WAITING

The post-audition wait began with dinner in Philadelphia. I had the opportunity to meet someone I "knew" online while I was there who was also auditioning. I had "met" Mark playing an online trivia game similar to Jeopardy!. Meeting him in person was fun, but a little disconcerting - that is no comment about Mark, but in general about meeting people in the flesh who have before only been a disembodied online presence.

One of the other  regulars in that online trivia game is a guy named Sven. You remember him - we auditioned together in DC, and played in the same mock game. My first post on the Jeopardy! message board was in response to his wife's post? Yeah, that Sven. We didn't have anything to do with getting each other to the online game, but there we were in the same online community. Don't forget him - he'll show up again in a bit.

Besides online trivia, I prepared for the possible call by watching the show on Tivo. While I watched, I'd hold the remote control and "ring in" on clues I knew by pressing the pause button. I also held a clipboard with a grid of Jeopardy and Double Jeopardy values. After each show I'd total up my Coryatt Score (named for Karl Coryat and explained here). I'd track my score to see if studying was helping and also pay attention to categories where I was consistently having problems.

Studying was focused on Mike Dupee's book, as well as Secrets of the Jeopardy! Champions by Chuck Forrest and Mark Lowenthal. Both books have a wide range of stuff that appears often on Jeopardy! as well as information about the show.

Perhaps my most useful tool was a free flash card program called MemoryLifter. With MemoryLifter, you can make electronic flash cards with any questions you desire - and the program will keep asking you the ones that you don't know, while moving the ones you do know into another virtual "box." I made flash cards for all of the information in the Dupee book, and many of the facts in the other book. For example, I learned all the countries and their capitals in the world.

As the year after the audition progressed, my studying dwindled. I became less hopeful of getting the call. By the time the year had elapsed, I was busy with other things, like finally graduating with my Master of Divinity Degree after nine years of part-time study which meant I was finally getting ordained. Also, about that time my laptop was stolen, so there went all those electronic flash cards I'd made. As time moved farther into 2007, Jeopardy! moved farther from my thoughts.

Little did I know that 2008 would bring Jeopardy! right back into the center of my awareness!

To the next installment - THE CALL, Part Two