So I have to admit that it’s been slightly difficult to let the Jeopardy experience go. I wrote extensively on the emotions of the whole day here:
There’s a few reasons for that:
- Fucking hindsight, which is some bullshit. It’s killing me and is the main reason I am having difficulty moving on. Knowing how it played out, and what the answer is now, and that we ALL got it wrong….it becomes clear: I shouldn’t have bet anywhere that much money on Final Jeopardy. But here’s the thing: I can only say that because of the situation as I know it now, which is that we all lost and we all went for it in terms of betting. But no one knew that would be the case, right? In fact, I know for a FACT that if we had all gotten a clue that we had all answered correctly, and here I am with a piddly $1000 bet or something, I’d have been far more disappointed in myself for not having some confidence and going for it. If only I’d have bet even more! So yeah, do I regret my bet? Sure, but that’s only because I know how it played out. My bet would have beaten out Justin (the champ) if we had both gotten it right, which would then have been an amazing turn of events…and would have been $32k in my pocket!
- World Flags as a category. MAN. This category is one of those where I immediately groaned when I saw that was the category, but I reacted that way because I had been hoping and praying it was going to be a pop culture category. 🙂 I also groaned as World Flags, when I was studying them, was definitely not a strong area for me. BUT, the thing is, I do know a lot of the flags. So this wasn’t a category where I felt utterly helpless….and even more, my competitors were fucking on fire. Like, we were all giving each other a run for our money. So I was like, it’s likely these two have a strong grasp on flags, especially if they’re as smart as I think they are. If the category had been something like “English Authors” or “South American Geography”… I honestly think I’d have bet much more conservatively. Likely, the other two would have done the same!
- I REALLY want to play again. I know that doesn’t happen as it’s not as if Jeopardy! is hard up for contestants, and only 5-day+ champions get to come back for the Tournament, but man, what a rush it was to play that game. Maggie mentioned in the pre-game peptalk she gave us that this is our Olympics – and even if you don’t win, you’re still getting a silver or bronze medal, and that’s fucking amazing. Think of all those who haven’t made it this far! Thinking of that helps. The entire experience was just a thrill. I even wrote to Maggie and Lauri and Corina that evening to thank them as it was just so incredible (they sweetly wrote back too). Has the bug hit me for wanting to be in front of the camera? Maybe, but I’m sure I’ll be cured of that once I see my episode. 🙂
I did finally dive into researching the Final Jeopardy question. The whole gist of it was that Peter the Great designed Russia’s flag based on this nation known for its shipbuilding…. and man, if you hadn’t studied a bit of history or didn’t know all your European flags, like apparently all three of us, this was going to be a head-scratcher.
So here’s the Wikipedia link for the Russian Flag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Russia
If you go to the Origin section, you’ll see that there are two speculative theories on the origin of the Russian flag, with the second one being the driver for my Final Jeopardy question. So yeah, when you have this in front of you, it’s clear!
Oh, and here are the flags of both Russia and the Netherlands:
And if you knew these flags fairly well, you’re gonna draw a conclusion. But yeah, I didn’t know the Netherlands’ flag!
What’s also interesting is in the week leading up to the show taping, I had been reading through my book of World History that I’d purchased along with my World Almanac, and had actually just read the pages devoted to Russia’s leaders through history, especially Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great. It was fascinating reading, and I had even remembered that Peter the Great had brought about a lot of modernization to Russia, even while still being quite terrible to the poor in his country. And when I went to re-read it yesterday (Thursday, Aug 25), I wanted to see if I had maybe skimmed over that he had been inspired by the Netherlands when making his flag. Nope, not a mention. Western Europe was mentioned as part of where he went to get inspired, but nothing specific.
So yeah, I was never going to know this category per what I had managed to study up till Wednesday. I can’t even be sure I’d have known it with more studying under my belt. I really had decided to take a chance that World Flags weren’t going to be worth it to dive into. Whoops! If I had any advice to give on flags, I’d suggest studying them in a manner where you get the flag and the country together, something like the following:
