competing

So Starfshlaup was a blast.  The Yellow Team was pretty pumped.  They won last year and had plans to be victorious again this year.  We were all pretty excited.  Most of the school knew that there was really only two different teams that might win, yellow (gulur) and orange (appelsíngulur).  You can choose your teams but most end up being divided by where you live.  For instance the gulur lið has mostly grindvíkingar (people who live in Grindavík), the appelsíngulur lið is mostly kefvíkingar (people who live in Keflavík), and the græna lið (green team) had a lot of njarðvíkingar (Njarðvík).  Gulur lið and appelsíngulur lið have a big rivalry going on so it certainly made the day interesting.   Starfshlaup began in the sports house where various competitions including badminton, basketball, swimming, tug-of-war, and an obstacle course took place.  After that we all went back to the school.  Competitions in hair styling and drawing began as did the academic competitions.  Each team had a runner that ran from classroom to classroom so that the teammate participating in that subject could begin.  Some teammates that weren't participating went from classroom to classroom as well to cheer on everyone.  Others waited in the cafeteria, where the competition would end.  At the end of the academic competitions gulur lið had a one-point lead over appelsíngulur so the atmosphere was pretty tense.  We had to wait in the cafeteria a bit until the final three competitions (the cha-cha, team presentations, and the eating contest), which would take place on the stage there, began and most of that time was spent hurling insults back and forth.  Appelsíngulur accused everyone on gulur of being gay to which we responded in a rather profane way, and stuff like that.  A healthy team rivalry, you know.  Our team presentation wasn't the most interesting but it was funny, our cha-cha participants looked professional, and our teacher representative that took place in the eating contest placed 4th out of 7.  Then there was the agonizing wait for the final results.  I´ll admit I was pretty doubtful, the appelsíngulur lið had done pretty well and I didn't know if our one-point lead would make much of a difference.  Sadly, we came in 2nd, by a margin of 13 points.  It was a little disappointing but the day was still quite amazing.  It was a great start to Easter break.