I’m not much for writing diary-like blogs because I’m rather attached to my impersonal writing style, but I thought I’d switch it up this week and share a little recap of my Saturday. TLDR: a 13-hour badminton tournament.Â
6:00am: Was probably a little too curt in asking my Echo Dot to shut off the alarm – sorry Alexa!
6:30am: One of my teammates picked me up and we drove over to the Dunkin’ Donuts on Ogden as per our usual pre-Saturday-tournament tradition: a small vanilla iced latte & hash browns. As luck would have it, we just so happened to hit every single red light within the 1.3-mile vicinity.
6:57am: Arrived at North – theoretically early, but technically 7 minutes late, since our Remind message had told us to get there by 6:50am sharp – oops.Â
7:00am: By some miracle, everyone on the team made it onto the bus on time – a first, and undoubtedly also a last – and we embark on our 57-minute bus ride to New Trier.
7:51am: We enter New Trier territory, oohing and ahing at the enormous mansions lining the streets of downtown Winnetka.Â
8:00am: A 10-minute self-guided tour of the school, since the security guard (!!) at the school’s entrance mislead us in telling us where the gyms were located.
8:11am: We arrive at the gym, which is marginally smaller than we expected. A team field trip to the bathroom ends in widespread disappointment – it’s small and dinky, a stark contrast from the rest of the school.Â
8:44am: The New Trier badminton coach starts explaining the rules of the tournament. The moment he opens with “This tournament will be nothing like any other tournament you’ve ever been to”, everyone on the team exchanges knowing glances with each other. Even after his 21-minute spiel, still absolutely no one – including the coaches – understands how the tournament works.Â
9:07am: Our first round of games begins. Meanwhile, our coach goes to talk to the Evil Orchestrator (aka, New Trier coach) to see if she can figure out what’s going on.
9:53am: We finish our first games, and our coach fills us in on the tournament details. As a conglomeration of round-robins, single-eliminations, and pools, the tournament is unfathomably disorganized. Our coach joking predicts that, at the rate games have been going, we won’t be back in Naperville until 6pm. We all casually laugh it off. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t a joke.
12:18pm: Three rounds in, and at least four more to go. Everyone on the team is hunched over their phones, frantically cancelling any plans we had made for the afternoon.Â
2:34pm: We move to another gym within the school, this one somehow even stuffier than the last one. As a saving grace, we find a hallway with windows that have been cracked slightly open. The whole team files out to relish the tiny slivers of fresh air; we sit there for at least half an hour, complaining about the rapidly deteriorating status of our Saturday.Â
3:13pm: Even more games. We’re practically running on fumes.Â
6:04pm: At this point, the only teams left in the gym are the two who have qualified for the championship round: us and A-School-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Even the New Trier team – the host school – has left.Â
6:46pm: The championship round ends, and we (finally) say goodbye to the Evil Orchestrator, putting up a facade of amicability while internalizing cursing him for stealing away the past twelve hours of our lives.Â
6:57pm: We climb aboard our bus and profusely apologize to our bus driver for the tournament ending an extra five hours later than anticipated. We sincerely hope he gets paid hourly wages and not per trip.Â
7:01pm: Driving back past the fancy real estate, catching glimpses of Lake Michigan through the windows of the houses. We beg our coach to let us stop by the beach, even if it’s for just a second.
7:06pm: The bus turns down a gravel path that leads down to the beach. Everyone shrieks out of joy, and we all book it to the shoreline the second we’re parked. The happiest 22 minutes of my life.
8:34pm: As we pull back into North, our rendition of the Fight Song is undeniably lackluster, a direct reflection of how burnt out the past thirteen hours have left us. We share one last team hug, and after having spent a borderline unhealthy amount of time together, part ways for the night.Â
Hi Bibiane,
Going into this blog I wasn’t really sure what to expect. To say the title certainly intrigued me would not be by any stretch incorrect. Reading about your tournament was interesting, especially since you had very exact time stamps for each of the little different events. Reading your blog also made me a little nostalgic, causing me to reflect on my high school experience. Even though the bus rides may be long and tiring on the way to and back, they also give for the most laughs and memorable moments. It’s these little things, like much of what you have described in your blog, that make high school unique and memorable. It’s what causes us to look back nostalgically on just about anything. Things like just your short twenty two minute visit to the beach are really what make us pause and smile. Going into college I hope to embrace your mindset, of just taking things in the moment. Great blog, and keep up the good work.
dearest Bibiane,
I am a big fan of your impersonal writing style. However, it’s just as great to hear your own unique, wonderful, amazing, seductive voice shine through. Are the three individuals in your first attached photo perhaps Rosana, Navika, and Maya????? I think that your 13-hour badminton experience is reminiscent of a coming of age film — in particular, the trip to the beach screams “essential heartwarming plot point that strengthens character bonds”. I remember seeing photos from the beach intermission on our friends’ instagram stories and being simply astonished by the beauty of the scene. Thank you for sharing about your adventure. I find the chronological organization of this piece to be deeply satisfying. Overall, I loved it. And you.
Bibiane! I return to your blog probably for the last time, and I’m glad someone has written about the dreaded 13-hour badminton tournament that I’ve heard so much about! To start, I’d love to know if you actually remember most of these time stamps because I’m assuming you’re just making them up as a rough guesstimate (at least most of them). Regardless, I love how you structured this blog by timestamp because it fits the diary theme very nicely. Despite the day being long and laborious, I’m glad you touched on the little things that make it more manageable. Small traditions, jokes, and team bonding activities can make any experience more memorable. I’m so glad your bus driver was chill enough to let you all stop by the beach because even by just seeing pictures of it on social media, I could tell it was a serene experience. No matter how long the day was, I’m sure you made some memories with your team which will last a lifetime. And that’s what matters in the long run. Peace.
Hi Bibiane!
I absolutely loved the chronicallity (is that a word?) of this blog! I can’t imagine how long this day must have felt, from 6AM to 8:30PM, and I swear that bus rides always end up feeling so much longer than they are. The fact that your bus driver let you visit the beach is sooo wholesome. I’ve had plenty of bad bus drivers in the past, so this gives me some sort of hope for the future generations. Anyhow, thank you for sharing!
Faith
Bibiane!!
Not gonna lie, reading through this recounting of the events that day is already giving me PTSD but as always, you managed to pull it off with so much humor even though it was such a dark day for all of us T-T (besides the bus ride to the beach afterwards, of course). I was reading your blog in my sociology class and couldn’t help laughing along because I love the title of The Evil Orchestrator (very accurate, by the way), and I felt like the words that you wrote summed up my mood and my thoughts perfectly on that day. I’m really glad you were there with us that day though, because you helped make the experience so light hearted and fun, even though I was slowly dying inside with each passing hour in that covid petri dish.