By Ilsa Siddiqui

Copyright dawn

I was casually lounging alone in my room, minding my own business and without a care in the world. I had all that I needed at that moment — my phone and my favourite snacks.

Then, suddenly, I heard a knock on the door. Agitated, I lazily got up from the couch and headed towards it. On seeing my best friend standing on the other side, I hugged her in excitement. Soon, we were munching on my snacks and chatting about the upcoming Science Olympiad we were participating in.

It was only a few days away, so it had really taken over our minds. We planned all we had to do and the necessary arrangements to be made. Once that was done, we went through the study plans provided by the organisers of the competition and shared the notes with the rest of the team.

Even though we didn’t have much hope of winning any module since the competition was for students of higher grades, we were still ready to give it our best shot. The night before the competition, we had a good chat about how winning and losing did not matter, and that what really counted was giving it our hundred percent. After an uplifting pep talk, we hung up, and I went to sleep.

With a big yawn and about a minute of stretching, I got up from my bed the next morning, all cheerful and excited. After quickly getting dressed, I grabbed my phone to call my teammates, and we all planned to meet at a café near the venue. After a yummy and filling breakfast, we were even more energised and charged up. We then left for the competition.

Excitedly, we entered the hall, ready to try something new. After a few moments of waiting, the lead organiser of the competition gave a brief speech and announced the commencement of the event. The games had officially begun!

We participated in three modules: physics, mathematics and chemistry. Our team of six was divided into three pairs, one for each module. As the day went on, each pair was met with difficult tasks, which turned out to be quite challenging. But still, our enthusiasm had no limits whatsoever.

I was assigned the chemistry module along with my best friend. The modules happened simultaneously, so we didn’t get to see each other as a whole team for the majority of the day. It was tough, but we were making the most of it.

After a long, tiring day, we sat in the lawn of the venue, where the results were to be announced. At this point, we were all very tired and our mental capacity didn’t seem capable of processing anything, so we didn’t even care about winning or losing.

Then finally, after a long delay, the organisers came up to announce the results. Half-asleep, we listened to them and gave rounds of applause as different teams walked away with trophies for their respective modules. Out of nowhere, we then heard our team’s name announced as the winner of the chemistry module.

At first, there was a moment of silence, then utter shock and confusion — we found it hard to believe we had actually won! At the third call, we sprang up in excitement.

As I went up on stage with my best friend, my partner for the module, to receive the award, I experienced probably my first tears of joy. It was truly a captivating and beautiful moment as I stood there, watching the audience applauding and my team cheering and hooting at the top of their lungs.

As we got down from the stage, we met the others and gave a big group hug. Then we gave ourselves a pat on the shoulder for our accomplishment.

Published in Dawn, Young World, September 20th, 2025