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I appeared on Jeopardy! on July 10 and 11. Check out my series of posts about my adventure:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

A full textual record of each game is also available:
July 10 | July 11

It’s been two weeks since my Jeopardy! run ended. After months of buildup and a hectic week of viewing parties, late-night blogging, and an unprecedented (and probably unsurpassable) volume of Facebook traffic, life has returned to normal, and my most exciting days are once again when a really good episode of Frasier comes on TV.

In many ways, I am still in the honeymoon period; it is still the case, for example, that people I know are learning for the first time about my Jeopardy! win, and that when a friend introduces me to someone new, they frequently can’t resist mentioning it. These things will, of course, fade in time, so I’ve been wondering: what have I taken away from this experience that will endure?

First, it is that the greatest opportunities in life often come when we neither expect them nor are focused on securing them. I can honestly say that I never took the tryout process very seriously, and I never once considered that I might actually go on Jeopardy! until I received that fateful February phone call. I don’t feel like I went and got myself a spot on the show; I feel like it came to me.

Furthermore, once the opportunity does arise (no matter how), you have to capitalize on it. I would have regretted it for the rest of my life if I didn’t spend the preparation time that I did, even though nothing I studied came up on the show (the closest was the question about which amendment was repealed by the 21st, but I would have known that anyway). Certainly the buzzer practice was critical; if anything, I should have spent more time on this, considering that this weakness was my undoing in the second game. I even think that the way I publicized my appearance was an example of this opportunism; I frankly had to work hard to convince myself to rave about it to as many people as I did, but I think in retrospect that it was worth the discomfort. If anything so amazing, affirming, and barely-deserved happens to me again, I hope that I will find the courage to be similarly shameless.

I’ve also been fascinated to see what a unifying and connecting force an experience like this can be. Jody commented that it was nice how the attendees at the viewing parties represented such a broad cross-section of all the people I’ve gotten to know in the Bay Area; I think this might have been the only occasion (other than my wedding, one day) to give me such little fear about mixing social groups so cavalierly. I heard from so many people that I hadn’t talked to in a long time, some of whom randomly saw me on the show and didn’t even know I was appearing. (My favorite was the excited email from Michael, the generous and dynamic co-owner of Vaso Azzurro in downtown Mountain View.) I even heard from total strangers; for example, I got a congratulatory Facebook message from the mom of a random kid I knew in middle school and hadn’t thought about, much less seen, in perhaps fifteen years. I’ve really loved how Jeopardy! has created a much-needed excuse to set aside the daily grind and reconnect with people.

Indeed, there are a lot of people who played a part in making this fantasy a reality, and I want to thank them all (of course, with apologies to anyone I’ve foolishly forgotten):

• My parents, for…well, everything, but more directly for cheering me on at the taping and doing a ton of work to help with my viewing parties
• Santhosh, for also helping with the parties, for reviewing every blog post before it went live, and for tolerating his insufferable know-it-all of a brother for twenty-one years and counting
• Chrix and Harry, for flying down to attend the taping (it was their idea; I never asked), and for their support throughout this experience
• Noah, for lending me the books I used to prepare
• Everyone who attended the two practice sessions, which proved truly invaluable
• Every teacher who taught me something that gave me the confidence to compete, but especially Mr. Ricard, Mrs. Gwinn, and Mrs. Turley, who nurtured my love of competitive trivia
• Taylor, for making backup recordings in DC, even though his wedding was only a week and a half away
• Melissa, for baking a cake to honor the occasion :-)
• Everyone who took time out of their busy days to watch my appearances — it really meant so much to me that so many people were so eager to share in this experience
• The producers of Jeopardy!, for giving me the opportunity to fulfill my life’s dream

Last, but not least, my Jeopardy! adventure has reminded me how much I love to know, how incredibly energizing raw curiosity can be. I talked about this in an earlier post, but I mention it again because it is an important reminder that, without proper attention, even aspects of your identity that you consider deeply fundamental can fade into the background, like the multitude of invisible stars over a city skyline. We could all use the occasional trip away from the distracting glow of the lights to look up and see the night as it was meant to be seen, as we know it truly is.

And then, of course, there is the ultimate question: how in the hell am I going to top that?