The Last Chapter

In the comments to my last post, Benjamin wrote the following:

I've been trying for years to get on the show. (Have you seen "White Men Can't Jump"? That's me. Rosie Perez, not the dudes.) So, your posts are fascinating to me: So much I always wondered about - like how long between shows and figuring out the wagering, etc.

That made my day, honestly, because it's a major part of why I wrote these posts in the way that I did. Out of the number of people who go on Jeopardy, the percentage who write about it is small, and the percentage who write more than a couple of paragraphs is infinitesimal. I know that before I did this, I would have been interested to read how it all happened and how it felt. But I'll get back to that at the end of the post.

When I ended yesterday's post, I was sitting in the audience ready to watch Joel try to become a 5-day champion, and Jim and Jennifer try to prevent that from happening. So I'll start off with thoughts about the show. Spoilers starting ... now.

Jim was so nervous! I felt terrible for him - until he really came on strong in Double Jeopardy and got out in front of Joel. I thought he might be the one to knock Joel out going into Final.

A funny note about one of the early clues on the show - the clue had to do with the TV show Alcatraz. It made me laugh because during the end-of-show standing around and talking with Alex, he mentioned that he had DVRed Alcatraz the night before and was looking forward to seeing it. This is essentially why Alex isn't allowed to talk to the contestants most of the time, haha. I mean, it was harmless and Joel didn't even get the answer in the next game, but the fact that Alex has read all the shows already does mean that it's possible it came up in conversation because it was at the forefront of his mind.

I'll be honest - although I overall have something like a 65% rate of getting Final Jeopardy answers correct, this week was absolutely terrible for me. The sole one I knew this week was the Tasmanian devil, and even that was a last-second get for me.

Regarding the end of the game, I can only say, "Oh, Jennifer." I talked in my wagering post about how hard it was for me to really get my head around the idea of playing to win, and understanding that for the purposes of wagering, second and third place are both losing and therefore equal. It's simple; binary - "1"= 1st place, "0"= 2nd or 3rd. It was absolutely brutal to see that in the end, Jennifer just didn't play to win.

But hey, that's part of the game. If you're a tennis fan, you know that Brad Gilbert is well-known for talking about "winning ugly." No matter how you do it, a win is a win. So there you go - ugly win or not, Joel wrapped up the day/week as a 5-time winner. Two more people who were part of our pool would come back for taping on Wednesday, and be joined by another group.

And now for the aftermath, and my personal take on the whole experience. I'll tell the truth - I was gutted to lose, both in the sense of not winning and in the sense of falling to third place. This is maybe where the "what if"s can get you. But looking at the scores going into Final, I had no choice in what to do. I had to get the answer right to have a chance, and I didn't. I bet to be over Julie's double and Joel's wrong answer, and that's the very best I could do under the circumstances. The only "regret" I can have is that the gaps in my knowledge (and we all have them, don't kid yourself) were positioned precisely where an Opera Daily Double and a scientist Final could fall right into them. There were a couple of times I thought I knew the answer and didn't ring in (I was reasonably sure that the guy in Nickelback was named Chad, and I had "October" bouncing around my head for the Cuban missile crisis), but those times wouldn't have made the difference. Knowing that it was all building to a Final where I didn't know the answer, the only possible way I could have won was by making the game a runaway. And I just couldn't get in ahead of Joel on enough questions to make that happen.

Which is all very zen-sounding, and I truly do feel that way now. But in the moment, it was a little different. As I said, I was gutted. And there's no time or space to really process how you feel. You do quite literally step off the stage when the show ends, sign your paperwork, get escorted to the green room to get your stuff, and then get asked if you're going to stay to watch the other shows or if they should call you a cab right now. Right when you may want just a couple of moments to yourself, the champ is being rushed past you to change for the next show and all of the hubbub is starting again. And they're waiting on your answer about the cab.

The coordinator made some comment about me not being very talkative while collecting my things, and I said, "Well, some people are here just to play I guess and some of us are worried about covering our plane tickets home." The coordinator responded in a very cold tone of voice, "People like that rarely win. The ones who just want to have fun, those are the ones who win."

I felt like I'd been slapped in the face, and I brooded over it for quite a while. It seemed like he was saying you need to be independently wealthy and pure of heart to win at Jeopardy. In retrospect, though, I think it was just a simple misunderstanding.  I didn't mean that I was going on Jeopardy as a career plan, just that the opportunity had arisen at a bad time financially and making it happen had meant going into debt to someone I'd rather not owe anything to (not a loan shark, my kneecaps are safe!). In the wake of the loss, I was feeling very much like a failure, and like this whole thing had been nothing but a waste.

I chose to stay so that Julie and I could share a cab back to the hotel.  After Friday's game ended, I was standing out in the studio lobby feeling lost and sorry for myself when the audience for Thursday and Friday's shows started walking past. A number of people stopped to tell me that they thought I'd done amazingly well, that they were sorry I hadn't won, that I'd looked unbelievably calm up there. "Weren't you nervous at all?" Someone told me that they knew they could never make it on the show, but "at least I can say I met someone who was on!" To the random people in the audience who talked to me: you really helped. I can't thank you enough for the things you said.

This is what the studio looks like when you're
outside the gate waiting for your cab

I feel bad about the cab ride back with Julie, because I was really still trying to process what had happened in our game, and I know it's got to be terrible etiquette to talk to her of all people about my own sadness over losing. Back at the hotel, we shared an elevator with a guy who was interested in the fact that we'd just taped  Jeopardy, and he said he'd be fine unless any opera categories came up. I said, "Wait till May 24, and you'll see how I feel about opera!" When I got to my room I called Morgan, and I realized that I didn't want to spend the next day (his birthday, no less!) in LA alone, eating out with money I hadn't won. I canceled the night's reservation at the hotel, booked a new flight home, and went to LAX. I was back home in Denver by about 1 AM.

I spent the next four months (not the entire four months straight - I'm not Eeyore) deciding how I felt about the whole thing, and thinking about how I wanted to handle telling people about the show, and trying not to feel like a huge loser. Oh, and watching the Cult of Tesla thrive, with Google+ trending topic games, and online comics, and every time I just wanted to scream, "Don't talk to me about Tesla!" But of course I couldn't. Here's the thing, though: over those four months I realized that what the contestant coordinator said at the beginning was actually not just feel-good crap. Hundreds of thousands of people take the online test. A few thousand of those are contacted to do an in-person audition. A few hundred of those actually make it on the show. Every single one of them loses, most without ever winning. I'm competitive, and who doesn't think winning is more fun than losing? And who doesn't judge the people on TV against the yardstick of your own knowledge? But it's hard to meet the standards to get through the process and onto the stage, and even harder to have the guts to find out if you're as good as you think you are when you're sitting on your couch yelling out answers.

I did both of those things, and I lost. It's okay, though. I got to write a lot of blog posts, and learn a lot of things, and I got a lot of support and positive comments from people who know me, as well as total strangers. You don't get any of that if you're too afraid of failure to try.

She Blinded Me With Science

It's hard to even know exactly how to approach today's entry. But the first thing I'm going to say is that I will also be doing an entry tomorrow, so if you were hoping I'd shut up already, sorry! The second thing I'm going to say is that it's been too long since these entries involved a song to get stuck in your head, so here you go.

When the category headers are revealed and you're watching at home, you might look a little askance at one or two and wonder what on earth that might mean, but generally you just accept them. When they're revealed for your all-important game, your brain is racing and you're wondering things like: Seriously, what does that one mean? What do I know about that topic? What the heck is that? But before you know it, the champ is selecting the first clue and there's not much more time to think from that point forward.

...Because before you know it, you're getting the first question of the entire game wrong.

You know, if you'd asked me before I did this, "what would be the absolute worst thing that could happen on the show?" Well okay, "getting the very first question wrong" isn't what I would have said. I would have said, "answering with something like 'a threesome,' resulting in having Alex make fun of me and becoming YouTube famous." I told myself that if I could avoid that, I'd consider the experience a success. (High standards, I've got 'em.)

It's funny about that clue though - watching it on tv it looked very strange. Alex says "yes," and then I make a face and Julie rings in and gets it. Alex didn't correct himself out loud, but right as he was saying "yes," the judges were yelling "NONONONONO!" and that's why I made a face. I knew as soon as I heard them that I'd added a stupid 's' onto their name. Oh well.

I was doing okay as we went into the first commercial break. As I've mentioned before, at the break, the makeup artist comes over and touches up your face, and the coordinators come over and talk to you. You also get offered a little bottle of water if you want a drink. I did, so I opened it up, took a drink ... and promptly dribbled it down the front of my shirt. I had to explain that this wasn't nerves - I do stuff like this at home all the time. I was freaking out that there was going to be a big dark spot on my shirt when we came back from commercial, but the coordinator said, "oh honey, it'll dry, you'll see." And then she spent the entire commercial break standing and pressing a paper towel against my chest. All while saying "it's fine, I'm just going to stand here and press on your breast!"

I hated that Discount Tent category. It wasn't that hard, it was just random. We didn't get to the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round, which none of us had realized until the coordinator mentioned it during the commercial. I think I went to Shakespeare because it seemed like the most likely place for it, and I felt okay about the category. But even so, by the time the round ended, I remember all of us just looking at each other in a daze when he said we'd missed the Daily Double.

Things were good when the Double Jeopardy round started, and I felt like I did all right, although Joel running that Roman roads category didn't help me any. I knew the first few, but Joel was too fast. I was momentarily glad he got the Daily Double because I wouldn't have come up with "milestones" with a million years. Of course, it was only momentary relief since I found the Daily Double just a minute later in Opera Characters. This is not what I would consider a strong category for me, but time was running out and like I said before, I had decided before walking out on the stage that I'd play to win. In this case, I didn't have the confidence level in the category to wager enough to try to take the lead, but I picked something in the middle that hopefully wouldn't sink me even if I got it wrong. Which I did, because I had never heard of that character in my life.

Just like in yesterday's game, a wrong Daily Double by a challenger ended the Double Jeopardy round. Time for the Final, and I was in an awkward 2nd place position.

Quick note about wagering - as I said in a previous post, I practiced my wagering. However, I practiced it like this:

Normal pen, notebook paper

and on the stage, I was faced with this:

Half a sheet of paper and a Sharpie (which was considerably
duller than this one)

It's like practicing calligraphy and then being presented with a crayon and an index card. Bottom line, practice your wagering with a crayon and an index card!

It was all irrelevant though when I saw the Final Jeopardy clue. I read the clue and tried to think of it in every way possible, since I didn't know it right away. Balkan? That wasn't going anywhere. Invented the 20th century? Twentieth century inventions didn't really take me anywhere that sounded Balkan. Back to thinking about Balkan countries and ... nothing. If I'd been able to come up with anything at all, I'd have written it down, but I don't know that my mind has ever been blanker than it was in those 30 seconds.

And then it was all over, and Joel had now gone through 7 of his 11 possible competitors. Julie and I signed our paperwork and got our stuff from the green room, and were ushered to seats in the audience. The people in front of us told me I'd done great and some other nice things. I was still basically in a fog. Then in a blur, Friday's show was starting, with Joel now a 4-time champion.

Tomorrow I'll talk about Friday's game as well as giving a post-mortem on the experience, including why I wrote all of these posts when I knew it ended like this. I hope you'll come back to read it.

Get Ready, Get Set

I think I'm going to change things up and talk first about today's episode, and then add my experience at the end. Nothing of note really happened between the end of yesterday's episode and the beginning of this one except calling the next people to be Joel's competition for "Wednesday," and a mix of relief and disappointment at not being called. Our ever-dwindling group (six of us, now) of remaining contestants-to-be sat in the audience and watched the show, exchanging nods, smug smiles, upraised hands, or shrugs depending on how we felt about any given question.

But before I really get into anything about the game: SPOILERS! There will be spoilers past this point! If you haven't seen the game, stick your fingers in your ears and say "lalalalalala." Or actually don't, because that won't prevent you from reading the spoilers. The spoilers for today's game. The spoilers that start right now.


(Incidentally, if you didn't hear that last part in the voice of Kronk from The Emperor's New Groove, like when he says "The poison. The poison for Kuzco. The poison chosen especially to kill Kuzco. Kuzco's poison. That poison?" then you need to run out and watch that movie immediately. Well, after you read this.)

Now that that's out of the way: today's episode, which featured Barb and Jody trying to beat Joel. First, did you notice Alex turning after he ruled Jody incorrect for "Boulder Dam?" That's because there was a yelled chorus of "YesYesYesYes!" from the judges' table.

Jody seemed very nervous, and I noticed that he switched hands for the buzzer after the first break. The contestant coordinators come over and talk to you during the commercial breaks, and one of the things they'll do is give you suggestions for things to try if you're having trouble ringing in.

Before this week started airing, I thought Joel had left out the verb in his Final Jeopardy response twice in a row, but I realized after seeing yesterday's show that it was actually a reversion to form on this show. Also, I didn't make a "me Tarzan, you Jane" joke about it after Monday's show because I couldn't remember if Alex made one on the second day (you don't want to step on Trebek's jokes, do you?), but now I see he didn't. Instead he just told Joel, "you must learn to appreciate verbs." Definitely heard the laughs from the audience this time - it's the same audience for the first 3 shows, so this was everyone's second time seeing Joel do that.

As for the actual final, this was the first one of the taping that I'd been able to come up with. It took me till nearly the last second (I think I would have had time to write it down though). The clue in Animals read, "A 2005 study reported that this animal named for an island has, pound-for-pound, the most powerful bite of any mammal." The reason it took me till the final few seconds of the "think" music was because I'd been casting around mentally trying to think of islands with animals named for them. The Madagascar ... nothing. Iceland ... Hawaii ... Shetland pony! I kind of wished this had been my game because I'm sure a response that said Shetland pony Tasmanian devil would have gotten a laugh.

And that's it - Joel won again. After Wednesday's show is taped, everyone gets a break. One of the coordinators takes the remaining contestants to lunch at the cafeteria on the lot. That was 6 of us waiting to play, plus Joel. I had a salad and double chocolate chip cookies, which my companions gave me sort of a hard time about (the healthy vs. not-so-healthy components), but it was really about what I thought I could keep down with some sugar for energy. My stomach had mostly settled down, but the 2 hours of sleep was taking a toll. Lunch conversation was pretty relaxed - we talked about Wheel of Fortune and how they're the moneymaker and Jeopardy gets second-best of everything. We talked about the morning's games. Then it was time to head back to the studio.

The folks remaining got a second round of warmups at the podiums. Joel and I were both in the first group for the practice game. I very quickly got in first on three questions in a row, and they called me to rotate out. Right when they did that, Joel gave me a sidelong look and said, "you're fast on that thing." I said, "yeah, I don't know what I'm doing differently than this morning, but it seems to be working."

After the practice, they called out the names of Joel's next two competitors: "Ursula! Julie!" We went back and had our makeup touched up and our microphones attached, got our last "good luck"s from the remaining few in the contestant pool, and then headed out to the set. Meanwhile, the new afternoon audience had come in. Julie and I drew for positions - I got #2, so I'd be at the middle podium. We got settled in, wished each other luck, and then the Jeopardy theme started playing.

It was go time.

Jeopardy by the Numbers

Here's something I thought might be a little fun: I did a (very) quick sketch of the Jeopardy set as seen from a podium, as I remember it.

By the numbers:

1 - The podium, obviously. The dark lines around it are where the dividers get put in for Final Jeopardy. To the left of your screen is a Sharpie, which is your writing implement for wagering (more on that later) and also there in case something disastrous happens with the technology in the Final. There's a piece of paper next to it where you can write your response in case of malfunction - I don't think they'd like it if you used the Sharpie on their screen.

2 - The game board, also obviously. It's true - you read the clues off small TVs that are across a large room from you. It becomes easier to understand why you sometimes see people leaning in or squinting at clues, and how easy it would be to misread something. Also, all around that border are small light bulbs that come on to show you when you can ring in. (I forgot to draw them.)

3 - A big TV screen. You might think this would be a great place to put up the actual clues so everyone could read them easily. You might be right about that, but it's only for video clues and Final Jeopardy.

4 - Cameras!  Remember when Cindy Brady went on the quiz show and she was mesmerized by the red light on top of the camera? I don't think these had any red lights. I also can't say for sure that the cameramen were standing there, but I figured I should put some people in lest you think the whole thing is run by robots.

5 - Another camera, one that they don't really talk about, and then all of a sudden the show starts and this thing comes sweeping out toward you and just when you should be smiling, your expression is a mix of confusion and uneasiness. Am I supposed to look at that thing? Ignore it?

6 - Alex! He is also across a large room from you. You need to speak loudly enough for him to hear. Yeah, you're wearing a microphone, but that only helps for the broadcast. You're relying on your own ability to project for Alex.

7 - Table of judges and other stuff. The guy who triggers the lights for ringing in sits there. When you see Alex look off-camera for a moment when he's not sure if something is right or not, that's where he's looking. They also yell "YES" or "NO" to overrule Alex when he makes the wrong call.

8 - You say "hey, wait a minute, where's 8?" Good, you're paying attention. The 8 should be right above the cameras and cameramen, and it's where the scoreboard is. When you see someone glance off to the left somewhere in the middle of the game, that's what they're looking at.

Thoughts about tonight's game (SPOILERS! Here be spoilers! And maybe dragons, so proceed with caution...)


Mike was an interesting character. If this were a reality show, he would be the first one to say, "I'm not here to make friends." Having said that, we got along pretty well. You know how long his interview felt watching at home? It felt even longer live.

I was a little surprised Joel didn't get the "a grave is a grave is a grave" reference to Gertrude Stein, since "a rose is a rose is a rose" is a pretty famous quote of hers, and she's well-associated with Oakland thanks to "there is no there there." On the other hand, Joel is not originally from Oakland so it may not have been as clear a connection to him.

Oh, Marnie. I was sad that she chose not to go for it on the Daily Double at the end of the first round.

Overall, this game felt easier from the audience than Monday's did. The Tribes category was pretty brutal, though.

When the Final Jeopardy category of 1957 was revealed, we all looked at each other and shrugged. We compared what we knew about 1957, and the answer was ... next to nothing. For the actual clue, most of us thought first of Kansas and Brown v. Board of Education, but we all knew that was wrong. Then most of us settled on Mississippi, although no one felt like it was right. I believe none of the contestants-to-be got this one right, but I could be mis-remembering.

And that's it for Tuesday's show. Oh, except for Alex saying "We'll do this again in 23 1/2 hours." Ha! More like 23 1/2 minutes. As usual, you can pop over to The Jeopardy Fan for a real recap (they're usually posted a little later in the evening), or to the j-archive (today's show is already up!) to check out the clues, responses and game dynamics. And I will be back in 23 1/2 real hours or so to talk about some other stuff and Wednesday's show.

T-Minus 3 Days

Oh hey, look what turned up in my email box yesterday!

And I'm wearing heels. Small ones, but still.

Anyway, after waiting what feels like an eternity, the first show of my week aired tonight. I'm going to go ahead and talk a little bit about what happened before that show was taped, and then I'll throw in some thoughts on the episode itself. After our makeup was done, and everyone had filled out their paperwork, we walked into the studio for the first time. It's smaller than you might expect, and very bright. (I'll talk about the set itself tomorrow.) I was pleased to see two things about the live audience (well, three things actually): 1, they weren't in the studio yet; 2, the audience area was actually pretty small; and 3, the set is so bright that it's nearly impossible to make out the audience.

Everyone went up on the stage to stand behind the podiums for the first time. They show you how everything works - the lights that will come on around the game board to let you know when you can ring in, how to write your name on the screen, where the signaling device is kept and how to use it. I was told to get in the front and do the writing, so I got to touch everything first, and at this point I still wasn't feeling great from the food poisoning the night before, so I was hoping this wasn't a sign that I was going to be playing in the first game. The last part of the orientation was going up and playing part of a mock game. They picked three people to stand up there and start the game, then as each of them seemed to get the hang of ringing in, they would rotate in someone new.

When it was my turn, I was surprisingly nervous. It was a practice game, in front of only the staff and my fellow contestants, but it was still nerve-wracking. I was terrified I wouldn't get the rhythm of ringing in and I would stay up there forever trying to get called on. The coordinators tell you that everyone has to find their own sweet spot for pressing the button. If you're young and play a lot of video games, you can probably use the lights coming on as your cue. If you're not exactly Quick Draw McGraw (and also probably if you're old enough to know who Quick Draw McGraw is), you may need to anticipate the lights a little to help your reaction time. I was up there for a little bit, but not an excessively long time.

Then it was time to find out who was going to play Jacob in the first show of the week/day. (They use the highly-scientific method of writing everyone's name on index cards and drawing two.) The lucky winners were Joel and Cindy!

Quick (relatively, I'm not good at "quick") comments about today's show (don't read it if you haven't seen the show! There are spoilers and some of it probably won't make sense.): 

Alex talks to the audience on the commercial break and he explained that although he had said it was good to be back home in the intro, they hadn't actually gone to Washington, DC yet.

Joel was trying to decide which interview snippet to use and I said he should go with the car story. It was definitely the funniest choice, in my opinion.

In our group of contestants-to-be, we were pretty gender-divided on getting the Laura Ingalls Wilder answer.

I forgot to listen to see if the laughter that broke out in the studio after Alex read Joel's response of "What Doubt" came through on the broadcast. In the pre-show briefing, they tell you that if you don't write in a verb, it's technically acceptable, but that you don't want to give the judges anything to pick on with your answer. I think it must have been like telling a kid, "don't run," and all that gets stuck in their head is "run," because somehow Joel ended up completely forgetting the verb. Alex looked briefly at the judges before saying for sure that the answer was correct, but it wasn't a big deal.

Afterward, Joel said that he didn't know the answer at first, but focused in on the "fall 1964" part of the clue. He'd seen the movie version and said something along the lines of "they kept showing that damn leaf." (I haven't seen the movie, so I can't say if it would have been enough to trigger my memory. I didn't get the final.)

We were all happy that someone from our group had dethroned the reigning champion. Score one for us!

I was pretty relieved that that hadn't been my game; I didn't know the Final and I felt like there were a fair number of pretty hard questions. I have no idea if that's true or if I felt that way because I was imagining myself trying to answer those questions!

Well, those are my thoughts on it. If you're looking for a real recap of the show, you should definitely visit Jeanie's blog The Jeopardy Fan!

Here We Go

Today is Friday, and the week of "Power Players" on Jeopardy ends tonight. Next week the shows airing will be the ones I was present for. How exciting! So what that means is, it's time for me to quit talking about preparation, and wagering, and start talking about the actual experience of being there.

I flew to LA on Monday afternoon, alone, since Morgan had to teach class. I caught the shuttle from LAX to the hotel. My plan was to relax a little, have dinner, go for a run, and then turn in early since the shuttle to the Jeopardy studios left at 7 am.

You know what they say about plans.

The relaxing went fine. Then I went across the street to get something to eat, which also went fine. Everything after that quickly became not fine. I was feeling a little icky, but an hour and a half or so after I ate, I went downstairs to the hotel gym for a run as planned. That did not improve the ickiness at all, and in fact, I felt flushed and in serious stomach pain. So I went back up to the room to lay down.

As if.

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow account of the evening and night, but let's just say that it passed in a haze of queasiness, pain, and lying on the bathroom floor. I estimate I slept for about 2 and a half hours. In the morning, I felt quite a lot more human, but I would not say I was at 100%, even leaving out the sleeplessness. Breakfast was free, but I gingerly ate some fruit and a bagel, and that was it. I wondered what would happen if I told them I simply wasn't well enough to play today. I figured I'd just have to see how it went.

I went back up to the room to get my changes of clothes (you're supposed to come with several outfits, not only in case you win but also in case one is terrible on tv - there are certain colors they ask you not to wear, and small or busy patterns can be a problem) and then came back down to the lobby where I got my first confirmed glimpses at my competition. (The nervous expressions and garment bags were dead giveaways.) We made small talk about where everyone was from, and the fact that we were all assured to actually make it to the shuttle since we were all together. Most people seemed pretty nice; a couple kept to themselves (which is not to say they weren't nice, of course).

The shuttle ride was pretty jovial. The topic of studying came up and a number of people said things like "I figure if I don't know it by now, I'm not going to be able to cram it into my head before the show." I assumed they were sandbagging. For my part, I just said that studying isn't as easy now as it was when I was in high school. Once we arrived at the studio, one contestant was already there who had a brother he was staying with somewhere in the LA area. Our pool was almost complete - we were missing one woman who lived in LA but hadn't arrived yet. Oh, and we were of course also missing whoever it was that was the current reigning champion!

We all got directed into the green room, and it's hard to explain exactly what a model of controlled chaos it is, but I'm going to try.

This? Slower than the pace in the green room.

In the green room, you have:

12 soon-to-be-contestants ...
2 contestant coordinators (one of whom is very loud, while the other one is merely quite loud) ...
2 makeup artists in a small room off to the side ...
a constant very loud rundown that is part pep talk, part everything you need to know about being on the show (buzzing in, answering, how much leeway there is for mispronunciations, what happens if your stylus doesn't work during Final Jeopardy, what to do if you feel there's been a judging error made, on and on) ...
a constant quite loud review one-on-one with each contestant in turn about the information you've provided on your forms ...
calls for contestants to go one at a time back to get their makeup done ...
contestants getting up to go to makeup, or to the bathroom, or to get some food or drink (I was still eating grains and fruit very carefully at this point - my stomach seemed to be recovering but I wasn't going to take any chances)
repeats of relevant parts of the rundown for anyone who missed them while getting makeup done or going to the bathroom ...
pen clicking (oh, the infernal pen clicking - just like at the audition) ...

Hopefully that gives you some idea.  And somewhere in the midst of all that, we got introduced to Jacob Silverman, our nemesis. He was a 3-day champion, and they told us he had had a bit of a break between shows because there were a couple of weeks of special shows that would be aired between his last win and what we were about to tape.

This is way too long already, so I'll save some things I was going to say for the next entry, which will be on Monday. I'll try to write something each day next week and get the rest of my story out there interspersed with whatever I have to say about the shows from the perspective of the audience.

The job hunt

Looking for a job with a specialized degree like mathematics can be tough.  There really are not as many jobs in the U.S. as it may seem.  I can always remember hearing "we need more people studying math and science."  Because of this, there seems to be this perception that there are a million jobs out there with no one to fill them.  I'm sure if my degree were in statistics, financial probability, or optimization, I could easily find a job in some corporate or engineering-related field.  But for someone like me, the situation is quite different.

I am what they call a "pure" mathematician.  This is in comparison to an "applied" mathematician.  An applied mathematician studies math to solve problems related to the real world, things like ocean currents, satellite communications, etc.  A pure mathematician works on solving problems that are of interest to the field of mathematics.  The discoveries of a pure mathematician may apply to some of these real world situations, but studying those applications is left to other people.  An organization like Google, Microsoft, IBM, or the NSA may want to hire a pure mathematician; they have identified mathematical problems they want solved, and then they will use their engineers to worry about actually applying the results.  Companies like Lockheed-Martin or NASA probably would only want an applied mathematician, maybe even someone with an engineering or physics background.

The three types of jobs that would be available:

1: Government- This would be if I were to either work researching for an organization like the NSA or funded as a researcher by some government program.

2: Industry- This would be a job from some private company, doing research.

3: Academic- This would be a job as a professor or researcher at a University.
Of course, finding a job in these areas is also restricted by the kind of math I do.

Getting a math job for the government is difficult in the U.S.  There are only a few agencies that would hire a pure mathematician; these would either be the National Science Foundation, or one of the agencies related to defense such as the NSA.  The NSF primarily offers highly competitive research grants.  To apply for these, I would come up with some sort of project to propose, write up the details, explain why they should throw a bunch of money at it, and convince them that I am awesome enough to get this project done.  The NSA, on the other hand, specializes in highly paid positions requiring security clearance and a strict "I could tell you but I'd have to kill you" policy.

What this means for me is that, if I were to stay in the country, I would be pursuing an academic job.  This is where it becomes most apparent that we are not really suffering from a lack of mathematicians: each academic job opening gets somewhere near 300 applicants.  This generates a cycle where PhD graduates feel like they have to apply for around 200 positions, hoping the numbers work out in their favor to get a job.  I'll explain more in another post about actually applying for these jobs, and the different kinds of academic jobs.  In a nutshell, a lot of these positions aren't really jobs I would want for a variety of reasons and I see it as a waste of time to apply for a job I wouldn't take.

This is a "to be continued" sort of post.  Next time I'll explain the application process, why some of these jobs would be terrible for me, and why the grass is probably greener overseas.

Care To Bet on That?

In all the preparing for Jeopardy, the most dreaded aspect was wagering. Everyone can remember a time when they watched someone completely blow a game because of a wager that was too large or too small. Heartbreaking. Of course I wanted to avoid that, but here's the thing - I've never really enjoyed math. Besides that, though, wagering is less like plain old math and more like chess crossed with probability. I was terrible at probability when we did that section in school. I could never understand how many tries it would take to pull out a pair of socks from that drawer.

Now I'm married to a mathematician. That would seem to make it easy. In fact, when one of my fellow contestants heard that, she said, "oh, so he could tell you what to do." Well, it's not quite like that. I have a hard time memorizing things like math - I need them to make sense to me. I can't believe "just because" or "just do this, it works" as a reason. Here's a case in point: a couple of months ago, someone online brought up the Monty Hall problem. I had never heard it before, and so I talked to Morgan about it. Well, actually, it's more like we argued about it for an hour. He explained the right answer to me, but it still didn't make sense. So I argued my position, and asked "but why..." a million times, and in the end, I got it. I not only knew the answer, but I understood it.

Which brings me back to why it very quickly became clear that the wagering calculator at the Jeopardy archive, while an incredibly useful tool, was just not going to work for me. It explains all the various rules for wagering - there's a 3/4 rule, and a 4/5 rule, and a 2/3 rule, and all kinds of other permutations (are scores evenly spaced? Do two scores add up to another score?) that started making my head swim. So I asked Morgan to look through the whole mess and explain it to me in a way I could make sense of. He did a fabulous job, but overall after many days we were still at the "but why ..." stage for me, and I wasn't feeling any more confident at betting. One mental block I had centered around wagering recommendations that seemed to create a loss - betting big, where clearly you'd win if you were right, but you'd not only not win if you were wrong, you'd be dropped all the way to 3rd place. This seemed wrong to my risk-averse mind. Eventually, though, I started to understand that the probabilities mostly take into account winning vs. losing (2nd and 3rd are both losing - you either win or you don't, after all), and additionally are trying to prevent situations that actually turn a win (you got the answer right) into a loss (you bet too small and someone was able to pass you). So I was able to get into the right mindset, which is summed up in three little words: play to win. Seems simple, but it was hard for me to get over the fear of ending up last.

Anyway, once that was straightened out, I had the right attitude but I still lacked the skills to consistently come up with the right answers, let alone do it quickly. First I was looking at the scores and trying to figure out what situation they fell into, and then I was doing the math for what I thought my bet should be. But when I checked my answers against the wagering calculator, I kept finding things I hadn't thought about or realizing that the scores actually fell into a special case. I was a mess, and Morgan's explaining wasn't helping me any. Worse than that, I couldn't tell him exactly what it was I needed from him. So I asked him to go away for a while and I would figure out where the disconnect was happening for me, and then he could help fill in the blanks.

This resulted in me coming up with a chart of all the numbers, and then asking him to show me what they all meant for wagering. Morgan was impressed that my little chart really did provide all the info necessary to make a wager, and once I had it, he was able to help me learn to interpret it. Here's what you do, step by step (this one focuses on 2nd place, because 1st place normally has it easiest, needing to bet to cover second's doubled score, and 3rd place's figuring often needs to know what 2nd should do).

First, write down all three scores. I start with third on the left. The lines in between them are for the differences between the scores. (I chose to work with round numbers and put "R" or "W" next to them so I would know if I should add a one, thus removing a place where I could make stupid computational mistakes.)

Next, fill in second and third's doubled scores.

Now that you have the doubled score for 2nd, you can fill in what first place's bet to cover should be. I write the number up above first's score and then actually add it, putting the total below to make sure I'm not making any dumb math errors.

The final math steps are to subtract first place's covering bet and put that under his column, and then figure out the difference between your current score and that number, then between your current score and third place's doubled score. Fill in those numbers along with an R or W designation.

Now you have all the information you need to figure out how to wager. Ideally, you want to make a wager that will meet these conditions: if you get it right, you will stay above third place's doubled score (this is your minimum bet), and if you get it wrong, you'll be above first place's wrong answer (this is your maximum). In the example above, it works out that you can do exactly that by wagering between 4101 (add the dollar for the "R") and 4900 (it's a "W," so leave the number as is).

This is a basic example, but using this will cover all the eventualities - if your minimum bet turns out to actually be more than your maximum bet, you're in what they call "Stratton's Dilemma," where you have to decide whether you hope to win on a right answer or a wrong one. There are also a couple of situations where you have to take into account double the difference between your score and first place's current score, but again, if you practice with this and check your conclusions against the wagering calculator, it'll become clearer. If you're interested in more examples or how to use this system, feel free to drop me a message.

Don't Know Much about History

Actually, I know a fair amount about history, or at least I used to at one time. But continuing on in the theme of "songs to get stuck in your heads," here you go, a song appropriate for a post about preparing to appear on Jeopardy.

I left off last time after getting the call from Jeopardy. What happens shortly after that call is a growing dread as you realize that you have the entirety of human knowledge to somehow cram into your brain over the course of about six weeks. Then you say to yourself, "Well, sure, but you don't really have to know everything, just the things that are likely to come up on Jeopardy." Which sounds great, until you ask yourself, "Okay, self, who was the 23rd president of the US?" And then you follow that up with "What do you really know about The Odyssey, besides the fact that you didn't finish reading it in high school?" And, "Let's discuss what you know about baseball, poetry, business, hockey, ballet ... shall I go on?"

In my case, you then realize that you're also going to be dealing with the holidays cutting into your prep time, and the new year, and your own birthday, and your husband's birthday falling on one of the possible taping dates, as I mentioned in the last post. So great, there shouldn't be any distractions or anything. Then you curl up into the fetal position for a while and consider calling them back and cancelling the whole thing.

But after that, you get down to business on trying to be as prepared as possible. I'll tell you about what I did.

Oh, but first I have to say that if you watched Jeopardy this last Friday, you saw the guy who was introduced to my group of contestants as the reigning 3-day champion, Jacob Silverman. It took me by surprise when I saw him on last Wednesday's show. Because of the 3-week gap created by the Teen Tournament and some celebrity competition, my show is suddenly both very near and very far away. The Monday the regular show returns will begin the shows of my Jeopardy "class." Anyway, back to the process of prepping.

The most important thing to me was to have down cold the things that come up a lot that will make you look like an idiot if you don't know. Presidents, world capitals, the Constitution, basic things like that. When I was in high school a million years ago, my AP US History teacher had us keep our notes on index cards, and I went back to that technique for my Jeopardy studying. One set of cards was for presidents in chronological order, with their home states, years served, and political parties. Then each president also had a card where I had the details of their lives and presidencies - full names, wives, occupations, places and methods of death, burial places, notable happenings during their time in office.

I did crunches at the gym counted off as "Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson...," push-ups counted as "Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy...." You get the idea. If it could be put in order, I used it. Countries of the world by size, by population. British royal houses and monarchs. Vice presidents. And things that didn't have any order, I just read their index cards while I was on the treadmill (which was funny when I knocked them over trying to move them and they all went flying).

I forced myself to read the news (less than I should have, I admit), which is something I haven't done since 1989, because I could envision getting a Daily Double that would essentially boil down to "who is currently in charge in Germany" and me not knowing. (Although that's actually the only one I really would have known, since I went to Germany last year.) I learned members of the cabinet. I learned the periodic table, straightened out those Greek names that I only vaguely knew, learned about ancient Rome, various wars in Europe, and bit the bullet and tried to learn a little bit about philosophy and economics. I made timelines to help put events and people in context. I listened to opera. I was like Johnny 5 in Short Circuit - "more input!"

I was like Johnny 5, that is, until I started to realize that my brain was behaving less like a sponge and more like a conveyor belt - I felt like things I had "learned" early on were being pushed out the other side by new information. I'd reached the end of my capacity (at least for such a short period of time). It coincided with there only being a week or so before the actual taping, too, so I had to decide whether I wanted to plug the holes in my mental bucket and try to retain what was already in there, or just keep pouring water in and hope that whatever was in there at the moment of taping was useful. I decided to plug the holes - I would resign myself to my lack of familiarity with Wordsworth poetry and the World Series.

In the end, after endless conversations with my husband about the role of luck in anything like this (watching at home, some boards make me feel like a super-genius and others leave me wondering where I was when people learned all these things), I figured I was as ready as I was going to get. My plane tickets were purchased, the hotel room was booked, I had picked out what I was going to wear, and I'd made my week-before call to the Jeopardy folks to confirm that I'd be there. Nothing remained to do but completely freak out.

Limbo

Things are strange after completing a PhD.  Things feel different; I'm not a graduate student anymore, I'm an actual PhD mathematician.  Professors are almost colleagues now (almost).  I still have, of course, a long while until I am at the same point in my career, but I'm much closer to their level.  On the other end of the spectrum, when a graduate student asks me a question, I'm answering as someone who has finished a PhD.  I'm not sure how big the distinction is, but it still feels like I'm not quite in the same place they are.

Of course, the difference is mostly in how things feel.  While I've finished my degree, I'm still a student for the rest of the semester.  When that is over, I'll be teaching a summer school class for basically graduate student pay.  But teaching feels more authoritative, not like I didn't know what I was talking about before, but I feel more like a real professor.  It's a good feeling, overall, but there is also an impression of being stuck between worlds.

A big part of feeling stuck is the uncertainty of where I'll be working next year.  This throws everything up in the air.  We will definitely not be staying in Denver, but we don't know exactly when or where we will be moving; so the questions start to pile up.  Anything we might decide to buy becomes a question of how badly do we need it, and how hard will it be to move?  For example, we want to get a blender.  But do we really want to box it up in a couple of months to move it?  Also, what happens if we move to Australia, and we sit there looking at the blender wondering what sort of adaptors we need to plug it in?

It also feels difficult to plan anything.  Jack White is playing a concert on August 8th, and we both really want to go (he's a favorite of Ursula's).  But will we still be living here?  Maybe we will be, and sorry we didn't get tickets.  But maybe if we buy them, we'll be trying to unload them in July to move out of town.  The moving itself is also a complication.  We may need to move things into storage, but where? Do we truck everything out to California, and then put it into storage there?  I know these are first world problems, but with how good married life is, I need something to complain about. :)  All we really know is we'll move somewhere, probably sometime after July, and then who knows what.