A symptom of my sickness, at the moment at least (it changed from day to day), was having violent sneezing fits every five minutes that left my eyes watering and my sinuses extremely itchy. So I had to carry around a box of tissues with me during the comp, in case the sneezing came unexpectedly — which it did often. My sinus cold kept getting worse as the day went on. By the time finals rolled around, I was half asleep and felt like crap. I somehow managed to climb to the top, as fellow competitor Simon Bankurt did, without so much involuntary campusing, but was too pumped to clip the final draw, which the judges said didn’t matter. They ended up giving us both the full first place prize and a good thing, too, because we figured out Simon spends five bucks a day on coffee. (And I thought my avocado habit was bad.) After the comp, we went to Pluto’s for dinner and Ben and Jerry’s for desert. And after that, I felt like puking, but I didn’t. I’m looking forward to going back next year. Hopefully, I will feel better.