Pen Drills - The Third Year Chronicles #2

With little more than a week until speech and debate club starts off, competitors are in a rush to find cases, write speeches, and stop saying marine natural resource policies. Tournament Withdrawal is turning into Tournament Fever.

I wrote a speech a couple of weeks ago, and after I wrote it I let it sit on the back burner while I worked on my novel (as it would happen, the stove wasn't actually on and it got cold.). But the other day I figured that since club is less than two weeks away, I'd better get practicing.

I started off with some pen drills. You see, most people use pens for writing speeches and flowing debate rounds (or cards). But when practicing your speeches, they take on a new purpose: tongue twister drills.

After you say 'toy boat' so many times that it starts sounding like 'toe boyt', you take the saliva covered pen out of your mouth and do it again. (Same results, really.) And then you move on to the next tongue twister. And from a distance, the normal people of the world stare at you like you've lost your mind (mostly because you have).

I've tried to avoid the pen drills for the last couple of years. Because, well, I didn't want to look like an idiot. But once I started wearing full tournament attire just to practice my speech, I realized that I look like an idiot most times. Besides, pen drills save me from sounding like I have a pen in my mouth in actual rounds. How that works out, I'm not entirely certain.

Vote affirmative. And eat pens. (Wait, that's wrong...)

(This post is part of a series called The Third Year Chronicles. Click Here for TTYC #1)