Before We Begin Today's/This Year's Debate Round/Season...

As we near the end of August, school has started for most, there's no more avoiding actually writing that persuasive you've had in your head since March, you can no longer put off researching this year's TP resolution, you make room on the fireplace mantle for the trophies that will inevitably be bestowed upon you. Your debate binders have been cleared out, ready for new evidence, and your box is clear of old CX sticky note. You struggle to stop looking at Doctor Who memes. You reluctantly close the tab that contains a multitude of Pusheen pictures. We look over the cliff that is Summer, and brace ourselves for the descent into the brand new speech and debate/school year. But before we make the plunge, I thought I'd tell y'all the things I'm looking forward to this season.

 (See below for adorable Pusheen pictures.)

This is me right now. ;)

This is my computer right now. ;)

1. Amazing New Speeches!

I know I've said this before, but I like writing. Writing is cool. And when I get trophies and medals for writing well... that just makes it even cooler. Finding a topic is fun, finding points can be a nice challenge, and cutting interps is really hard. Usually. I get to learn new stuff, read new books, and write a ten minute rant on why you shouldn't give up. Wait, that was last year...

2. Awesome New Friends!

Let's be honest here: I had like two friends at the beginning of the 2012-2013 debate season. And while these friends were rather amazing, two is not a very substantial number. But before the year started, I made a decision: I would make new friends. *Gasp!* I tried to talk myself out of it. "But Hadley, you're a homeschooler! You're unsocialized! You can't just go around making 'new friends!' You'll say something stupid! You'll embarrass yourself!" But then I realized: Yes, I will embarrass myself. I'll say something stupid. Like I did that one time when I was all like, 'I'm Conner's brother.' But guess what. I don't even care anymore. You know why? Because neither does anyone else! And if they do, then that is their problem. And so I made friends. Some of these people I had never seen or met before. Others I had technically known for a year or two. But either way, friends I made. And friends are cool. ;)

3. Shiny New Trophies!

Yep. I'm gonna win soooo many trophies. I'm gonna pwn all them novices. I'm gonna make them novices cry! Mwahahahahahaha! Just kidding. The novices are probably going to be making me cry. Because novices are awesome. So instead of shiny new trophies, let's go with Terrific New Novices. That's better. I love novices, mostly because I was one like, two months ago. And I love things that I was two months ago. Well, unless that thing was getting sent home from MPACT.  Anyways. Moving on.

4. Lot's of New Memories

Let's be honest (again), I wasn't exactly looking forward to the 2012-2013 season. Actually, I was dreading it because I knew that I could no longer avoid competing. My mom would not allow it. But the first tournament approached, I couldn't help but be excited. After the tournament, I no longer dreaded tournaments: I looked forward to them because of the stories - the memories I would make. Most of them embarrassing. But embarrassing stories make better stories than stories about you being all cool and stuff. Being awkward is funnier than being cool. But somehow I manage to be both. ;)

5. Interesting New Blog Post Topics

So, I barely posted at all for like, two months. Why? Because nothing interesting happened to me. Why? Because nothing interesting happens to me during the summer. Well, some interesting things. But not a lot. And not interesting enough to write a blog post about. So you should all be thankful that you will now having something interesting to read about. And you'll also have a good reason to vote affirmative. Which you should most definitely do.

Now judge, what can we see from all this? We see that in this near year, there will be amazing new speeches, awesome new friends, shiny new trophies terrific new novices, lot's of new memories, and interesting new blog posts. Basically a whole lot of new stuff. Yep. By voting affirmative, you get a bunch of awesome new stuff. So vote affirmative. ;D

That Amazing Moment When Your Friend Does Something Really Awesome Like Win

Let's face it: trophies can be pretty darn pretty. Like at the Go Light Your World tournament in February. They had these amazing little things. They were glass and had globes on the top of these pillars and it was really cool and I really wanted one. Like, I really wanted one. They were like, the coolest trophies ever.

Anyways. The other day I was looking at pictures of my siblings on Facebook (because I finally got one of those things). There was one picture I saw with me and them, right after a debate tournament. They were all holding trophies. And I wasn't. Despite the fact that the picture was from like, three years ago, I grew a little bit jealous. Yes, even after all I've been through this year, I started wondering, 'why don't I have any trophies? How come I only have eighth place medals and a couple over-glittered check-marks?'

Then I was like, 'Hadley, you're an idiot.' 'No I'm not.' 'Don't be ridiculous. Of course you are! Thinking you need trophies after all you've been through. WOW. Just... WOW.' 'You're right!' "Of course I'm right. I'm always right.' 'You're never right.' 'True...' And that's a conversation I regularly have with myself. ANYWAYS. I still wanted trophies. But I remembered something I learned last year.

One of my favourite parts of a tournament is the awards ceremony. Usually by the end of it, my hands hurt, my throat hurts, my head hurts, my feet hurt and I'm in tears. Sounds like fun, right? Well, the pain and the tears aren't what I like about awards. I also don't like the super long speeches that sometimes come with them. What I do like is my friends pwning faces. It took me awhile to realize this, but it's just as exciting when your friends win something as when you do. *Gasp!*

Seriously. There are few awards ceremonies I have left with dry eyes, and that's because I have amazing friends. I have three friends who have gotten first place in persuasive at a tournament. I have amazing friends who have pwned at impromptu and apologetics and extemp. And debate. And duo. And other events. I scream really loudly at awards. If you know me, then you know that. And I often go home on Sunday without much of a voice. And my hands are sore from a great amount of forensic clapping. And I'm crying because I'm so proud of my friends. And my feet are sore from a great amount of tournamenting. I just made tournamenting a word, in case you were wondering. Tournament is now a verb. So ha ha to you, grammar.

Having awesome friends who do awesome things is awesome. I hope you have awesome friends like I do. And if you don't have awesome friends, I can be your awesome friend. (Yes, I did just call myself awesome, in case you were wondering.) And then you can meet my awesome friends, and I have a lot.

But you don't have to pwn faces at speech and debate to be amazing. While pwning is one way to be amazing, true amazingness comes from other things. Like if a friend wants to pray with you before the round, that's amazing. If a friend congratulates you on winning even when they didn't, that's amazing. If your friend practically tackles you when they see you after going even a little while without you, that's amazing. If a friend is willing to talk about serious stuff, like their faith and their testimony, that's amazing. If a friend talks about stupid stuff like how cute some boy/girl is with you, that's amazing. If a friend helps you laugh at yourself, that's amazing. There are a lot of ways for friends to be amazing, and I'm so blessed to have a lot of friends who are.

Last year (among other things) I learned that as nice as trophies are, and as nice as if feels to break to finals, and as much as I want to win, it's really, really, really awesome when my friends win stuff - maybe even better than winning stuff myself.

So here's to all my awesome friends out there. To those I've had for years, and those I've known for less than one. To the friends who have won first place, and the friends who have only ever gotten 5th and Belows. To the friends I haven't even met yet. You guys are awesome. Don't stop being awesome, okay?

And vote affirmative, because the trophies are really pretty this tournament. ;)

Medals are shiny

Trophies are cool

My friends are awesome

Just like you!

The First Impromptu Speech I Actually Sort of Liked

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I had speech and debate camp for the last two weeks, and I haven't really had much inspiration. I'm just gonna say that July was my break month. I'll probably post more when the speech and debate season really starts in a couple months. Of course, then I'll also be pretty focused on speech and case writing, partner finding, sleeping, tournaments, and making up figuring out new stories for impromptu, because I really only have four and I'm getting kind of tired of them. Maybe I'll upgrade from the juniors story to the NITOC story. But since you already know that story, I'll tell you that other story I vaguely referenced in this post.

At the first tournament I regretfully did impromptu. I was not a fan of this event, to say the least. But Mrs. Martin would've hacked my registration and signed me up for it, had I refused to do it. I (surprisingly) remember my topics from both of my pathetic rounds: the first was: 'a good example is the best sermon.' So I talked about how Mrs. Martin gives that stupid hand sanitizer story every single club meeting. I don't rememember the rest of that speech. I basically rambled for two minutes and sort of had points, but not really. And the second round: 'classic books - the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the Red Badge of Courage, Don Quixote.' I had never read any of those books, and couldn't even pronounce Don Quixote. In fact, the judge corrected my pronunciation in the middle of my speech. So because I pretty much knew nothing about any of the books, I rambled about how terrible modern-day books like Twilight and the Hunger Games are, and how the moral of the story is always boyfriends and girlfriends. It was... not good. Fifth and Below on all two of my ballots.

The second tournament came around in January of this year. I wasn't necessarily dreading doing impromptu, but I wasn't exactly thrilled. I had very low expectations for myself and didn't really expect to do anything exceptional. My first topic was a Dr. Suess quote: 'You are you. Now isn't that pleasant?' I'm pretty sure that the judge didn't understand the pure genius of my speech through my braces because they did something really, really, really mean to me. Can you guess what it was? Please take a minute to think this over while reading the rest of this post. Anyway, that speech was pretty much horrible and nothing could be done to save it. Except mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But that would've been a long shot.

My next two speeches went all right. In fact, I gave the best impromptu speech I had given up to that point. It was the first time (out of club) that I used my Esther story (which I use almost every single impromptu speech now) and I talked about juniors and about Bethany Hamilton. For some reason I never talk about her anymore. The best part was, it was a J.R.R. Tolkien quote, and I had just watched all three of the Lord of the Rings movies a couple of weeks ago. I was very excited. But before I tell you the results on the ballot I got for this round, I'd like to tell you what the mean judge did to me after my first impromptu that tournament.

They circled fifth and below. Isn't that awful? Well, it's not that bad. I mean, a fifth and below could always mean a fifth, right? WRONG! WRONG WRONG WRONG! It most definitely did not mean fifth. How do I know this? Because after circling fifth and below, the judge wrote 8th. 8th! When I saw this horrible judge's rather awful ballot, I proceeded to exclaim (in a very odd, high-pitched voice) 'you're a horrible person!' over and over again as I showed everyone this horrible judge's ballot. The rest of the ballot wasn't even very good. The judge pointed arrows to the 'ethos,' 'pathos,' and 'logos' boxes and wrote 'not sure what these mean.' EVEN THOUGH IT'S WRITTEN RIGHT NEXT TO THOSE WORDS EXACTLY WHAT THOSE WORDS MEAN! Mrs. Martin was awesome enough to take a sharpie to the eighth, but I still see the black mark whenever I see that ballot, and I know what lies under it.

But on my other two ballots I got fourths, and some good advice about how to improve my speaking. At least, I think there was good advice. The point is, it was the first time I started enjoying impromptu. I didn't love it yet, but I was starting to enjoy it.

At the next tournament, I remember giving the first impromptu speech I actually loved. It was the second round of the tournament, and my topic was, 'if I were a book...' which was totally obscure and weird and everyone else hated those topics. I kind of hated them too. But I love books. So I ranted for three points and five minutes about how awesome books are. It was the first time I talked about C.S. Lewis, who I also use in a lot of my speeches, and I talked about how I alphabetized my bookshelf. And how everyone should read the Bible.

Whenever someone asked me how that round went, I would say, 'awesome,' or 'fantastic,' or something to that extent. It's definitely not the best impromptu speech I've ever given, but it was one of the most fun. And that's what really matters, isn't it? Don't coaches and stuff always say, 'it's not about winning; it's about having fun.' At least that's what they said in Arthur. Anyway, it was a really fun speech. I got to talk about something that I love, instead of just something that was relevant to the topic but I didn't really care about. I got a third on that ballot- the highest I had ever gotten on a ballot. It was, of course, overshadowed by the two firsts I got in persuasive, but that's another story.

To the people watching grow in my impromptu skills, it seemed as though I was starting to like impromptu as I started to get better at it, but it was the reverse: I started to get better at impromptu as I started to like it. If you don't enjoy something you do, then you're probably not that fantastic at it. At least, that's how it is when it comes to me and speaking and stuff. It really annoys me when people complain about breaking. I'm just like, 'uhm.... seriously?' You're literally complaining about winning. I just want to know why. I really don't understand. Please explain the motivation behind such offensive actions. Yes, I am offended. Why are you offending me? Are you just an offensive person in general? Or is this abnormal behaviour? *Coughcoughkalebcoughcough* Anyway. Impromptu is awesome. I'm kind of mad at Stoa for kind of sort of abolishing it.

I never thought I would like impromptu, much less love it. But then again... 'still round the corner there may wait, a new road or secret gate.'

And it's for all these reasons, that of kitkats, impromptu, J.R.R. Tolkien quotes and national security, that I strongly urge an affirmative ballot at the end of today's debate round. *Clap clap clap.*

The quote from my first enjoyable impromptu round.