That Amazing Moment When You Realize That All That Hard Work Was Worth It

I just discovered something amazing. That something amazing is called glass frogs. Behold:

"He's cuuuuuuuuuuteeeeeeeee!"

It's so cute! Scratch that. It's adorable. So dang adorable. But that's kind of totally beside the point. But it is adorable. I will probably never get over it. Ever. It's soooooooo cute. Anyways.

I'm going to write about something today. I don't know what yet. I could rant about how cute glass frogs are, but I think you get the picture. And if you don't now, you never will. Maybe I'll be a little more serious this time. I did say in the description that I would write about serious stuff sometimes. It's not like I've been outright un-serious. Besides the whole "I AM NOT GAY" thing last post. So I'll be serious now. I'll write about... um... stuff.

So, I never actually told you about the competition part of my week at NITOC. Well, I thought it went okay. My speeches went okay. For two of my impromptu speeches I ranted about how Christians are judgemental. I don't think my judges liked that. And on one of my ballots my judge told me not to use my impromptu hatred as an example, even though she then said that it was good for that topic. And one of the judges told me to use Abraham Lincoln as an example in my persuasive about failure. I had already considered his story and rejected it. Also, it was NITOC. In the last round. And I wouldn't have seen that ballot until after the tournament even if I had broken. Crazy judges. Crazy, crazy judges. Mostly the crazy Californians. They don't know what they're talking about!

Wait, did I say that'd I be serious this time? Oh, yeah. Seriousness. Competition didn't go so well. I didn't break, but I didn't mind too much. Okay, I did mind. I was kind of really upset when I found out I didn't break. And I was kind of sort of crying. But then this odd conversation happened with my friend('s mom) Mrs. Lux:

Mrs. Lux: Sorry you didn't break. *Hugs me.*

Me: It's okay.

Mrs. Lux: No it's not, but that's okay.

What does this mean? How can it not be okay, but still be okay? This is a little thing I like to call a paradox. Actually, it's called an oxymoron. But I'm a Whovian so it's a paradox. But it's not a paradox, or an oxymoron! What she meant that it's okay that I wasn't okay. It was okay to be upset! It was fine that I was disappointed that I didn't break! It's okay to be not okay! I was disappointed. I was upset. I wasn't okay. But after awhile I was. I remembered my speech. Never give up. Learn from your failures. Said failures don't define me. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

So my week went on like a normal tournament, only several days longer. So we were all exhausted. -REALLY exhausted - by the end of the week. At around 12:30AM or so, I went and got my ballots from the car. I was expecting - hoping for, at least - for maybe a 3rd, but I doubted it. But I still wanted it. So I opened my ballots.

5th and below after 5th and below. The highest rank I got at the entire tournament - in both persuasive and impromptu - was a fourth. One fourth. That hadn't happened once at the other six tournaments I went to. I had at least gotten a third in either persuasive or impromptu up to that point. I mean, sometimes I just got 5th and belows in one event, but in the other I would always have at least a third. But not this time. Not at Nationals. Oh, and I looked on speechranks a moment ago. 75 people competed in persuasive. I got 73rd place. 237 people competed in impromptu. 237. I got 237th place. Soul = Crushed.

I held back the tears as my friends tried to figure out this dumb game called 'black magic'. Eventually Mr. Martin told us all to go to bed and I had an excuse to leave. As I was crawling out from the booth at the hotel my backpack knocked over someone's coffee cup and it got all over everywhere, including myself. My knee was covered in hot coffee, I'd gotten the lowest rankings in speech I'd ever gotten, and I had been at a debate tournament for a week. I started crying. There was nothing else I could do. After hitting the elevator button in frustration, I ride up to our room on the third floor and pound on the door due to my lack of a key-card. No answer. I'm frustrated. I'm tired. My knee is wet. My ballots kind of sort of stink. I bang on the door again. Still no answer. I knock one more time then go back downstairs again to see if any of my family is there. Nope. No one there. I hold a scream inside my mouth. Finally my sister walks through the automatic doors and hands me a room key. I go upstairs again and go into our room. No one is there. I throw the key-card across the room and shake my backpack to the ground. As I throw my ballots on the bed I bend down to pick up the card, which has flown behind the huge orange chair in the corner. I quickly change into my pyjamas and get into bed after brushing my teeth. I'm a perfect mess by now. My hair is frizzier than Miss Frizzle's. My face is red and soaking wet from tears. I am not, by any definition, in a good mood. I get in bed and shortly after my mom walks in. She questions me about my ballots and I answer with grunts and nods. She tells me comfortingly that those things don't define me. They don't define how good I am at speech, or how my year went. Then why does it feel like they do? Why does it feel like they're so important? So I silently cried for awhile then I watched T.V. for awhile. And then I fell asleep. And then I woke up. And I felt a little better.

On the way home I was still discouraged. I asked God to show me that all that work I had put into my speech was worth it. Then at youth that night I was talking to my youth pastors wife Amy, who I had given my speech to awhile back. She asked my how nationals went and I told her it was okay. Then she told me about when I had given her my speech. She said that it had really encouraged her at a time when she needed encouragement. I remembered my friend Kate telling my that she had been persuaded by my speech back at the tournament when I had broken to finals, and my most favourite ballot ever that said (and I quote): "I was honestly blown away by how astounding this speech, in both terms of structure and delivery, was."

So obviously someone was persuaded by my speech. Like those two other people who gave me firsts on ballots. And the other people who told me my speech was good. It was still frustrating to get ranked so low at nationals, but sitting here at the laptop desk, looking at the aforementioned ballot of awesomeness, (the 'I was blown away' one) seeing the tiny circle around the word first it makes me realize that what everyone says at the beginning of the year is true: if you even persuade one persona about your topic, you have had a successful year and all that work was worth it.

So even though it's discouraging, and I may cry after bad tournaments. But it's okay, even though it's not okay. It's okay to be upset. It's okay to cry. It's not okay to keep all your emotions inside, so never, ever do that. Write about it in your journal or something, if you're not a crier. Talk to someone about it. But the worst thing you can do is hold it all inside. So don't do that. Ever. Okay? Get the picture? Speaking of pictures, that frog is insanely adorable.

The End. :)

P.S. Vote affirmative or my soul shall be crushed.