Ten Thousand

This Wednesday, after posting my Taylor Swift parody, I broke 10,000 pageviews all time history here on Kitkats and Impromptu. Not specifically that post, but all my posts. I had been counting pageviews for a few weeks leading up to this. after I hit 9,000 I knew what the next big milestone was.

I was expecting something to change.

Maybe having so many views would bump up my confidence.

Maybe having so many views would mean to beginning of my internet popularity.

Maybe having so many views would result in confetti cannons going off and balloons falling from the ceiling.

New Years, however, is still two weeks away.

Nothing has changed. I still have frizzy hair and glasses. I'm still shorter than most of my friends.

I'm not saying I was defining my entire worth off of how many views my blog had, but I guess I was expecting a small bump in value from this huge milestone. But instead I just had to figure out which button to press to take a screen shot so I could post the above picture on Facebook.

Nothing has changed. I'm still going to sit here, figuring out what songs to do parodies of and what debate related lists to make.

There are people out there who count things in the millions. I'll be here counting the dozens and hundreds and hoping to write another post with the popularity of You Know You're a Christian Homeschool Speech and Debate Kid When...

Vote affirmative. Not that it'll change anything.

Happy Birthday!

Wait, what?

That's crazy. Impossible. Insane. Ridiculous. Inconceivable.

It's been a year? Yes, that is what it says.

It's been a year.

A year of crazy debate stories, long posts about tournaments, posts about writing, posts about trusting and speaking love, posts about the insanity of CHSADKs, weird spikes in the amount of views I get, amazing people and amazing moments.

Six thousand, one hundred, and sixty two views.

859 views on the post "You Know You're a Christian Homeschooled Speech and Debate Kid When..."

Fifty posts. Four Disney/Debate parodies. Twenty things I love about speech and debate. Kitkats, impromptu, and blogging.

But that's not what matters.

What matters is you.

Yes, you. My wonderful readers.

I couldn't have gotten 6100 views without you. I wouldn't have written fifty blog posts if it weren't for you. I wouldn't have kept going if it weren't for you.

Don't think that your view doesn't affect me. Every view I get makes me smile a little brighter. Every view I get makes me want to keep doing this.

Writing posts, making parodies, drawing stick-figures on paint. You make it all worth it.

Vote affirmative- then, every time you come back to this little blog with a weird name, that's exactly what you do. So, thank you very much.

Extemp is white, OO is blue

So today is Valentines day, and as I am a Christian homeschooler and thus do not have a significant other, I  honestly don't care that much. So instead of posting about love and stuff, I'll post about how wonderful I think speech and debate is.

Speech and debate tends to consume your life. There's not a whole lot of time for school when you have e-ring due on Wednesday and you need to rewrite your speech by Thursday and memorize it by the tournament next week. There are a lot of things that normal teenagers do while CHSADKs are watching speeches on YouTube and trying to find evidence about shark ITQ's. 

So why do we do these things? Why are we (to be blunt) such weirdos? There are two answers to these questions.

1. We're crazy. Straight up, we're insane. We have all the mental stability of Moriaty. I mean, honestly, what did you expect? We do the strangest things. While most people are watching video game walk-throughs and funny cat videos, we're watching the first place extemp speech from NCFCA nats two years ago.

2. We love it. We love making fun of ourselves. We love being done with e-ring. We wouldn't survive without weekly club meetings and the occasional tournament. I'm not entirely certain how we would make it through the summer without ultimate frisbee and speech and debate camps. We may not all be extroverts, but we still enjoy being with each other. The warm greetings before club starts, the excessive embraces between interstate friends on the first day of tournaments. Sure, we do weird, crazy things. But I'm sure I speak for almost all of us when I say that we would be very different people without speech and debate, but more importantly without each other.

So before you go dismissing us all as insane lunatics (although we may well be just that) think for a moment of the lives that have been changed through speech and debate. Not just persuasives and DIs, but through the friendships that have been made. Even though we're all different, we all like different things, we all share this one thing: speech and debate.

So though there are many reasons to vote affirmative, today I'd like to ask you to do so because you know the ways that Christian Homeschool Speech and Debate has changed you.

Refract Light Like A Diamond - A Tournament Re-cap

No. I will not get up at seven. I glared at my glowing blue alarm clock then turned and buried my face in my pillow. You're supposed to sleep a lot before a debate tournament, because you won't get a chance for the next three to four days. But no. Me and my stupid Pre Tournament Sleep Disorder. I managed to stay in bed for another hour and finally got up at eight, supposedly two hours before we were going to leave.

I finished packing like, two hours before we actually left. so I sat around and cleaned and whatever until we left an hour after the intended departure time. Then I sat in a car for five hours. We (my family and I) listened to Adventures in Odyssey because, guh doy, we're homeschoolers, and then we sat and they (my family) listened to music in their own little introvert worlds until we reached our intended destination. We went to eat with some of our club. We went back to our hotel where tournament check in was, and I saw my fantastical TP partner who lives in AR and don't even ask how that works because it's not important. So then we hung out and talked about bananas and debate and cookies and stuff.

After going to bed, which took way too long considering the fact that we had to be there at 6:30 the next morning, I woke up and got dressed and was ready long before the rest of the people in the room which was my whole family minus my oldest brother. I didn't go downstairs because I thought that breakfast wasn't served down there until 6:30, which is when we had to be at the tournament.We eventually were ready and went to the tournament for a very, very long day.

I said hi to my TP partner again, and to other friends. Some I hadn't seen since April or even March. Some I had seen on Tuesday. But it didn't matter. I was reunited with my friends. And then we had a debate round. My fantabulous partner and I debated groggily, since it was 7:30 and I am not at high functioning capacity at that time of day.

Soon after that debate round, Speech round 1, pattern A started. I had three events so I bounced from round to round giving speeches and panicking. I can't even remember what my impromptu topic was. (But apparently it was a good speech because I got a first that round.) Then we had lunch, which I was very grateful for, considering the fact that I hadn't eaten all day. So I ate food, then went to judge juniors.

When we received the list, I thought that maybe that was a list of all the junior platformers. Nay nay. It was all the juniors in the room. There were nine. Nine cute little kids giving expos speeches. They were adorable. They were quite talented. There were also a lot of them. Nine kids in one room. There were ten in the room my partner was judging in. I decided not to judge any more juniors the rest of the tournament for fear of being late to my TP round, or worse, delaying the whole tournament which is what ended up happening that first round.

I practically ran to my TP round when postings went up. I honestly have no recollection of what team we hit that round, but it was a lot of fun and, like in all of my aff rounds, I got to quote the Lion King. Then it was Speech round B, in which my duo was in. I hoped I wouldn't end up killing my duo partner for being late, but he managed to be there on time and we gave our duo and he lives to this day.

Then we had juniors and parli round two, and I wasn't going to judge juniors for fear of getting stuck  judging ten kids in the room, so I sat around bored, until I decided to watch my friends debate. I sat in the room, waiting for the round to start, and when it did I started texting my friend Hannah, who couldn't make it to the tournament, live updates about the round. I came up with a team name for the team I was watching, (Marjamin) and did so for the rest of the tournament. I sat outside my DI room for round two, texting Hannah about the odd conversation I was having until it was my turn to go, then I waited forever until we actually left the building and returned to the hotel.

My partner and I debated my ex-debate partner the next morning. It was totally weird and almost awkward. But then my former debate partner is always weird and awkward so it wasn't any different than usual. My duo partner and I got like a million people to come watch our duo, because last time no one came to watch us. So my duo partner kept getting chairs for people to sit in because there were a lot of people and they all watched and it was great.

Then after lunch was parli and juniors round three. I watched another parli round, again giving Hannah live commentary about the team with the awesomest team name ever: Australia. Then there was a debate round and a speech round where I bounced from room to room because I had three events in one pattern because I am an insane person. I remember when I used to look at people who did five events like they were crazy. But now I know that they are not crazy. Just... mentally unstable.

Another debate round and then we would end the day with a speech round. No one was showing up for the duo room my partner and I were in, including my partner. So I had one of my friends track him down to apol and drag him back up to the room where I threatened to kill him but everything was okay and our duo went really well and I got to sing.

After duo, my friends and I started coming up with a song parody to Love is an Open Door. Then later I came up with one to When Will My Life Begin and also one to Do You Want To Build A Snowman? And I slept and I woke up and I flipped out because breaks were that morning. I got ready and actually ate breakfast and we went to the tournament and I broke in impromptu and then there was a parli round to kill time for tab and so I wrote down the live commentary because Hannah was not responding to my texts. Apparently normal people sleep in on Saturdays or something crazy like that. And one of the debaters who is usually very serious said 'funzies' within the round. I died. Not really. I'm still alive. Clearly.

So then I waited outside of impromptu finals, which was right next door to apol finals. Which means I got to listen in on a very long conversation from the apol finalists. Amendment: a very long theological debate from the apol finalists. Then I finally went in to impromptu finals and there were a ton of people in there which was weird because what kind of crazy person watches impromptu finals when duo is down the hall? But my speech went well and the judges apparently liked it.

Then there was another debate round because having a debate round after speech finals makes a lot of sense. (Read: having Debate round 6 after finals does not make sense.) So we exhaustedly debated and I changed clothes and sat around and "watched" parli finals and "watched" TP finals and ate amazing pasta like seriously the best ever (for a tournament) and then I wrote more song parodies before awards. Then I flipped out because my friends are amazing. Then I got a shiny, beautiful, blingy, second place trophy. And then we went to the ballot party which was pretty good, but not as good as last year's AR Diamond ballot party, but that was like, the best ballot party ever and will be pretty hard to beat.

And so now I have tournament hangover. Vote affirmative, because I have nothing else to say. Please excuse me while I go refresh Speechranks until they post scores.

Happy tournamenting!

Kitkats and Impromptu (ballots)

Ever since I started this blog (in May), I've been waiting to come across the perfect picture for it. Preferably the impromptu topic 'Kitkats.' I would take a picture of the topic and post it on here. Unfotunately, I never drew that topic. But then my super duper awesome friend gave me a Kitkat and I was struck with inspiration. Vote affirmative, for my extreme creativity.

When You're Stuck on What to Say During Tournament Conversations

This year, my persuasive is about 'the impact you can have through a conversation.' In it, I encourage people to introduce themselves to people they've never met before, because you never know the kind of impact you can have on someone through a simple conversation. Sometimes it's really hard to figure out what to say after 'hello, my name is -insert your name here-", but there are a few good conversation starters that are perfect tournaments.

"I Like Your Suit"

This comment, when said to a girl, will often result in a shpeel (shpeal? shpele?) about how many hours she spent looking in thrift stores looking for a cute suit, only to discover that her older sister had some perfectly adorable ones hidden in the depths of her closet. Or she'll just say thanks, and probably compliment something you're wearing.

"What Case Are You Running?"

Not only is this a good conversation starter, it's also a great way to learn how to destroy them when you hit them about your new friend's opinion on the resolution. ;)

"Where Did You Get Those Shoes?"

"Oh, you mean these little flats that look so cute and innocent but are actually the most horrendous things to walk the planet?" "Yes, those." "Target."

"How Many Siblings do You Have?"

Not 'do you have siblings?' How many. We're homeschoolers- it's a given that we have siblings. There's no telling how many siblings one has, when in the homeschool world. But if someone answers 'none,' you have every right to gasp in horror and ask why.

"What Club Are You From?"

This year the answer to this question will be more varied than ever. Maybe one day I'll figure out what all the Tyler club names are. But probably not.

"How Long Have You Been Doing Speech and Debate?"

"This is my second year, but I've been around S&D for seven years." "Okay... wow..." "And I did juniors for a year. I like, won first place, but then I got last place and gave up on speech for four years. Then I wrote a speech about it..."

"What Tournaments Are You Going to?"

Be sure to remember their answer to this, so that at the end of the tournament you can say 'see you at -insert clever tournament name here-!'

"What Speech Events Are You Doing?"

This question will inevitably lead to the following questions:

1. What is your persuasive/OO/expos on?
2. What is your DI/Duo/HI/OI/Storytelling?
3. Do you prefer abstracts or quotes for impromptu?
4. Isn't extemp the event boring people do?
5. Why aren't you doing any interps?
6. Just debate? That's lame. What's your case?
7. Do you have something against impromptu?

"Vote Affirmative"

Okay, that's a really horrible conversation starter. But it's a good affirmative rebuttal ender. And blog post ender. So... Vote affirmative. And if you have any more tournament conversation starters, tell me in the comments. :)

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

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.

The Whole Entire Point of my Persuasive/Most of my Impromptus Last Year

Reason behind this picture:

Success, I suppose. More success. Success. You know what.

But you've probably read all those already.

So vote affirmative.

I won't ask you again.

Actually, I will.

But that's beside the point.

Just, vote affirmative. >.<

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.

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.

Impromptu Speeches and Why They're Amazing

Before we begin with today's post I'd like to provide the following:

Just a little something I made for this blog (haha, that's such a stupid word. :P)

Anyways, to the point.
I used to hate impromptu. Like, really, really, really, really, really hate it. (I've mentioned this before.) Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with impromptu, let me explain. Impromptu speaking (in homeschool speech and debate, at least) is where there are a bunch of little slips of paper on the table where the judge(s, if you're luck) sit. Now, on each of those slips of paper there is either a quote or something abstract. (For information, check here.) The competitor picks three of the slips and chooses one, putting the remaining two topics on the table. The Competitor has two minutes to prepare a five minute speech on the chosen topic. Anyways, back to the point of this post. I hated impromptu. Mostly because the first time I was ever forced to give one the topic was, my favourite animal. Now, you may be thing, 'but that's so easy! Anyone can do a speech on their favourite animal.' Only here's the thing. 'My favourite animal' is a terrible topic! Why? Because how in the world am I going to talk for five minutes about pandas?! Don't get me wrong, I love pandas. (I mean, they are my favourite animals.) But what would I say for five minutes? I'd probably just drone on and on about how fat and cute they are, and how they eat bamboo, and maybe how I cut out the pictures from my panda calendar after the year was over and put said pictures all over my bedroom. The worst part was, I had to give said panda speech to all these other kids. Okay, there were only like five but five is enough to make me hate impromptu apparently. So instead of giving a speech about pandas, I complained until they didn't make me do the speech.

Fast forward a few weeks or months or some period of time later. My best friend's mother, Mrs. Martin, is pretty much obsessed with impromptu. (Okay, that may be an exaggeration, but Mrs. Martin is always telling me to do that anyways.) And every Friday at her house our speech club would have a little something called "Impromptu Fridays." I didn't usually go. However, in December, (the day before Christmas Eve, to be exact) I did go. I though it was going to be a party. Nay nay. It was impromptu speeches with a Christmas theme. And I was forced (note the emphasis on forced) to give an impromptu speech. Needless to say, I was not happy about this. Thankfully, it wasn't a full impromptu speech. Fast forward a couple weeks later, I wasn't planning on going to Impromptu Friday ever again. But unfortunately for me, my mother forced me to go to the Martins. (But at least I got to see my friends!) And I was forced to give a speech about (of all the dumb impromptu topics) wishing on birthday candles. It was Impromptu Friday the Thirteenth, you see, and all the topics were superstitions. I was hoping for black cats, because I had this whole speech planned for black cats. But I didn't get black cats, I got birthday candles. And so after telling everyone else to be quiet, I started my prep time. The others failed to stay quiet. So Mrs. Martin told them to shut up, and this time they complied. (Mrs. Martin is very... persuasive.) So after two minutes I still had no speech. So I stood up in front of them as she whispered in my ear what to say. This happened on multiple occasions. (Excluding, of course, the birthday candles and black cats.) I was slowly warming up to impromptu.

I didn't actually compete last year, even though I could've. There's a long story behind that. But when speech and debate started up again in late August last year, I knew there was no escaping competing. So I wrote a persuasive two weeks before the first tournament, and did impromptu. I also did debate, but that's a whole other story. Now, I still hated impromptu, maybe not as much as I had a year prior, but I still hated it. I had gotten better by this time, and managed to stop crying whilst giving the speech. My topics for the first tournament were okay. Well, I really hated the second one but I managed to bumble through it for about three minutes. Fifth and belows on all two of my ballots. (We usually only have one judge in impromptu, and there were only two speech rounds besides finals which I of course didn't not break to.) Make note that this tournament was in November.

Fast forward to January. For the next tournament that was coming up, I was still doing persuasive and impromptu, though I still hated the latter. But not debate. There's another long story behind that. So I did impromptu, aaaaaand it was even worse than from November. Well, my first speech was awful. That's another story. The other two were okayish. The next tournament was in February. Impromptu was okaaaaaaay I guessssss..... But then something incredible happened at the next tournament. I got a check mark! A sparkly green check mark that got green glitter all over my hands and suit and in my hair! I'm not even going to explain what a check mark is, only that it is green and glittery and thrilling and I loved impromptu after that. (Dramatic change for the better, eh?)

But then something even more amazing happened at the next tournament! I broke to semi-finals! Out of 88 people I broke! And only 17 people broke! And I was one of them! That meant I would at least get seventeenth place! But then something amazing happened again! I broke to finals! Eight out of the 17 people broke and I was one of them! So then I was qualified for NITOC! So then I was freaking out because of said qualifications!

Fast forward another month to the next tournament. (Yes, that is an excessive amount of tournaments. Six, in case you were wondering. Seven, including NITOC next week.) So, we went to Oklahoma because that's where this tournament was, and I did impromptu. DUH. I love impromptu now so why wouldn't I do it? So then guess what. I got another sparkly green check mark! I was happy. And then I realized that I have a total of three sparkly green amazing check marks! So I now have something most people don't: a deep love for impromptu. It was like giving a new platform speech every round. (Although most of my speeches are pretty much the same.) It was being able to pray during prep time because you forgot to do so outside of the round. Plus also it was getting sparkly green check marks. And qualifying for nationals my first year. I also qualified in persuasive but, again, that's another story.

So that's why I love impromptu. I also love talking about impromptu whilst giving an impromptu speech. I've actually talked about how much I hated impromptu in impromptu speeches. But that may have just been to my stuffed animals. I actually give impromptu speeches to my Webkinz. It's fun. And they're always listening. It's nice to have someone listen to you.

In conclusion: