Aaaaaaaaaaaaand it's over!

Phew. Jeopardy.

My episode just aired, and now I'm decompressing a little bit. Since I'm now allowed to talk about it, here's the full story:

I tried out for the show a long time ago, in January of 2009. I signed up for the online test as kind of a lark, since I'm actually not a huge game show watcher of any sort. (Except for Project Runway. That's just awesome.) Anyway, the online test was fast and furious, and I remember nothing at all about it except that one of the answers was Cate Blanchett, which I somehow guessed despite having never actually seen Cate Blanchett in any movie ever. Regardless, I was pretty sure that that was going to be the end of things, and it seemed like it was.

But it wasn't! Clearly. I got the call to go to a live audition in New York last June, the day after my last day of work at my favorite school ever (far, far away in New Jersey). I took the train in and found myself in a hotel basement (creepy), where the Jeopardy contestant coordinator Maggie (my best friend in my head) took a Polaroid (they still make Polaroids?) and sent me to sit with the rest of the contestants, who were overwhelmingly male and 20 years older than me. A lot of them had tried out a lot of times, which I found really intimidating, though I'm not sure why. Also, around this point I noticed that the dress I was wearing had a GIANT hole in it, which I tried to convince myself was a design feature. It was clearly not a design feature.

Anyway, we all were ushered into a conference room, where we took a paper-and-pencil test, which pretty much consisted of watching a PowerPoint. There was a question about English royal succession and a question about Twilight. I have no idea. After that, a live-round, in which we used the buzzers, got interviewed (I think I said something about superheroes), and answered more questions (I got a whole slew of them about various alcoholic beverages and knew none of the correct answers). I left feeling pretty overwhelmed and underprepared, then didn't think about Jeopardy again for months.

In the intervening little while, I moved to New York, got a new job, quit my new job, got a new new job, and so on and so forth. So it was something of a surprise when, in November, I got another call from Maggie (hi, Maggie!) asking me to come out to LA to tape an episode. I actually said no the first time -- the scheduling didn't fit. Apparently, no one says no to Jeopardy. It's like refusing a favor to the mob -- you just don't. They were flexible, though, and we finally scheduled for a filming date right after MLK day in January. (Conveniently enough, on my mom's birthday!)

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Phooey! I was hoping to finish updating this pre-school, but that's not going to happen. Stay tuned for more later!