Science Olympiad - "My people"

When I was accepted to Iolani School, I was most looking forward to joining Iolani's Science Olympiad Team, as their camaraderie was legendary.  

Four years later, I can say that SciOly has been the single most defining component to my high school experience, if not my personal growth.  For my classmates (Class of 2021) and I, it has been a true Bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story.

Two years ago, Hawaii's SciOly circuit was rocked by a scandal, with wide-ranging accusations of wrongdoing.  In the end, the state competition's organizers cancelled the results of a number of events, and our team could not go to the nationals, through no fault of our team or team members.  We were devastated.  The hard work of an entire year was cancelled.  That day, we drop home some of the boarding students to the dorm, with seniors sobbing in the back of our car.  Several of my team members decided not to return to SciOly the following year.  Many of our teammates felt that their dedication was arbitrarily overlooked,  set aside, cancelled by the event organizers' decision, and they could not repeat the unpredictable process the following year.  It took too much time, too much love, too much effort to set aside.  I have had brushes with defeated through my years of jiujitsu tournaments, but I have never felt the collective disappointment of an entire team.  Somehow, it seemed like sadness magnified with the size of our group.

Then, we faced the ultimate devastation.  During a school band performance, one of our SciOly team members, Samantha Lim, passed away suddenly from a sudden, undetected stroke.  Our team's morale could not be any lower.  

Until 2020 rolled around, and weeks before the State Championship, the entire State of Hawaii went into COVID lockdown.  For the second year in a row, all of our effort, all of our sweat, blood and tears were cancelled.  

When classes resumed in the Fall of 2020, I decided to run for the Team Captain position.  My "campaign promise" was not about winning the State Championship and bringing the trophy back to Iolani School.  I wanted to reenergize the team, I wanted to bring the morale back to where it was when I joined SciOly.  By now, we had sophomores and juniors who have only experienced the sorrow, but none of the fun.  Sally Ride's words kept coming back to me:  I wanted to make science cool again!