So now that Worlds are over, I guess, we visit the National Ukraine War Museum and its immense collection of weapons: so-called Saint Javelins, HIMARS, Neptune R-360s, and so on, so forth. But before I ask Catria to join the team, I must have a talk with her parents about it, I can already tell Stephanie is going to make life on the team unpleasant the way Catria wouldn't, Patricia muses about the implications of Kirill no longer playing. She then texts Catria that night (Bakhmut time): "Do you want to play ChGK regularly? We will need to talk this through before you actually join because it's a long-term commitment"

--------------------

The team returns to Kansas and they count themselves lucky that only one domestic media outlet had any interest in how they feel about the whole experience of playing at ChGK Worlds. Better token interest than no interest, I guess... Bohdan sighs at the end of the interview. Already that ChGK is essentially novel to the eyes of the Kansas public, but the population didn't expect a whole lot from us, so us finishing eleventh is very good. Not like in, say, Azerbaijan. I really hope Yakiv can fill our pop culture void left by the departure of Kirill, whom we always referred to as the "sixth player".

But it's only on Friday night that Patricia gets the opportunity to talk in more detail with Catria about what playing for the Kansas State Team entails.

"Before we begin, I wonder what went into the decision to name your daughter" Patricia asks Catria's parents.

"We came here as refugees, and giving her an Arabic name would have been a painful reminder of our old life" Catria's father answers the team captain.

"Now that one of my teammates left the team, we are due to talk about your daughter and ChGK. Thus far, Catria had been a reserve player with whom my teammates generally get along"

"My daughter told me about how you played at ChGK Worlds. Are you sure she is capable of playing at that high a level?" Catria's mother asks her. "After all, ChGK Worlds represents the best in the world"

"Yes. And she played well enough at the Last Chance Marathon to gain a secret admirer who also played at Worlds" Patricia shares her dealings with Al-Azhar.

"Really?" Astonished parents then gasp, not realizing the questions coming up next will give Patricia pause. "What kind of person playing at ChGK Worlds would secretly admire my daughter? And why?"

Maybe the Syrian captain secretly admires Catria out of racial considerations, I mean, she is smart, but not that smart. However, she really is nothing special when compared to other players at Worlds. Catria's parents may not know this but just pulling your weight at Worlds still carries intense intellectual requirements. She might meet them, but I think I might be exaggerating, Patricia then realizes that it might have more to do with her identity than any actual skill she might have.

"You must understand that the world of ChGK is a very white world. Even in Turkey or Israel, the players are very white, too. Catria's secret admirer may then be a person of color. Now we finished eleventh and Syria finished forty-fifth, out of a hundred teams. But to even get to Worlds, we play two nights per week, about three to four hours apiece, and there are two or three in-person tournaments per year, depending on whether we qualify for Worlds"

"That's intense..." Catria sighs. "But, if I have a secret admirer who played at Worlds, I wonder how that admirer even know about me in the first place"

But really, I just wouldn't play at the level at which I did at the Last Chance Marathon if I didn't have the right person to play with. Patricia's brain meshes very well with mine and then my own brain works faster and smarter. When I am with her, I am, or at least I feel like I am smarter than I actually am, Catria muses about what made her perform at a much higher level at the LCM vs the Achievement Junkie Invitational, and it's not just the experience of playing at the AJI.

"I mean, since ChGK is inherently a team game, the IAMG database doesn't track individual performances, and because individual performances can't directly be captured in numbers..." Catria keeps talking.

"The hospital operated an autonomous camera drone during the game so that everyone at the tournament could have seen everyone in the room play during the sixty seconds given to answer questions. Normally we use it to monitor patient safety during recreational activities"

If UMKC even had a ChGK team, then she would probably be their best player. Who am I kidding? There is no such thing as intercollegiate ChGK in the US, and Russian intercollegiate ChGK should really be called U23. Also it's entirely possible to play ChGK for a specific college without actually attending it. The college ChGK season consists of 8 tournaments and the best 35 teams go on to the ChGK equivalent of the ICT, Patricia muses while her memory flashes this information in her mind. Catria might be a little impulsive sometimes. Stephanie, on the other hand, isn't.

"Of course I will play ChGK for Kansas!" Catria announces to her family.

"Just make sure that you aren't drinking alcohol, and that you're paying for your share of the expenses of playing ChGK" her father sets the expectations of her.

"One more thing: the Worlds are hosted in Damascus next year, should we qualify. We will know by April if we do" Patricia warns the new recruit's parents.

"We have family still in Rif Dimashq; maybe they will host us for the entire duration of the ChGK Worlds. I assume you know where Rif Dimashq is within Syria?" Catria's mother asks Patricia.

"Yes"

"Don't forget: tuition, transportation and books have priority over ChGK expenses!" Catria's father warns her daughter about her finances.

Last summer, I interned at public works for environmental chemistry. Next summer I will probably want to try my hand at research. What I want is a research area where synthesizing compounds is part of the deal. But I must stay in this region, and hopefully get published by the end of junior year; I should keep up my grades, too, Catria reflects on the implications of making the team.

I mustn't get too attached to Catria. While she obviously got smarter, it's equally obvious that she can realistically go to some sort of graduate school, be it for some healthcare profession, engineering, a teaching MA, law or even a PhD. However, chemistry is not an elitist field, Patricia realizes that she can't take for granted that she actually will remain in the region after graduation.

"Catria, now that you're part of the Kansas State Team, the program will be a little heavy. Old ChGK national championship and Worlds sets, also old collegiate quiz bowl question sets. This is the training material we use to train for the Worlds" Patricia then sends the links to the resources in use by the team to her new would-be teammate.

"You must have realized it by now, but our daughter has gotten smarter" Catria's mother tells their guest.

"College just isn't the same environment as high school. At Wyandotte High, life was painful if you were in the top ten percent, so smart kids were often encouraged to dumb down. In college, smart kids fit in much more readily" Catria comments on her transition to college.

--------------------

When the next tournament rolls around, on Saturday night, Catria's first tournament as a full-fledged member of the Kansas State Team, as opposed to a reserve player, Patricia consults her teammates regarding her, and whether they have any objections to raise:

"Vira, Yakiv, I believe you never played with Catria. She's someone Sergei and Bohdan played with, and before I enter Catria on our basic roster in the IAMG's system, we would like to know if you have any objections to her playing for us on a regular basis, please" Patricia pleads with her teammates. "Also, if she's going to play regularly, be careful about not letting her get anywhere near alcohol, as I don't want her to relapse"

"How she's like as a player?" Vira asks her new would-be teammate.

"She seems to be a good fit for me" Bohdan answers Vira's question.

"But why did you ask Catria over Stephanie?" Yakiv asks his captain. "Stephanie has a lot of erudition, too..."

"Erudition isn't the be-all, end-all of ChGK, how we gel as a team is critical. We know Catria can get along with Bohdan and Sergei, but Stephanie doesn't mesh well with me in intellectual games. I'm sure Stephanie can do well on any of the other teams in the state, or, barring that, just stick to organizing ChGK tournaments, however" Patricia answers Yakiv's question.

"Just shut up and play" Vira then asks her teammates.

It's clear to them that Catria is a good fit as the tournament goes on. In the end, they seem to treat her with respect. But one final warning is issued to the team:

"We have been absolutely killing it tonight, since we won this tournament. Our window of opportunity to win at Worlds is there for three, maybe four years, depending on how long it takes for Catria to graduate" Patricia then warns her team.

"She will undoubtedly play better in the long run, and she is a breath of fresh air" Vira points out.

--------------------

The following Monday comes around and, at the next meeting of the Achievement Addicts Anonymous, Stephanie makes the following confession when Patricia attends again after several months of hiatus because of training for the ChGK Worlds:

"After getting in touch with Imélie, she told me about how a MPH or a MHA was a poor fit for me, and I think I am better served waiting for a bit. And so I didn't actually submit any application at all" Stephanie confides to the other addicts.

"Steph, what made a MPH or a MHA a poor fit?" Patricia asks her.

"Imélie said that it would greatly limit my options if I want to change industries later in my career. A MBA would be a better fit and, of course, attending a top-seven program if possible"

"Will you forgive me for all our past ChGK-induced issues? I will go get therapy..."

"I forgive you; after playing at the Last Chance Marathon, I realized that I am much more comfortable being an event planner than playing ChGK. So I may as well do event planning as a side hustle" Stephanie adds in front of the other addicts.

"Thank you"

Speaking of therapy, I need to check against the list of authorized therapists of my employer's insurer. I'm long overdue for this, I put that off in the pursuit of ChGK success but even with Catria, there's a luck factor I can't overlook, under the form of questions. We won the OVSC Stage 4, which was a sweet vengeance of the Worlds the previous week, ahead of Chronically Sane United and Azovstal. We keep playing like this and we'll probably get to the top-60 on the MAK ranking by September, Patricia muses, while she also realizes that the team's "trust budget" is more balanced now and they no longer seemed to trust Patricia as excessively as they used to. Kirill was the guy who made the team trust me too much.

--------------------

In the months to follow, Patricia undergoes therapy so years of accumulated traumas could start healing in earnest. She keeps playing ChGK but she seems to accept herself better. And to be more willing to take a risk, as well as not put as much of her self-esteem into ChGK.

When Ainslee receives her decision from Columbia's executive MHA in late January, she talks about that decision at lunch:

"Financial aid made the decision a very straightforward one: since Columbia awarded a partial Mailman scholarship, but Tulane gave no aid, Columbia proves less expensive" Ainslee announces to her boss.

"It's not that straightforward: if you need to be in-person in New York or New Orleans respectively, it might weigh on the financial balance, depending on how often and for how long you need to be on campus"

Tulane's in-person MHA just didn't have a whole lot of students, and you could count on one hand the people who did so on the 4+1 on any given year. My class was good by Green Wave standards, since there were 20 in-person MHA students, and Tulane had approximately half online and half in-person on average, Patricia reflects on her time at Tulane and what it implies for Ainslee's experience if the travel costs make it cheaper to attend Tulane over Columbia.

"You're right, at Tulane there is no travel requirement and Columbia has monthly trips to New York, which can easily make dents into my credit rating. So I'll go to Tulane, I guess..."