Speeeech

This happened a week ago. But whatever.

I had a speech tournament. My first.

It was a novice tournament, so everyone there was doing it for the first time, but it was still stressful. The night before I was utterly hyperventilating. But whatever.

I got up at 5:50 on last Saturday. (Yeah. Crazy, I know.) I put on my skirt suit and my makeup, packed a bag, ate a small breakfast, and drank some coffee. I got to school at seven and bundled into a car with three other sleep-deprived competitors. The driver (a parent) had gotten us munchkins, which was nice.

After an hour-long drive, we arrived at Most Catholicly Named School Ever, aka Sacred Heart. We put our bags down in the cafeteria/gym place (I really didn't get it either), then found an empty room in which we could do voice and body warm-ups. After that we returned to the cafeteria and checked the postings for where we would be competing. Then came the nerve-wracking first round.

For a first-ever round, I think it went pretty well. Nerdfighteria was included in the speech I presented, and one of the judges was a Nerdfighter  - I saw her smiling at me the whole time and, as I found out later, she wrote DFTBA on my ballot!

I was still nervous, though, and I was pretty much shaking when I came back to my seat. It turns out I got my lowest ranking in that round - third out of six places - but that's not bad either.

The second round was far easier, but my stomach kept growling at odd intervals. I was so tired that I hadn't noticed how hungry I was, and ended up having to surreptitiously stuff sunflower seeds in my mouth between speakers. That was awkward. But my speech went fine, and I got ranked second!

Then it was lunch/critically review your performance in the first two rounds with your friends/critically review other people's performances in the first two rounds with your friends/re-apply makeup/freak out all over again time. *cue elevator music*

Anyway, then there was the third round, in which I was also ranked second, and then we had time to sit around and do nothing/take photos with other team members. And then we went to the auditorium, where there were seniors who had competed in NFL (that's National Forensic League) finals, and they presented their pieces. There was a girl who did declamation just amazingly, a spectacular duo interp of Dr. Jekyll and Hyde, a phenomenal extemp person (where you're given like 30 minutes to prepare a speech and then you present it), and a hilarious humorous interp. It sort of made you think, "Why do I do this again?" but it was quite entertaining to watch.

Then there were awards for anyone who'd gotten first place, which I hadn't, and then we got our ballots, took a team picture, and went home. We were all simply exhausted, though I was vaguely hyper on the fact that two of the six people who had judged me were Nerdfighters.

People ask why I do speech, why I take the time to write and practice and wake up at 5:50 and give away my Saturdays. First, you get to talk all day, and people have to listen. Second, why does anyone do a sport or play music or make art? Because they like it, or because they want to get better at it. I love words. I love moving people with words. And that's what speech is all about.