Preparation

Sorry for the delay friends. I was hit up by a nasty virus or two, which will eventually be detailed in “When a secondary infection is good news.” For now, I really want to finish this series on Jeopardy!

I realize my preparation efforts may not be of the most interest, because on one level they did not work. That may be kind of the point though, and also, I did more then one kind of preparation.

I tried a three-pronged approach for the intellectual preparation. First was catching up on my Smithsonian magazines. I am always behind on reading my magazines (other subscriptions are Shape and Psychology Today), just like I am always behind on books. It’s part of being overly ambitious.

I love Smithsonian specifically because it covers such a broad range of interesting things. In every issue there will be art, history, technology, biology, and popular culture. Taking time to catch up on those was a pleasure.

I also looked into books covering basics. Ones I ended up reading were from Kenneth C. Davis’ Don’t Know Much About... series, including Geography, the Universe, Presidents, and Everything Else. A friend also loaned me one called What are the Seven Wonders of the World, which basically went over things by numbers (three fates, three types of pillars, ten plagues of Egypt, etc.), and I checked out Bartending for Dummies and an ESPN almanac.

That was a mixed bag. The Seven Wonders book was pretty interesting, though it varied from topic to topic. Bartending for Dummies made sense to read, because Potent Potables comes up regularly, and I don’t drink, but I’m not sure how much I’ve retained. The Davis books are great. Well, the big ones are. The “Presidents” one was for kids, and the “Everything Else” one was done quiz style, and felt really disjointed. However, “Geography” and “Universe” were good, and I totally see myself reading more like them later. It’s not really that I don’t know much on the topics, but he reviews in a really good way, laying things out and building on them, and his style works for me.

The final prong was taking cards out of trivia games and reviewing them flash style. The result? Completely minimal. The only question that related at all was during a practice game, on Wyoming being the Equality State, which I had just read the night before, and actually I already knew that. It was fresh in my mind, but actually, I think I was too slow ringing in on that one anyway, so it was pretty pointless. I mean, reading things I enjoyed was good, and it’s gotten me where I am, but basically, I already knew enough.

And so, I never actually cracked open the sports almanac. Don’t get me wrong—I like playing and watching sports—I just have never cared about the statistics. If I at some point find an awesome book about sports history, I will read it, but I no longer feel any need to memorize cities that hosted the Olympics or World Series winners.
Ultimately, I guess I do not recommend cramming. If you can answer about 2/3 of the board, you should be okay. There can always be some stumper in Final Jeopardy, or even on a Daily Double, that throws your game, but since it is not possible to know everything, knowing a lot has to be the goal.

There was some other preparation though that was important, and I do recommend. First of all, even though I was thrilled to get the call, I then started having moments of doubt where what if it was too soon? What if I was not really ready for Jeopardy? (This was thinking I did not know enough, but maybe later on I would.)

I had a journal writing session where I went over things, and all possible outcomes, and knew that even with the worst possible outcome, I was okay. I am employed. I am getting by. Maybe if I did badly I might have some humiliation going on, but I have supportive friends and family, and nothing could really be too awful. (I was only thinking game outcomes—not like plane crashes or earthquakes or things like that. My anxiety was fairly specific.)

The other thing I did was I went over possible winning amounts, and what I would do with them. This was good because even people who do well normally don’t win life-changing amounts. Tournament winners can start new businesses maybe, and people who win a few games can get a down payment on a house or take some awesome trips, but usually you need to stay grounded. So my super-mega hope was to win thirteen games, and then come back and win the Tournament, and yes, not getting that is a little disappointing. But I can also totally live with what happened, and I knew that going in.