Go Light Your World - Just Try Not to Set Anything On Fire: A Tournament Recap

(Warning: This post is dangerously long. Proceed with caution.)
(Warning- The Sequel: This is totally out of order, because the order of events is really foggy in my memory, and it would take about a week to get the order right and by that time I would already be having panic attacks because of the Wescalade next week.)

I wasn't exactly ready for GLYW (pronounced GLU-wa). I've been giving my speeches all year and I wasn't even doing duo because *coughcoughkalebcoughcough*, but it wasn't speech I wasn't prepared for. Mostly it was parli. Yep. I did parli for the first time (in forever). I did it with my awesome TP partner. I had my first parli round ever the Sunday before the tournament with a makeshift partner, and my second ever the night before with my actual partner. We were doing parli, an event that is already difficult to prepare for, for the first time with next to no prep before hand. And it. was. AWESOME.

Even though we only went 1-5, we had a blast. We had nothing to lose, so we went in there and got an adrenaline rush and a fatter ballot packet. I deciphered my writing, which had been scribbled down as fast as possible in the shortest fifteen minutes of our lives. Why is it that waiting for a ten minute speech to be done for your turn in a round feels like thirty minutes and the fifteen minutes we have for parli seems shorter than impromptu prep? Mysteries that will never be solved.

Because my wonderful duo partner didn't come, and because they didn't have impromptu (L), I only had two speech events. I switched my persuasive to an OO after the Oklahoma tournament, figuring I had nothing to lose since I had yet to get any checks in anything but duo and impromptu, and impromptu doesn't even count. But anyway. Both of my speeches were in one pattern which means I had a free pattern. And during this pattern I was outside singing, "I could go running, and racing, and dancing, and chasing, and leaping, and bounding, hair flying, heart pounding, and splashing and reeling and finally feeling now's when my time is free!"

I managed to drag a bunch of people in to watch my OO first round and they all squeezed into the tiny room that my round was in. They all loved it and they all said I was great and it really encouraged me to hear that people liked it, even the judges didn't. And I finally got the kid who inspired my speech to watch it the second round.

My DI (yes, I'm doing a DI. #thingsyoudidntknowbouthadley) was 10:05 first round, and I'm not sure how that happened since it used to be eight minutes and I didn't add anything to it. I had some friends who were really nice and encouraging after seeing it and they were (and are) amazing. I ended up one spot away from getting a greencheck mark.

On the first day, I was second to last in my OO room, and I stayed and watched my friend's OO (Which, by the way, is more than a little amazing.) So I was walking to go to lunch, but everyone was already going to worship, so I figured they were having lunch after worship. So I went to worship and then they announced that postings for the second TP round were up. I realized that they had served lunch before worship. And now I have to go to a debate round. And now I'm mad, because I wanted Chick-Fi-La. And I didn't get Chick-Fi-La. And after managing to calm myself to down to a point of being able to debate without having a panic attack, I debated and eventually ended up with food in my mouth. Needless to say (that phrase makes no sense), I made sure to get to lunch on time from then on.

Me and my awesome tournament buddies (you know who you are) hung out behind the tournament facility (I swear we weren't like doing drugs or anything). This is probably my favorite tournament facility, for a couple of reasons. 1. The rooms are near perfect. They're all pretty decent sizes, with a good number of rooms. It's only one story, and the three sections are all easy to figure out. 2. The other (better) reason this facility is so great is the woods out back. A very short way from the church there's a fairly secluded area with a swinging bench (that totally isn't broken) and a round table where we held our knight meetings.

I made friends, hung-out with friends, counted down to the weather with friends, and actually debated against my best friend.

When my Really Buddy told me we were hitting each other in parli, I honestly thought she was joking. When I realized she was serious, I kind of freaked out and hoped I wouldn't get up and say, "my really buddy, in her last speech said something about something." That would have been awkward. And we had a huge group come in and watch, and we never had a group come to specifically watch us in parli the whole rest of the tournament. But that's not all.

Two seconds after I left the room, my Really Buddy came and was like, 'we're hitting you again!' I did not believe her. But she isn't one to say things like that. So after a moment I realized she was telling the truth and I freaked out. And it was a lot of fun, and really fun, and we passed notes like every two seconds. ("Would you agree that five billion plus three billion equals ten billion"?)

At one point during the tournament, I was walking through the woods with my friends, and I wearing a skirt and we happened to walk by some thorns, and my ankle happened to come in contact with some of those thorns. And we kept walking even though I was bleeding. It wasn't that bad, but eventually I was like, "Okay, I should probably go wash this and put a band-aid on it, seeing as I have a debate round soon.'

I was really nervous during the awards ceremony, because I didn't break to finals in OO (they just had a third round for DI), so I didn't know if I would get a check mark. I had been really frustrated earlier because I've been giving my speech all year and, even with improvements, it still hadn't improved. I was always three or fewer spots away from a check. I changed it from a persuasive to an OO because I felt I would do better there, and when I didn't I was kind of mad.

So I sat nervously in my seat when they announced that there would be twelve checks in OO. I still had four chances for a check. I bit my lip as they called twelve place up to get one of the sparkly check marks they always give at GLYW. When they called my name for eleventh place, I freaked out. I practically ran on stage and I swear the people (mostly my awesome tournament buddies cheered louder than they did for first place. If you were just to see my expression, and the way people reacted, you would've thought I had gotten first.

We had a small, pathetically short ballot party in the lobby of our hotel that ended really early because of some baseball kids, and then I hung out with my debate partner in her hotel room until 12:00AM talking about how much fun we had, and about how crazy judges are.

A lot more things than the few mentioned in the post happened. From the 15 Game to Batman, this tournament was pretty crazy. I got to see almost all of my speech and debate friends. I learned that sometimes the people who need to hear your speech aren't the judges. Maybe it's the timer, or an audience who came in to watch someone else's speech, or the person you had to drag in to watch your speech. Because it's not about winning the trophies, the medals, or the green check marks. It's about lighting your world. Which was kind of the entire point of the tournament.

Go light your world, and vote affirmative, because that would light up my day. :) But try not to set your yard on fire. (And wow this is super out of order. I warned you.)