Scholastic.

"first of all, for the category of personal essay and memoir...Stephen Kim."

We clapped. We smiled. We waited for our names to come up.

"second person, also in the personal essay/memoir category..."

Now I think of it, it was pretty surprising that my mind wasn't "formatted" at that moment. I did have a strong feeling that the next name could be me. Nonetheless, I was stupefied when my name, in the distorted form of "Gin Yi Lin," was actually pronounced aloud. I must have looked really dumb. I didn't know what I was supposed to do in situations like this--what facial expressions I was supposed to have, what emotions I was supposed to show. My face might have shown no emotion, but my mind was hyperactive at that moment: "wow, of all people, I won? But I can barely speak proper English. All these people here are much better writers than I am...Chris, Jess, Jack, and Reem who wasn't present. What am I supposed to do? Show signs of joy? How?"

When I get high scores for science league and things like that, I always show signs of joy. For some reason it was really hard for me to show sign of joy when I just heard my name. I guess deep inside I didn't think I deserved it. I didn't enter the competition with the intention to win. I wasn't even planning to enter before Big A asked me because I've always felt very, very inferior when it comes to English, or just language arts in general.

Anyway, I guess what happened yesterday was a huge confidence booster--plus, the sense of inferiority is probably a good thing because it keeps that confidence in check.