Good news: It turns out a lot more people qualified for Math Team State than previously thought. The contest philosophy is to maximize the number of mathletes coming to state but still keeping it relatively exclusive. So they must have lowered the minimum scores required to qualify. Now, both 8-person teams (frosh-soph and junior-senior) qualify as well as a bunch of individuals.
Bad news: Science Olympiad’s state competition is on the exact same day at the exact same University. (Don’t worry, I haven’t sacrificed enough virgins to qualify for that.) So all the hotels have basically filled up. Even the worse for one of those charged with finding a hotel with 6 available rooms somewhere in Champaign to replace the 3 rooms we already booked. All I’ve found so far in town are smoking rooms with one king-sized bed each. This leaves three possibilities.
- We book an empty hotel just across the Indiana border and drive 30 miles before breakfast.
- We draw straws to see who sleeps in the vans and who gets to sleep in one of the three rooms.
- A crowded, and very awkward king-sized bed in each 4-person room.