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The Anthropocene Reviewed — AcaDec, Rivers, and Resilience

Academic Decathlon and Personal Growth

  • Setting and characters

    • Narrator and best friend Todd share a close, supportive, mentorship-based relationship starting in tenth grade at a boarding school in Alabama. They live as roommates and deeply confide in each other, turning late-night conversations into a stream-of-consciousness sharing of personal moments, crushes, academic struggles, small pains, and secret thoughts.
    • The SAT anecdote illustrates Todd’s perfection and the narrator’s struggle: traveling to Georgia for a missed local SAT, bleary-eyed concentration, and Todd’s first question upon completion: “ostentatious” meaning, followed by the perfect score he achieved.

  • Key relationships and dynamics

    • Todd as mentor and catalyst: he identifies a potential in the narrator who was underperforming academically and helps transform that potential into achievement.
    • The narrator’s self-concept: a history of low self-esteem about academic potential, partly due to fear that trying hard would expose limited ability.
    • Mutual affection: the narrator’s confession of love and the emotional support that Todd offers, including the line, “I love you, but I have to sleep.”

  • What is Academic Decathlon (AcaDec)?

    • AcaDec features ten disciplines:
    • Seven objective events (multiple-choice tests): economics, fine arts, language and literature, math, science, social science, and a “Super Quiz” in Documents of Freedom.
    • Three subjective events (graded by judges): an essay, an in-person interview, and a performance of a speech.
    • Team composition per school:
    • Nine players total: three A students (GPAs > 3.75), three B students (GPAs > 3), and three C students (GPAs ≤ 2.99).
    • This structure ensures a mix of strong, moderate, and weaker students on the same equipoise-critical team.
    • Historical context in 1994: seven objective events + three subjective events; the narrator is part of a nine-member Alabama team.

  • Training and learning through AcaDec with practical examples

    • Joint study approach from junior year on:
    • They studied together as a group, reading an entire economics textbook and using Todd’s explanatory framing to make complex topics comprehensible.
    • Example: marginal utility explained through Zima (an alcoholic beverage), used as a relatable heuristic to demonstrate the concept:
      • One Zima gives some utility; two Zimas still increase utility but with diminishing addition; the added benefit declines with each additional Zima; the utility curve inverts around five Zimas (you throw up).
      • Folklore within the text: marginal utility rises initially but eventually declines and becomes negative beyond a threshold.
    • The passage clarifies how economics can illuminate everyday experiences and personal growth through accessible metaphors.
    • Subjects covered beyond economics:
    • Art history, chemistry, math, biology, and various other topics, showing broad learning across disciplines.
    • Outcome of the study approach: improved performance and broader knowledge base that made the narrator feel capable for the first time in academics.

  • 1994 Alabama State AcaDec and Nationals in Newark

    • The narrator’s self-described status: a “Lionel Messi of C students” who excelled in unexpected areas and earned seven medals (four golds) out of ten events, including a bronze in math despite a D in precalculus that year.
    • Overall performance: the Alabama team won the state championship, qualifying for nationals in Newark, New Jersey.
    • Nationals dynamics: Todd was a leading A student; the Alabama team finished sixth nationally. The narrator won medals in speech (topic: rivers) and others; the speech topic tied to the narrator’s lifelong interest in rivers and meanders.
    • The speech inspiration: the idea for the river speech came from a September afternoon on a creek where Todd commented that rivers keep going, which became a guiding metaphor.
    • Personal connection to rivers:
    • Noatak River (Alaska) and French Broad River (Tennessee) memory linked to the narrator’s summers with their father, shaping a lifelong affinity for rivers and their flow.

  • Transition to 2020: a life-altering moment and river metaphor

    • April 2020: the narrator is now a parent managing remote/online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic; stresses include work pressures and concern for a hospitalized friend who is recovering.
    • The shift from urban/academic focus to nature as a stabilizing force: the narrator finds normalcy outside, on the west bank of the White River in Indianapolis, writing with a charged laptop and a camping chair.
    • The White River scene:
    • The river is muddy and flooded, with uprooted trees moving downstream; the narrator describes how the river’s floodwater height and turbulence symbolize overwhelming life pressures.
    • Cognitive and emotional experience:
    • The narrator experiences persistent worries, with thoughts intruding and multiplying—anxiety about the virus and fear of time passing.
    • Reading memory and a highlighted passage from Terry Tempest Williams:
    • Quote: "When one of us says, 'Look, there's nothing out there, what we are really saying is, 'I cannot see.'" (highlighted years earlier)
    • The river as a continuous process:
    • The White River flows into the Wabash, then the Ohio, then the Mississippi, and finally the Gulf of Mexico, illustrating nature’s inexorable, ongoing process.
    • The return to memory and gratitude:
    • The memory of Newark’s hotel rooftop where the team celebrated their success with Zimas; the memory carries the narrator through difficult times, implying that love and shared experiences continue to support resilience.
    • The concluding reflection:
    • Maya Jasanoff’s line is cited: "A river is nature's plotline: It carries you from here to there."
    • The river metaphor ties personal growth, mentorship, and enduring love to the ongoing flow of life, even as circumstances change.

  • Thematic connections and implications

    • Mentorship and transformation: a motivating mentor (Todd) helps unlock latent potential, reconstructing the narrator’s self-image and academic trajectory.
    • Education as a pathway to belonging: successful engagement in AcaDec offers a sense of belonging and achievement, countering prior fears of inadequacy.
    • Time, aging, and mortality: the pandemic era deepens attention to time and life’s fragility, with nature (rivers) offering an enduring frame for endurance and continuity.
    • The power of memory and love: past experiences and relationships (Todd, the Newark trip, shared Zimas) continue to sustain the narrator in present anxieties.
    • Ethics and practical wisdom: balancing self-improvement with well-being; recognizing the limits of one’s capacity while leveraging mentorship to grow; finding solace in nature and memory during crisis.

  • Numerical and factual references (for quick recall)

    • Year and events:
    • 1994: Year of Alabama State AcaDec; national competition in Newark, New Jersey.
    • AcaDec structure:
    • Ten disciplines total
    • 7 objective events (multiple-choice)
    • 3 subjective events (essay, interview, speech)
    • Team composition: 9 players per school
    • 3 A students (GPAs > 3.75)
    • 3 B students (GPAs > 3)
    • 3 C students (GPAs ≤ 2.99)
    • Personal achievements and stats:
    • Narrator’s medals: 7 medals total, 4 golds, 1 bronze in math (despite a D in precalc that year)
    • Team outcome: Alabama state champions; finished 6th nationally at Newark
    • Linguistic/analytic nuance:
    • The term ostentatious is defined in the moment of the SAT anecdote as meaning “showy” or “over the top.”
    • Marginal utility example with Zima:
    • AcaDec study used Zima to illustrate diminishing returns; the marginal utility curve inverts around five Zimas.
    • Notation and concept:
      • Let U(z) denote utility from z Zimas.
      • Marginal utility: MU(z) = \frac{dU}{dz} with decreasing marginal utility: \frac{d MU(z)}{d z} < 0.
      • Inversion threshold: MU(z) > 0 \text{ for } z < 5, \ MU(5) \approx 0, \ MU(z) < 0 \text{ for } z > 5.
    • Quoted and referenced material
    • Terry Tempest Williams quote about unseen reality: "When one of us says, 'Look, there's nothing out there, what we are really saying is, 'I cannot see.'"
    • Maya Jasanoff quote on rivers as plotlines: "A river is nature's plotline: It carries you from here to there."

  • Sentiment and final assessment

    • The narrator ends with a personal rating: "I give the Academic Decathlon four and a half stars."
    • The ending emphasizes resilience, gratitude for mentorship, and the enduring sense that meaningful connections (like Todd and their shared river metaphor) propel ongoing life in the face of fear and uncertainty.

  • Connections to broader themes from the broader work

    • The Anthropocene Reviewed often contemplates how human experiences, memory, and small acts of influence (mentorship, friendship, shared challenges) shape the human condition within larger ecological and historical narratives. The AcaDec experience serves as a microcosm for how communities build competence, identity, and meaning through collaboration, competition, and narrative memory.

  • Practical takeaways for exam prep

    • Understand AcaDec structure and how it combines objective and subjective assessments.
    • Recognize the role of mentorship in skill development and overcoming academic self-doubt.
    • Be able to discuss how metaphors (like rivers) are used to convey persistence, continuity, and growth across time and circumstances.
    • Be ready to analyze how personal memory and present stressors interact in shaping resilience (e.g., pandemic context, caring for others).

  • Important quotations to remember

    • ostentatious: meaning “showy” or “over the top.”
    • "Look, there's nothing out there, what we are really saying is, 'I cannot see.'" – Terry Tempest Williams (highlight reference)
    • "A river is nature's plotline: It carries you from here to there." – Maya Jasanoff

  • Summary takeaway

    • AcaDec served as a crucible for the narrator’s intellectual awakening, the power of mentorship, and the enduring role of memory and love in sustaining perseverance through life’s unpredictable currents, much like a river that keeps going forward no matter the obstacles.