holding my glasses together with chickenwire.
On that great and wonderful day that I received my new (in my opinion nice-looking) glasses, I wore them with pride knowing that I would not have to resort to tape and staples to hold together my means of looking at the board.
A. Phan, of course, noticed the change and of course poked fun at the fact that I had been using staples and tape to hold together my glasses. To which I replied in my best sing-song voice:
“I can see clearly now… the rain is gone…”
This became a running joke for us as we soon sang that line very often. One day, I became fed up with the fact that I only knew the first two lines: “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone | I can see all obstacles in my way” and I got A. Phan to go home and print us up a copy of the lyrics. I’ll admit that time has dimmed my memory such that I don’t remember the lyrics anymore, but I do remember singing the song on car rides to debate tournaments.
The other big eye trouble-related memory from that class was that A. Cheung, who was a totally crazy guy, also apparently had some contacts/glasses-related problems during that year. In order to see the board, instead of using old glasses or asking to sit closer to the board, brought BINOCULARS to class! Every now and then, A. Phan and I would see him attempt to surreptitiously take out these massive binoculars and set his sights on the board.
Smallville
Eight Years
Date: (winter 2001-now)
It was a dark and cold night. My brother and I, with nothing to do, were just sitting on the couch, channel-surfing, making stupid jokes about this and that. We turn to what was once the WB where I hear something which catches my ear, something about a character named “Clark” would only pay attention to women who’s initials are “LL”. Although at this point I had not yet gotten into comics, the connection was immediately obvious to us, as we had both been avid followers of Paul Dini’s animated DC Universe stuff as well as watchers of the short-lived The New Adventures of Lois and Clark. “Clark” was clearly Clark Kent. “LL” was either Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, or Lana Lang.
Noting that the characters appeared to be in high school (Smallville High, no less), we made the conclusion that the show was definitely some sort of Superman in high school thing. I was a bit skeptical of the concept, but I continued watching. The first show that we watched was, appropriately, First Season’s “Cool” where a Kryptonite-infected individual gained the power to suck heat out of individuals he came into contact with. Yes, the premise was kind of lame, but somewhere in the midst of it, I came to really enjoy the show. It could have been the wonder of watching live TV superheroics. It could have been the gorgeous Ms. Kristin Kreuk. It could have been the awesome special effects. It could have been the angsty teenage thing that the show’s characters seemed to embody which I have, somewhat ashamedly, focused on for a time.
But, before I knew it, I was enthralled. In my senior year, as I became more and more into comics, I found that the show was refreshing — it was like bringing comics to real life without being ridiculously campy. I was a big fan of Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex Luthor and John Glover’s Lionel Luthor. Tom Welling’s Clark Kent had his moments, too. Bad Clark. Heat vision. Government/business conspiracies.Yummy.
And then I went to college. And, as lame as this sounds, Smallville served sort of like an emotional crutch for me. I wasn’t really leaving behind everything familiar, because I was still watching Smallville — it was something I used to do at home and it established a sort of continuity for me. I watched as the characters matured, as Lex Luthor became darker and darker, and I felt like I was, in a very detached and dorky sense I suppose, sort of growing with them.
And here we are, Season 6 (the best season by far) — and Smallville currently stands as the only television show that I’ve continuously watched from start to finish as it aired, episode by episode. It will probably end with Season 7 next year, and so again, it will act like a transitional thing for me between college and life as a working stiff (and if Smallville finishes where it’s supposed to, then that means my journey from high school Junior to working stiff is analogous to Clark’s transformation into Superman… hello delusions of grandeur)
“So what are you, man or superman?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet…”
Wigglesworth
Eight Years
Date: (fall 2003-spring 2004)
It wasn’t much to look at. Granted, I wasn’t expecting an expansive, well-furnished room for a dorm at Harvard — and in fact, I was grateful, compared to the crap Berkeley and Stanford dorms I had been exposed to, my rooming setup was VERY nice.
But… my immediate thoughts were, “damn, I have to spend a whole year here!?” I felt what I could only describe as a mild sense of claustrophobia. Then the nausea set in…
And the name… Wigglesworth? Had there seriously ever been a rich person on this planet named “Wigglesworth” who might have possibly donated this wing? I mean, maybe I’m being prejudiced here, but I’d NEVER do business with a guy who’s name sounds like it came out of a Harry Potter book.
And in fact, I did resist. Mercilessly. While many campus counselors and “guide to college” books and guides that I consulted recommended decorating a room as a means of learning to treat someplace as home, of learning to adjust and adapt, I steadfastly refused. I put up nothing but my books and what I needed for my studies. I refused to think of this place as home. This was where I slept and worked. That’s it. Nothing more. Home was back in California. Home was where my family was. Home was where I grew up. This. was. not. home.
But, as classes piled on work, and as I developed friendships with the people here, the room — which I had once detested just didn’t seem so bad. “Cramped” became “cozy”. “Dirty” became — well, “homey”. It was a place where I could relax, where I could hang out. I remember one day in November, I believe, when I looked down at the hardwood floor, cracked and splotchy in color, and covered in dust, and, despite its obvious imperfections, it was, to me at least, a beautiful sight to behold.
My “roommate” was from Boston and, for some reason, preferred to live off campus — I was thus left with an entire double to myself — my own bedroom, my own bathroom, my own common room. (To this day, I believe I’ve seen Andrei for a total time of less than two hours) And when it came time to head to the airport for my flight, I realized that I had just been a stupid idiot who hadn’t realized just how good the housing lottery had been to him.
My rooming situation, to this day, has never been as good as that of freshman year. And, (maybe this is my roommate Eric’s fault), no room since has ever been quite as homey to me.
NextGen
Eight Years
Date: (winter 2005-now)
Lester Leung struck me as very odd the first time I met him. The odd dash of color in his hair. The strange look in his eyes whenever he talked about “pirates”. And the paranoid side of me was always a bit uneasy around someone who seemed to be nice all the time and yet was pre-med — I thought he was going to stab me in the back sometime…
Of course, he was good friends with Eric (who had gone to high school with him) and he and I happened to run into each other pretty often as a result of sharing meals or because he and I were interested in similar biomedical things. That, and he plays Starcraft.
It was through these interactions that I discovered that Lester was not only a Kung-Fu pirate-crazy colorful hair premed, but that he had started an online publication — the Next Generation MD — a site made with the editors of the famed New England Journal of Medicine directed at providing information for pre-medical students around the country.
And, although I was skeptical, Lester reached out and recruited me. At the time, I was committed to dropping my work at the Harvard International Review and was unsure if I wanted to join up with yet another publication. But, Lester got me very excited very quickly. My first assignment — interview Professor Doug Melton, former Bush administration advisor and renowned scientist, regarding his views on stem cells. To say I was nervous is a bit understated. But, I pushed hard, and although Melton’s schedule proved dodgy, I finally was able to interview the man and we talked — or more correctly, I stammered while Melton delivered in his very cool deadpan a brief primer on stem cell science and the state of policy regarding embryonic stem cell research.
I followed this up with a much more difficult interview with Frederick Hayden, a big honcho in the world of avian influenza epidemic control, and Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Prevention, on the threat of bird flu. It was difficult for a number of reasons. First, the structure of the interview was a great deal more challenging as not only did I had to perform a great deal more research on both the policy and the scientific aspects of avian influenza, I also had to specifically research what both Hayden and Osterholm had done to best utilize them in my interviews. Secondly, scheduling, if I recall correctly, was very difficult, with me juggling two very busy and very different people. Finally, the interview was conceptually difficult because both Hayden and Osterholm had very different ideas and different interviewing styles for me to negotiate. While I think the article is one of the most substantive pieces that I’ve ever written for a general audience, I was somewhat daunted after the fact at the prospect of setting another interview.
Which brings us to this year. I’ll admit, I slacked a bit in first semester. I had crafted a very grandiose idea about interviewing politicians and public health professors about medical malpractice reform, but I found that my doubts from the Hayden/Osterholm interview and the sheer scope of the issue scared me away from actually writing one. However, when Eric, I believe, came up with the idea that I interview the Medical Consultant for Scrubs, one Dr. Jon Doris (namesake for Zach Braff’s character “JD”), I immediately jumped at the opportunity. The interview was a lot of fun to “do research for” (read: watch Scrubs until I feel sick) and even more fun to do as Doris was one of the most congenial people I’ve ever had the privilege of talking to.
Through NextGen, I’ve also been treated out, on the NEJM’s dollar, to Henrietta’s Table, I’ve also gotten to talk with some of the top editorial staff for the NEJM, meet some very interesting people, both undergrads and intervewees, but most importantly, I’ve contributed to what I think is a very worthwhile endeavor.
Team Aconcagua
Date: (2001-2003ish)
In high school, I was part of our high school Academic Challenge club. We participated in quiz bowl tournaments and the Science Bowl/Ocean Science Bowl tournaments. While I could probably go on and on about the crazy adventures we had, one particular tournament stood out to me. While in science tournaments, I was hot stuff (read: big nerd who could answer really nerdy questions really really quickly), I was only pretty good at general trivia. So, at this one tournament at Mills College, I was on the B team while our team hotshots were on the A team.
We were of course having fun, knowing that we probably wouldn’t take top prize but we would still do pretty well. Our team consisted of myself (then, a junior in high school), a senior (J. Tsai) with the distinction of being under 5 feet, a crazed sophomore (J. Cheng) who rounded out our useless academic knowledge with “more practical” knowledge in sports (note the sarcasm), and a hotshot freshman (K. Koai) who I had known since Junior High as short and was now the tallest member (and possibly loudest member) of the team.
Quiz bowl tournaments come in many different flavors with many different rules. This was a quiz bowl format which, if my memory serves correctly, used a bonus format whereby a tossup question is “tossed” to every member of every team. The team where the first correct response to that tossup question originated was then given a bonus question which allowed conferral between the team members.
For one of the bonus questions, our team was given a question which asked for the name of some mountain in South America with certain attributes — the specifics of the question, clearly, are lost to time. The amusing thing, however, was that none of us knew the answer. In our conferral we panicked — saying random names like “Mount Titicaca” and “Mount South America”. I think we finally went with “Mt. Andes” or something really stupid, and as I was the team captain, it was my job to inform the moderator of our answer. Before I said it, though, something clicked inside my head, and instead of saying “Mt. Andes”, I blurted “Mount Aconcagua” which I had suddenly remembered was the tallest mount in South America.
My team was in shock. “Mount Aconcagua? What the #$*#!?” I too, was somewhat shocked at the spontaneity of my response. I grimaced, waiting for the moderator to tell me that I was wrong. To my surprise, I was correct. Bemused smiles were suddenly on the faces of all of our teammates. Confused and somewhat shocked looks were on the faces of our opponents.
And hence, Team Aconcagua was born. That tournament witnessed two or three more instances of our spontaneous wisdom — allowing us to almost (but not quite…) trounce even the A-team when we faced them. We even competed together (although rarely all four of us together at once) in several other tournaments, and though we were never the champions of any tournament, the four of us always made random references to our victory as “Team Aconcauga”.