Social Math

Oh that's unfortunate.  Only my fabulous new school friends ("cohort") will get the title joke.  But they will not read this.

Let's cut to the chase for this entry:  I am a winner.  Last night was no different.  A big group of us went to the school-sponsored happy hour for public health/Hopkins trivia yesterday.  Since the MPH program started a few months before us, and all of us were out of towners (except for Cass, our intrepid TA) we were perhaps the newest to the school and knew the least about public health/Hopkins.  It did not help that we did not submit any questions and there was nothing in our specialty (that being disseminating health policy issues in 1500 words or less).  Things did not look good.  We even forgot basic public health law questions we should have known.  Sensing imminent defeat, we were happy to just talk disruptively in the corner and let the night fade away.  Then the final round changed everything.  We discovered that, perhaps due to our careful listening, we had been calculating our points wrong (i.e. doubling them- and still not winning).  The MC corrected the misdeed for Round 3, but never caught it for Round 2.  So we went into the final question neck and neck with two other teams.  Then the first place team made a major tumble while we correctly wagered all of our points to double up the score.  In the end, our team in the corner, the one that that had never won a round, and didn't hear the question half the time, became the shady Cinderella and took home the grand prize.  They'll probably make an HBO special about our surprising comeback.  You should stay tuned.