Recap: National Invitational Tournament Of Champions (AKA Nationals)

So I didn't post for a week. Why? I was in Arkansas. Why? Because of NITOC. What the heck is that? Nationals. What for? Speech and debate. But only speech for me. So now I'm going to tell you everything (that I remember) about this past week, because I feel like boring you to death. Jkjk...

Sunday, May 19, 2013
We left. At like, 11:43. And drove. For like, 6:00 hours. This was an incredibly uneventful drive. I basically ate some chips and cheez-itz and listened to Adventures in Odyssey. Blahblahblah we got to the hotel, I saw a couple friends down in the lobby, I hung my suits up in the closet, we ate I think, and then I went to bed or something. Booooorriiiiing.

Monday, May 20, 2013
Parli day! So we take like a billion years to find out where we're supposed to park. At first I don't see anyone I know, but then I see my friend John on a bench with his baby brother. So I restrain myself from running away from the awkwardness of awkwardly wandering around trying to find out what the heck to do. Then my friends the Martins show up. I'm not being very descriptive because I don't want to write a long post about how we found a butterfly that stuck to Hannah Martin's shoulder and hand without moving. So. Moving on.

Six rounds of parli, with me wandering around John Brown University (where NITOC was) without a clue where everything was. Then I saw one of my numerous friends and I was very happy because I hadn't seen here in like two months. So I hung out with her for a long time. Then I hung out with my other friend who I also hadn't seen in two months.. So we helped each other practice our respective speeches. I rode on Mrs. Martin's golf cart, which she was driving around the college. Nothing that interesting happened until later.

Me and my family were going to skip out on announcements because they would probably be boring and useless. So me, my mother, my sister Kylie, and my oldest brother Adam were headed out to the car. Somehow or another, we got separated and I ended up with my youngest but older brother Conner. ((Clarification: Kylie is 19, Adam is 18, and Conner is 16. I turned 14 a month ago.)) So me, Mom and Conner stood outside the student lounge thing, waiting for my Dad and other siblings. As we are going back inside, the tornado sirens sound. Like, really really really loudly. It had been cloudy all day and had started to rain some, then the rain had stopped and now the sirens were going off. I restrain myself from running downstairs in a total panic attack and hiding in the deepest, darkest, safest corner of the building. Oh, and I forgot to mention, there were about 500+ people stuffed in the various locker rooms. When me, Mom and my brother got into the locker room, there were some very intelligent people praying. There were a few metal folding chairs. My mom took the last one that wasn't still folded and I set my amazing new backpack on the ground next to it. Then the room got mysteriously dark. Either someone knocked all the light switches or the power went out because of, oh I don't know, the tornado. My friend Elenya (E-len-yuh) was sitting on the floor and I sat down next to her. Off course, it was boring just sitting there waiting for the lights to come back on so we could go back to the hotel and do nothing. So me and Elenya stood up and wandered around from locker room to locker room, trying to find someone more interesting than those two girls taking selfies during a tornado warning. I don't recognize anyone, but it's hard when all the light is coming from peoples' cellphones and iPods. Eventually we just return to the locker room in which we originally were situated. It's not long until the sirens stop and we are allowed to leave finally. Only here's the thing: my two oldest siblings are still MIA. So me, mom, dad, and Conner and going back and forth looking for those people. There are  spoons and napkins and stuff sprawled all over the floor of the gym, where the student center was. There was supposedly standing water in there, but it was just wet. Finally, we find them and trudge across the soaking wet ground to where my dad had parked the car. My mom takes a picture of the huge tree that had fallen over and we drive to the hotel, which was about five minutes away from JBU.

Only guess what? The power was out. So it was dark. Duh. The hotel lobby provided us with flashlights and these weird heart-shaped push lights that the hotel had for who knows why. So we walked up the stairs (because, duh, the elevator wasn't working) and for some amazing reason the door worked. My mom accidentally leaves our abnormally large camera bag outside of our room. So we got in our room and opened the curtains. Thankfully, it's light enough outside to provide us with a reasonable amount of vision. After a minute of sitting there doing nothing, my mom mentions something about a kid stuck in the elevator. Me, Conner and Kylie totally flip out at this fascinating discovery and run down the hall to find out if this is true. Conner knocks on the elevator doors.
"Boy in the elevator? Are you okay?"
There is no answer. My mom tells us to go downstairs and help this mom get her stuff out of her car since she has a bunch of little kids. The stairway closer to us isn't lit for some odd reason so I turn and start running  the other direction to the other stairway. It was dark. I was running. As fast as I could. Which, come to think, isn't very fast. And as I'm running the ground suddenly becomes non-existent, and it feels like a dream or something. As I am flying through the air I remember the camera bag. Then I fall flat on my face. Seriously. On my face. And my knee, which is scraped. So I'm half laughing, half crying as I push myself from the ground, totally embarrassed. I go back into our room where I discover that my poor glasses have broken. Not in half or anything, but they're super loose now and refuse to stay on my ear when ever I bend over, or jump, or run, or do anything that involves moving. Anyways. A bunch of our friends who were staying at the same hotel came up to our room and we played cars and talked about the kid in the elevator.

And that was the most interesting thing that happened at NITOC. I might possibly potentially write more about this tournament later, like the power flashes and stuff. But I'm too lazy to write it all now. I'm not very good at writing about things that happened recently, and I therefor feel terrible whenever I get the details a little bit wrong. It's much more interesting when it happened much later and I can therefore... embellish the stories with out being a total liar. Also, this is getting long. And I need to write about more important things, like sparkly green check marks.

So vote affirmative, because I'm getting bored.