and Words
Bangkok, Oriental City
But the city don’t know what the city is getting
The creme de la creme of the chess world
In a show with everything but Yul Brenner
Time flies, doesn’t seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boards in it
All changed, don’t you know that when you
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
As I wrap up high school, I find myself attending a state convention. In this particular case, it’s a mass competition between many schools in Florida. On this multi-day trip, we packed those days with many events. I will compete in three events. They hold this convention for Mu Alpha Theta annually. However, this is the first time my high school has attended since I started. Our teachers and sponsors slowly increased interest in these competitions from one to the next.
They certainly did. It all started with one announcement over the intercom, “Anyone interested in participating in math contests, should attend this particular meeting for information.” Truthfully, I made up my mind already, I simply needed information on the logistics. I didn’t yet know how I would do, but it’s not just about winning. Years later, I continue to participate.
That’s right. I’m competing in mathematics and computer programming, and I’m proudly representing South Plantation High.
Florida is an absurdly large state, and it can take hours to drive to other cities within the state. On this particular day, we ride in one of those long buses that resemble a tour bus. I get mental images from Journey’s video for Faithfully as I see the series of buses running down the highway. Our particular high school didn’t have enough participants to fill one bus, so we rode with students from another school. I don’t remember precisely which school, only that there were strangers on the bus with us.
As our bus continues to cover the absurdly long distance to our destination, some students break out in song. In our case, we started to sing the 99 bottles of beer song. However, we would not sing it in a traditional decimal numbering system. No, we started counting down from 0xFF and continued from there. I did mention that we were computer geeks, right? Of course, starting out from 0xFF means that we had 255 iterations of this, which we did not last. I’m not entirely convinced that whoever started realized that we’d be singing more than two and a half times as long as we would have with the 99 bottles of beer version.
It only just occurred to me that this might’ve been a violation of school policy by glorifying drinking. Though to the letter of the law, we’re only talking about taking it and passing it down. I doubt that would’ve amused our administrators, but to my knowledge, they were not alerted.
On this particular convention, I’d be competing in mathematics, computer programming (we used BASIC), and a board game called Mastermind. It’s a game I learned when I first visited Hong Kong many years ago. They set up this competition to have each player be codemaker and codebreaker in two parallel games; the player who breaks the code in fewest guesses wins. Sadly, I was defeated on the first round. ☹️
The math competitions, in my case trigonometry, were split into individual and team elements. My team occasionally won these. The computer programming competitions were strictly team, and we were good. We regularly won our competitions. Most of us ended up programming professionally after college; I landed a job at Microsoft.
As I reminisce about those competitions, while we definitely wanted to win, ultimately, I don’t think it mattered that much. Sure, we wanted to get better at our craft, but solving the problems in clever ways was the ultimate reward. The trophies and ribbons were just gravy. We endured the early mornings, the long trips, and the nose deep in textbooks, because we were passionate about the subjects. In these competitions, we found kinship.
Transitively, these other students from different schools shared in our passion. While we may not know who they are or anything about them, they are a reflection of us in another town or zip code. In these collections of faces, mostly unfamiliar save from other competitions, we shared a common bond. They too were the geeks in their schools; they too endured isolation and ridicule. In a strangely ethereal way, we had more in common with these strangers than the more conventional friends in our respective schools. While I don’t deny they were my friends, I didn’t run in the same circles with the athletes, cheerleaders, musicians, and thespians.
During that long ride, as I peered out the window on the frigid bus, this song came on. It was Murray Head’s ‘One Night in Bangkok’. I don’t remember if it played over the bus’s speakers or if someone played it on the bus. My eyes fixated on the painted lines that delineated each lane as our ride covered the miles to our destination. If I looked at one particular spot, the paint lines would come on and off rhythmically, almost as if driven by the beat of the music.
As I reflect on the words, I only now realize how much they mirrored that weekend. That one night in Bangkok mimicked our time spent in that convention. It felt both foreign and familiar. Those other students against whom we competed were both adversaries and kin, and hence our exchanges were both adversarial and respectful. All that activity could be overwhelming. It’s as if we tasted wine for the first time. Some of us sipped and others gulped. Nay, it’s more like trying a really hot sauce for the very first time. You may abstain, taste, or devour. Partake too much and you’ll pay the price.
And much like the song, it all disappeared in a blink. In a world where we glorify the athletes and popular students, to know that there was a space like this for me fills me with gratitude. I don’t think I ever verbally thanked those teachers and sponsors for starting these competitions so many years ago, though I imagine that they knew.