Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with competition

Help me peak as an athlete.

vito90 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:24:43 -0800

I'm looking for tips on how to peak for an athletic performance. I'm 38 years old and soon to go head-to-head against more talented and athletic foes. I've been playing recreational baseball for the last 9 years every summer, and for the last two years at a highly competitive level.

I've mostly performed as our backup catcher but was just informed that our starter is taking the year off and I'll go into the season as the first-string catcher. In other words, I've been called up to the show.

I'm very motivated to take my game to its highest level this year, and want to start preparing now to be completely at my best by mid-season, which will be around July. I want to take a comprehensive approach to my training, in fact I'm looking a little bit less for advice on workouts than other aspects of improvement. I would especially love to hear tips on how to improve my vision, hand-eye coordination, reflexes, ability to recover, mental approaches, leadership tips, diet and supplements, anything you can think of. Anything that can help a slightly older, yet still pretty durable body to withstand some punishment this season.

I would love to hear old crafty baseball tips too...most of my opponents will be in their twenties and I know that just knowing a few things the kids don't will give me an advantage.

Really any kind of advice is welcome. How did you prepare for the competition of YOUR life?

Kicking butt and taking names - is my kid's coach a jerk?

Sweetie Darling — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:50:31 -0800

Help this mom understand the difference, in coaching youth sports, between being competitive and being an asshole. The littlest Darling is turning nine on Wednesday and playing basketball in a U10 rec league at the Y. This is his fourth year at the Y and his second year in U10, but it's our first experience with a pair of coaches whose style really rubs me the wrong way.

Being neither a dude nor particularly competitive, I'd appreciate some perspective from those of you who have been through this before - so I can figure out if I should suck it up or request a new team placement, stat.

Both coaches yell, a lot - pretty much constantly through the whole practice. Practices are for 90 minutes, rather than the 60 suggested by the Y. The pace seems frenzied to me, and they blow their whistles constantly, and there's a lot of "No, no, no - didn't you hear what I just said?" The boys don't look like they're having much fun. I'm certainly not having fun watching.

I had a brief conversation with another mom last week, who said that the main coach also coaches two other teams. She said, "Coaching basketball is his thing, and he's kind of obsessed with winning." The guy isn't abusive towards the boys, but he's very tough - "like the Army, I guess," in the words of my son.

The last two coaches he had ran (what I thought were) disciplined and active practices, but they focused on teaching the boys skills and encouraging sportsmanship. They took a much more positive (dare I say nurturing?) approach.

The way I see it, my son's got the rest of his life to be yelled at by some jerk. For now, he's nine and it's the Y, for goodness' sake, and I'm paying (not a huge amount, but still), so do I go with my gut and ask that he be reassigned? Or am I overreacting/projecting? I'm still feeling my way through this boy parenting and team sports thing.

What characteristics do good coaches have? And what defines a bad coach? How much focus on competition and winning is appropriate for third graders?

Thanks in advance for the advice, and apologies for the tome.

Windows

larry_darrell — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:11:54 -0800

Can someone explain to the layperson why the Windows op. sys. has no competition yet. Why is it not like any other consumer product?

How likely is it that this would come back to haunt me?

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:59:11 -0800

If someone enters a scientific "Theoretical Challenge" under my name and wins the competition, would that come back to haunt me even though all intellectual property rights would be relinquished to the company running the challenge? I have a parent who is in the process of coming up with the financing for a new investment, and though it is doable, it will be very tight for them for the next several years. They are a researcher by profession, and have discovered a scientific competition in which they need to create a theoretical solution to a proposed challenge.

This presents a conflict of interest to their current workplace and they would not normally be allowed to accept the cash prize, should they win. Their theory is that since this particular challenge requires that the entrant/winner relinquish all intellectual property rights, they should be able to enter the contest under my name.

If they don't win, no harm done. If they do win, what implications would that have for me? Taxation is the obvious one, but is there a chance my name would be linked to this project somehow even after all the intellectual property rights are transferred?

I'm rather wary and skeptical of the whole situation, but I do know how tight things are for them right now and I'd like to be able to help out. If I refuse, I would like to have a more solid reason beyond "I don't feel comfortable with it". I'm aware that this is a perfectly legitimate point, but please humour me and come up with other concrete consequences.

I'm in Canada, and living away from home. Thanks in advance!

Who are some pretend business competitors?

teg — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:05:38 -0800

What are some examples of "pretend" business competitors? I'm thinking of brands that appear to be separate businesses and appear to be in direct competition, but are in fact owned by the same company. Two examples I can think of:

Bell and Giro bike helmets, the two leading brands, both owned by Bell Sports.

Best Buy Canada and Future Shop, two Canadian big box electronic stores, usually set up on the same parking lot, both owned by Best Buy.

I'm not really looking for the Campbell's-Soup-type flooding of the product display, as in that case they are at least up front about who is dominating the shelf. I would probably also rule out mergers that are just taking a little while to process.

Comparing methods of preparation by gymnasts and musicians

Busoni — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 04:48:59 -0800

How do Olympic gymnasts (and other gymnasts at the elite level) train for their routines? Do they break their choreography into segments? Is there a set, systematic schedule or program used across the sport? A way to measure their progress? How might this compare (or apply) to the way a musician might prepare for an audition or a competition? (Incidentally, to give an idea of the sort of answers that are being sought, this question arose after noting points of comparison between programming in weight training and practice in musical performance.)

Food Festivals and Competitions in Southern LA

matthelm — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:32:50 -0800

I am looking for any and all food festival / competitions that happen in southern LA that are open to the public. I think it would be great to be able to go to such events and would love some help on getting in the know... I am living in Culver City area and don't mind driving a bit to get to such events....

Prizes for competitions

lilyflower — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:08:30 -0800

How does prize money effect entry to free to enter competitions? I would like to know how prize money effects entry rates on free to enter competitions.

Are there studies which compare entry rates on competitions where everything is the same except the prizes that are on offer?

Does the style of competition effect entry rates regardless of the prizes available? Will someone enter something they aren’t interested in because there is a prize available (prize motivated), and will someone enter something they are interested even if there is no prize available (motivated by the thrill of getting something right and winning)?

How do entry rates for competitions (such as the ones listed below) vary due to the effort involved in entry? If a prize is subsequently factored in how does that affect the entry rates?

1. Picking numbers like the lottery, low effort
2. Answering a simple multiple choice question where the wrong answers are meant to be clearly wrong, low effort
3. Picking the winner of a sporting tournament, low effort
4. Picking the winner and runners up of a sporting event, medium effort
5. Picking the winners of every match in a sporting tournament, high effort

Are people only interested in the first prize or do they also like to see runner up prizes? Do prize amounts affect their interest in entering the competition?

To summarise:

Do prize funds affect people’s motivation to enter competitions?

Are people motivated by 1st prizes only or do they want to have runner up prizes and what ratios should the prize amounts be?

Do prize funds affect people’s motivation to enter high effort competitions?

Do prize funds affect people’s motivation to enter high effort competitions that they are already interested in (a game where getting something right is a reward in itself)?

I would prefer to receive information on studies, scientific experiments, and research into the psychology of entering competitions and how the effort to enter, prizes involved and motivation to play affect people.

Thank you in advance for your assistance!

Wit in Romeo and Juliet

Non Prosequitur — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:50:21 -0800

Romeo & Juliet: I seem to remember a portion in the play where someone exhorts "wit" to help them out, or says they're running out of wit—but I can never find it when look through the stuff. Is it just a false memory, or maybe something mentioned very much in passing? I searched through the text again and maybe Romeo saying, "But 'tis no wit to go" is supposed to have a double meaning (we shouldn't go to the event, I have no wit remaining?)

Mercutio saying, "Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint": this just seems very straightforward; I'm looking for an exhortation, or a request of sorts ("help me out, Wit!")

Tell me about competitive music

bjrn — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:41:48 -0800

Which other musical styles besides rap have battles, and for how long have they been around? The wikipedia article on freestyle rap says that battling originated in the early 1980s, but I know very similar forms have been around for a lot longer than that. Within calypso there's the very similar format of picong (terrible, short wikipedia article) has been around for over a hundred years at least. Picong is very much like a battle, except that the rhymes are sung instead of spoken. Calypso also has extempo and extempo war.

Are there other musical styles which have similar competitive improvisational forms, and how long have those been around?

Choosing a sport for the brick-shaped man

Harvey Jerkwater — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:25:18 -0800

What sport suits a thirty-five year old man built like a hot water heater? Everything I like is made for the lithe and long-limbed, not the squat and powerful. Any suggestions? As I age, I'm growing doughier. This needs to stop. A gym isn't the answer, either. I have the commitment and self-control of a hobo. No, I need something fun. I need a sport.

The challenge is that I'm competitive by nature, and frustrated as hell trying to compete in sports where I'm at a significant disadvantage due to body type. Drives me insane to put in twice as much work in a sport as a tall skinny guy and get crushed by him time and again simply because he's tall and skinny.

I'm a fire hydrant, with short limbs relative to my torso. I'm beefy, which means I have good absolute strength (i.e., I can lift heavy stuff no problem or hit things hard) but poor relative strength (i.e., I can't throw my own body around easily or jump all that high). And I'm a little squishy around the middle. Okay, more than a little.

The sports I'm drawn to, and have have tried to enjoy in the past, are those for which I am ill-equipped. Fencing, when you have short limbs and a long, wide torso, is frustrating as hell. Yes, you can overcome these problems with time and practice, but you know what?

Why not play a dang sport where I don't have to "overcome" myself?

(A long-simmering half-joke rant of mine is that sports where size is an advantage protects the smaller by creating weight classes; where size is a disadvantage, the larger aren't protected at all. Boxing? Weight classes. Gymnastics? No weight classes. Weightlifting? Weight classes. Track? No weight classes. This is crap! Let's see "Heavyweight Gymnastics!" It'd be interesting to watch, at least. Or forget weight classes in other sports. If track is dominated by the scrawny, then why can't boxing be dominated by the huge? Returning to the question...)

The sports that suggest themselves to the Larger Gentlemen are those that I don't enjoy.

--Weightlifting isn't a sport, it's going to the gym. Feh. I need something competitive.
--I've tried to get into judo a few times, and it just doesn't do anything for me.
--Boxing is out, since I have a giant head and don't like to get punched in it. (Also, that "short reach" problem returns. Short arms, big head? Oh man, that's not good.)
--American football would make sense, but at thirty-five, my only option is "flag football," which, where I live, structures its rules specifically to cater to the small and fast. ("No-contact blocking" is the rule in local leagues. It prevents injury and allows small people to play. This negates my one asset, mass, and turns it into a hindrance. Gah!)
--Rugby is a possibility, I suppose, though I'm not excited by the idea.
--Golf sucks. Unless you're hitting the ball into a windmill and through a fiberglass pirate's mouth, in which case it's kinda cool, but not good exercise.
--I can't hit a baseball worth a crap.
--Softball probably wouldn't be enough exercise for my girthy self. Plus, y'know, beer.

What sports are out there where being built like a tree stump is a plus instead of a minus? Or, barring that, what competitive sports are there where being built like a tree stump isn't a giant drag on your performance?

I'm the best at being unexceptional

arniec — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:08:02 -0800

How do you deal with/accept that you are merely mediocre? I am about to turn 35 and I am facing a hard realization: I've peaked and not that great. In my late 20s and early 30s My job was growing and the world seemed at my feet.

But I've now plateued and my attempts to grow further creatively or professionally seem to fail. Even when I have a success it's a mitigated success. I'm constantly second or third best and I am obsessed that i'm not THE best and it devistates me and i'm unable to just be happy that I'm better than some others.

Given that very few people are the best at anything I am having to come to terms that I am an average human and nothing makes me remarkable. But that honesty the depressed me.

So I'm wondering how people deal with merely being average.

Why am I paying more fare for the same ride?

joe vrrr — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:39:13 -0800

The local taxi company charges more if they know you're on your way to catch the competing airport shuttle. Is this legal? Say we're in Bloomington, Indiana, and we're trying to get to the Indianapolis airport. There's a shuttle that runs from town to the airport, but we need to get downtown to catch the shuttle. The local cab company, which also happens to provide "door-to-door" service to the Indianapolis airport, says we have to pay per person for a ride to catch the shuttle. A normal trip downtown would not incur a per-person fee. I was advised by the cab driver to next time choose another drop-off location and lie about my true destination if I didn't want to pay the extra charge. The cab driver also said that with the extra cab fee, it "might make more sense" to take the cab all the way to the airport.

This strikes me as anti-competitive. Is it legal?

If not legal, who would be best to handle the complaint?

College-level economics competitions?

BusyBusyBusy — Wed, 06 May 2009 08:25:04 -0800

The Federal Reserve just ended its College Federal Reserve Challenge Competition, which I have always enjoyed competing in. What other economics, public policy, or problem solving collegiate-level competitions can you recommend? I would like to keep my current group of team members, but simply switch organizations. Special points for organized competitions that are team work intensive, national, and are related to economics, monetary policy, or public speaking. Please no business plan or case competitions. Thanks, MeFites!

Help us design a fair exercise competition!

bristolcat — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:27:46 -0800

Help us design a fair exercise competition! My cousin and I have both decided to put an effort into incorporating more exercise into our daily life. Instead of working toward some kind of tangible reward, we agree that competition would be a good motivating factor.

We are both women at nearly the exact same age (27) with very similar physical builds and goals. Our chosen exercises include a variety of things including bicycling, running (C25K), strength exercises and "leisure exercises" such as golfing or walking the dog.

In the past, we have tried doing a competition based on cumulative minutes spent at the gym, but this turned out to be somewhat lopsided when we found we had different levels of activity going head-to-head, such as forty minutes of walking and light strength exercises versus thirty minutes of intense cardio.

We like to record our efforts on a shared Google spreadsheet. How can we "score" our activities fairly? Would it make sense to have different tiers of exercises worth different points? What would the tiers be based on - something such as calories burned per hour?

In summary, we are looking for a way to compete for fitness based on effort, rather than weight-loss or achievements. Have you had a similar plan that was successful? How can we make this as fair as possible?

Thanks in advance!

Fun prizes for hackers

godawful — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:08:20 -0800

Can you suggest prizes and trophies for a software/hardware hacking competition? Hey hivemind.

I'm running an creative, open source hack weekend at my university (link if you're interested) and I have around 150 Great British Pounds to spend on prizes and trophies for the winners in at least three categories:

Best overall software hack

Best overall hardware hack

Most creative project

Heroic failure award

This isn't much money, particularly since I have either to find a prize that a team of 4 or 5 can share, or buy five little things.

One thought would be to buy something totemic or trophy-esque for each category and just split up the rest of the cash as a little bit of beer money for the team.

Do you have any thoughts on techy, shareable prizes or nice cheap trophies?

I appreciate it!

How to prove I am the better (wo)man for the job?

shrimpsmalls — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:52:49 -0800

I began an internship at a very small commercial arts organization about a month ago. A week or so into the job, one of the 5 person staff left on good terms for another opportunity. Following her departure, the possibility of a full time position opening up (as replacement) was presented to myself and the other intern, mostly in a friendly manner to make sure we were both interested. Obviously, both of us were very enthusiastic about the opportunity. So here is my question... Given that the other intern and myself were hired the same week and have obviously both been deemed capable candidates, how do I appropriately assert myself as the better fit? I have volunteered to do extra projects and have done an impeccable job on the work given to me thus far, but I feel as though a small proactive step on my behalf is needed.

Also, I do have a M.A. as well as marketing/consultative sales experience, which is highly applicable to the position. The other intern (a very nice and intelligent guy) is straight out of school (ivy league), but doesn't have these extra credentials. I want to stress these qualifications, as well as my genuine interest in the position, to the director without seeming overly anxious or bothersome. Any ideas as to the best next proactive step???

Curse you, Will Shortz

Dormant Gorilla — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:23:04 -0800

Help me do crossword puzzles FAST. So after years of procrastination and excuse-making, I've decided to finally go to the national crossword puzzle championships this year and embarrass the hell out of myself.

And I need some help. Not with how to actually answer the clues, obviously- if I couldn't do that I'd be in some trouble at this point. What I need to know is how to do them FAST. These guys are crazy with the speed and I'd like to at least be competitive.

What I'm looking for is things like writing in lowercase because it's fewer pencil strokes, not reading all the clues, doing the puzzle in quadrants- that's pretty much all I can come up with myself so if you guys know of any other practical tips for upping my speed, I would hugely appreciate it. The tournament is next weekend so I don't have THAT much time to adjust my gameplay but I want to do what I can.

Thank you!

PS If anyone has gone to one of these things and can give me advice on what to expect, that would be awesome too, but it's not the primary question. I've seen Wordplay but that pretty much focused only on the top five guys whose experience, sad to say, will probably not be much like mine.

How do many businesses selling the same things at the same prices stay in business without differentiating themselves or asking a lower price?

chrisinseoul — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 07:14:20 -0800

EconomicsFilter: how do many businesses selling the same things at the same prices stay in business without differentiating themselves or asking a lower price? Living in Seoul, South Korea - and many of the same shops sell the same things, at the same price, in the same general location. What gives?

If you've never been to Seoul, imagine a floor of 50 shops. They're all selling the same thing (e.g. cameras), using the same displays, use the same sales pitches, and sell things at the same prices. These prices are essentially commodity-type prices since they probably buy from the same wholesalers. At any given time, however, few businesses HAVE any business. So how do these people stay in business?

When given the choice, I would imagine most people would simply walk around until they find what they believe to be the lowest price (given their disadvantage of information), choose the closest vendor (thus giving an advantage to the dealer closest to the escalator), or seek out a familiar person / business they've worked with in the process (meaning bad / expensive vendors would eventually close).

(This, by the way, may be posted about in a future blog post - if your words are used I'll credit your username or leave you anonymous as a econ guru. It's not a homework assignment or anything so academic, yet it seems to require an economic explanation.)

Help find our family a new board game!

olinerd — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:51:06 -0800

Help me find a new board game to gift my family of sore winners. Every Christmas is quality family game time. All four of us are extremely competitive and very sore winners and there is no better Christmas gift than rubbing a big win in the face of another family member. Really, we all get along famously.

So this year, I'd like to get us a new game to play, since we haven't had one in a while.

Games we like include Tripoly, Upwords, Hearts, Uno, CatchPhrase, and Sequence.

Games we kind of like, but probably don't need any more of, include Scattergories, Guesstures, and Pictionary.

Games we don't like include Monopoly, Risk, and Trivial Pursuit.

It would ideally be something that's over in an hour and offers opportunities to screw over another player in a very satisfying way. Doesn't matter if it's a team game or not. Players are all adults (brother and I are in our 20s). Given all this, what would we like? Are there new games out I haven't heard about yet?

How to run a sub-3-hour marathon?

killdevil — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:11:17 -0800

I can run 6:30 miles for an hour, a little uncomfortably, or 7:00 miles pretty easily over the same interval. What would it take, training-wise, for me to run a sub-3-hour marathon? A little more about my current level of running fitness: I started running daily a little more than two years ago, having previously been a pretty serious cyclist. I run ~8.5 miles/day at present, and can run a mile in 5:30 (maybe more quickly, but I haven't tried it).

I'm 31, have no background in competitive running, and have never raced save for a few 5Ks. I'm planning to run a marathon in the spring, and would like to shoot for the sub-3-hour range in order to qualify for the 2010 Boston Marathon with some margin for error. Given my current fitness level, I'm pretty sure this is achievable, but I don't know much about how to prepare. There are quite a few marathon training resources on the Web, of course, but I'm hoping you can help me form a rough idea of what I'd need to do between now and, say, April '09.

As a side-question: what spring race in the U.S. would make a good first marathon?

It's definitely NOT "Drinking your milkshake."

rokusan — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:17:13 -0800

Searching for a business term I cannot remember... Perhaps the lamest use of AskMe questions, but I've tried to remember a term for an hour now, tried various searches for web pages in which it might appear, consulted phrasebooks and lexicons... but nothing. I hope someone will read this, know what I mean, and give me a quick head-slap.

I am trying to remember a term used in business wherein a corporation, rather than working to better its products/services or reduce their costs, instead expends effort lobbying for changes to the law, government legislation or other rule-changing from above that will improve their own situation or profitability. Often (but not necessarily) the desired but hidden goal is the creation or enhancement a monopoly.

A US automaker, for example, might lobby for protectionist laws that impose a tax on foreign cars rather than spending the same effort improving their own products. Or a telco might argue for a law preventing cable TV companies from providing internet services. (I am sure there are better examples, and I will think of others if necessary.)

It's an anti-competitive activity much like lobbying the refs in sports: it's playing the rules rather than playing the game.

If I recall correctly, the term is a reference to one specific historical US example of doing this, perhaps from the days of the great rail/oil monopolies, (it's something something), but the term itself is actually applies more broadly, in the same way that "gerrymandering" was once a specific situation in Massachusetts, but now applies to any similar activity.

I hope this question makes sense. Help me, great green brain!

Wii are the champions / Wii will, Wii will rock you!

kidsleepy — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:17:34 -0800

I need help planning a Wii Sports and Guitar Hero competition. I volunteered to organize the whole thing, and now am a little overwhelmed. This will be an on-site work competition for charity. The idea is that there are two competitions: one for Guitar Hero (Rock Stars) and one for Wii Sports (Jock Stars). Ideally we'd have two brackets each, one for amateurs and one for pros. There are approx. 700 employees, and getting 50 of them to sign-up would be a success.

Has anyone organized one of these before? Any tips/tricks/things to avoid? How do I entice people who've never played before? How many TVs/Wiis shoud I have? How should I set up the brackets? What should the prizes be? Help!

Drop and give me 100!

um_maverick — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:43:47 -0800

My friends and I are about to embark on a 6-week push-up training program. Obviously, this has to be a competitive event. The problem, though, is finding a fair way to measure who wins... I came across Hundred Pushups last week and, being terribly out of shape, decided to do it. After telling some fellow type-A friends, we're turning it into a competition, but running into difficulty figuring out how to measure. All of the identified options have drawbacks, so we're looking for new suggestions or ways to modify any of the items below:

(1) Who can do the most pushups after 6 weeks - Some people are more in-shape now than others, so this would be unfair towards those starting behind
(2) Absolute increase in pushups - Requires a "weigh-in" at the beginning, where people can cheat (consciously or subconsciously) and not do as many pushups as they're cable of. Also probably has starting-point issues like point (1).
(3) Percentage increase - Has the same weigh-in issues as (2) and also gives advantage to people who start weaker. E.g., someone who starts at 25 would have to get to 250 in order to compete with the guy who starts at 10 and gets to 100.
(4) Something based on BMI - I was hoping to find a chart of "If you're BMI is x, y pushups are expected" online, and measure success relative to the chart. No dice finding such a chart, though
(5) Everybody over 100 wins, everybody under 100 loses - same starting point issues at (1), nobody in the group likes ties

Thanks!

OMG I am gonna fail... except, oh hai, I am actually the valedictorian.

Anonymous — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:59:13 -0800

Why does the person who sobs and complains loudly about how they think they "failed" every test and that they are doing/did "horribly" in school (but ends up being #1) bother me so? So there's this person in my classes who literally cries in front of people while we are waiting to take an exam.... walks out of exams loudly complaining that they (keeping it gender anonymous) failed.... continually attests that they struggle so much with the material.... yet gleefully ends up being ranked #1 in our class.... WHY does this bother me so?

This person was a friend, now more an acquaintance, and we used to study together for our exams and coursework. I admittedly struggled with the nature of the work, and it was challenging... I did average. When I was friends with this person, I would confide in them how I felt like I was drowning and I didn't know how to properly get a handle on the material. They would then proceed to discuss that they were doing so "bad" in school and they weren't happy with their performance either, and that they "understood" what I was going through.

But yet, this person is valedictorian--in lieu of the behavior of crying before exams because they were "going to fail it no doubt about it" and telling me that they weren't doing well.

I don't know why but I feel annoyed/jealous/stupid. Were they genuinely not sure of their talent? Did they lie? Drama queen ? Setting low expectations secretly so when they rocked out by getting valedictorian we'd be all amazed? Why would you act like you were getting bad grades ? I mean, you don't need to go on and on about getting good grades, but if one is doing well there's a way you can handle yourself appropriately.

Grrr... I know this is dumb, and I should get over it, but I feel really irked inside. Maybe because I was caught by surprise and didn't expect them to be valedictorian--maybe it felt good to think that someone else was struggling with the material like me, when all along they were kicking its ass and taking names.

What is this person's psyche for acting this way?

P.S. This wasn't a case of we didn't get any of our grades until the end of the year/semester; we would get grades/feedback continually.