A Few Words for the Wise at Simi Valley High

A few words to the Academic Decathlon team at Simi Valley High School:

Go kick some brain!

Now that you’ve snagged the state championship, I don’t have to tell you that the nationals begin in a little more than a fortnight--which, you might want to remember, is a two-week period deriving from the Middle English term fourtenight.

By my reckoning, you’ve got 19 days to soak up all human knowledge.

Did you know that’s six days longer than the time it takes for a typical possum to give birth?

Well, now you do!

And, by the way, why are you frittering away precious study time reading me instead of something like “Being and Nothingness,” Jean-Paul Sartre’s classic 1943 exploration of consciousness as an existential paradox?

On the other hand, Sartre can be rather shallow, can’t he?

So please, read on for whatever modest encouragement I can provide as you study for The Big One.

First, let me congratulate you on your amazing restraint.

Being an Academic Decathlete is never easy, but this year has been the most challenging ever.

I can only imagine how tough it is when they come up to you in the hallways and the classrooms, in the gym and on the streets, those well-meaning jokers who just have to ask: “Is that . . . your final answer?”

After the first 997 times (by the way, that’s the largest prime number under 1,000), I bet it stops being funny.

That you’ve managed not to throttle anyone under these trying conditions speaks volumes about your self-discipline.

But so does the fact that you’re now hitting the books seven hours a day, seven days a week.

When I was in college, I might have hit the books seven hours a semester. But that was a more carefree day, when our chief concern was to see how many acid-tripping, free-loving, bead-bedecked, hair-down-to-here hippie radicals could cram into a phone booth.

Today, of course, there are no phone booths.

In any event, you might focus on a couple of important areas in the next 19 days.

The first is state capitals. At the nationals, you’re sure to be quizzed about state capitals. And, in life, anyone who knows them all will never lack for something to talk about.

“North Dakota,” you might murmur to a comely stranger on a plane. “Capital’s Bismarck, isn’t it?”

In the next 19 days, you also should look hard into economics, a subject that I understand was a little shaky for you early in the competition.

Here is all you need to know:

If the Dow Jones Industrial Average goes up, it means the economy is overheated and the market will crash.

If it goes down, it means investors have lost confidence in the economy, and the market will crash.

If it stays about the same, it means the economy is stagnant and the market will crash.

Now you understand economics as well as anyone else.

Finally, if you seek inspiration in the turbulent days ahead, you need look no further than neighboring Moorpark. Don’t forget that you breathe the same air and drink the same water as last year’s Academic Decathlon national champs at Moorpark High School. Whatever else that may be doing to you, it sure hasn’t made you dumb.

So, for the moment, disregard the purported words of Albert (“Special Theory of Relativity”) Einstein: “Only two things are infinite--the universe and stupidity. And I’m not so sure about the universe.”

Just drink some more water, read another chapter, laugh as much as you can and hope for the best.

Win or lose, we’re proud of you.

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.