My Almost American Story

Last weekend I attended the Midwest high school single handed sailing championships.  In the regatta, eleven races are run, in each race you receive as many points as your place, the scores from each race are added, and at the end of the weekend low point wins.  In this particular regatta, the top two finishers out of twenty qualify to go to nationals to compete against the top twenty sailors in the country.

Sail	Skipper	School			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11		Total	Pos
199796	Malcolm Lamphere	Lake Forest High School			1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	7	1		17	1
190239	Jack Bitney	Minnetonka High School			4	5	2	5	8	7	15	3	6	3	5		63	2
194242	Jackson Hamilton	New Trier			6	3	4	2	2	8	6	15	3	9	13		71	3
190499	R.J. porter	Loyola Academy			7	2	3	6	3	5	7	2	9	13	15		72	4
181238	Isabella Loosbrock	Minnetonka High School			5	9	13	3	5	4	5	6	10	8	8		76	5
156889	Rose Edwards	St. Ignatius			10	4	11	10	9	3	3	11	5	4	9		79	6
185898	MaryClaire Kiernan	Hinsdale Central			2	10	9	19	15	9	10	10	2	1	3		90	7
167447	Dirk Phelps	Traverse City Central High School			3	15	12	7	4	6	11	5	14	11	6		94	8
180565	Addy Ferguson	Minnetonka High School			11	18	6	9	6	2	2	13	7	5	16		95	9
148754	Samantha Foulston	Hinsdale Central High School			8	7	8	13	11	19	4	4	4	18	12		108	10

Saturday started off pretty well for me, and going into the last race of the day I was in a close race for the second qualifying spot.  Then suddenly, everything went wrong; I had my worst race of the day by far and put myself almost all the way out of reach of qualifying.  For the entire night I had to think about how I had messed up in the last race.  Going into Sunday I felt like I barely had a chance.  That's when things turned around again, I started the day off with string of great races and going into the last race I had put myself in a three way tie for second.  What was interesting, looking back on it, is that at the start of that last race I really expected that I would get the spot.  I was tied with two sailors who beat me at least as much as I beat them usually, but still it seemed as though I had to be the one to end up getting it.  Because of this, when I finished in between the two, taking third, I was incredibly disappointed.  In almost any situation, I would have been thrilled to finish third at that regatta, but I think that as an American, I am so programmed to hear the classic American story graph, that I expected it to come true in real life.  Do you think that the repetition of the same type of story can effect how we think the world works?  Have you ever seen this in your life?  Please leave comments below.