Indiana and New York

These are my two vacations of the summer. I went to Indiana a week and a half ago for the Future Problem Solving International Competition, which my team qualified for back in March by winning 1st place at the State Bowl. FPS IC was awesome, and much better than when I went two years ago. Then, it was held at a small old campus in Wisconsin. This one, however, was held at Indiana University, which I've heard is one of the top 10 prettiest campuses in the US. It was very pretty, once you got past the dorms; those looked like prisons.

The whole weekend was fun-filled, and although my team did not place in the top 10, we got the best score we've ever gotten (a 152; our previous best was a 147). Georgia as a whole did well, and although we are one of the smaller affiliates with about 27 competitors, the state took home a 5th, 4th, 2nd, and two 1st place trophies.

Twelve countries were represented at the competition, from Malaysia to Portugal, South Africa to Turkey, and about 46 US states, including Alaska, but sadly not Hawaii. One neat thing I learned is that there are no squirrels in Hong Kong, and no fireflies in New Zealand. The kids from those countries were amazed to be seeing squirrels and fireflies for the first time!

Now that I'm finally settled and unpacked from Indiana, we're off to New York! CJ's team is competing in a national baseball tournament in Cooperstown, and after that we'll be touring New York City. I'm looking forward to it, and I'll post lots of photos when we return!