When I started attending Parker, I was always curious about the speech and debate team. Growing up I was always told I would be good at debating or acting. I feel like speech is the perfect combination of the two. Speech has a lot of the competitiveness that debate has (although on a tamer scale) and a lot of acting and improv components. So if anyone is interested in either acting or debate, consider doing acting or debate; but also consider speech.
Our day started not-so-bright and early at 3:30 A.M. Georgia, Adalyn, Max, and I all got ready and packed what we needed and were out the door by 4:15. Although we woke up so early, I had a lot more energy than I would have expected. I was excited and slightly nervous at the same time. When we got to the airport we were quick to get on the plane and begin our adventure; of course not before Georgia could get clips for a video. On the plane Adalyn and I worked on our lines and tried to come up with more blocking ideas, though we were still messing up some at that point–making me more nervous. When we got off the plane we immediately got into cars and drove to the school that graciously offered to host this year’s speech tournament. When Parker’s team got there everyone else was already there, we were late. Thankfully they didn’t start anything without us. Before starting, there were multiple schools that gave us lei in respect of Jessica. For the duration of the day, we put the lei on my stuffed animal Dino, Cheddar (who is a green dinosaur). Leading the event, Carol told us what we should expect, and we were given our room and order number. when we got to the room, we were expected to write our team code (which was given to you before the tournament) and our skit title. In our first round, we were second to speak which I thought was good, I didn’t want to speak first and I definitely didn’t want to speak last. When Adalyn and I did our skit I felt we rushed it out of nerve, we missed one or two lines, and we didn’t move much; but other than that we did alright. We realized it wasn’t as scary as we had originally thought. Rounds lasted around 45 minutes to an hour and when they were done we usually had an hour between one round and another. When we were between rounds most of us were pretty bored, so I suggest bringing a deck of cards, at the least, so you aren’t bored enough to grab a dirty tennis ball from between two buildings (yes, we did that). Our second round was, in our opinion, our best round. We didn’t forget any lines and we moved around a lot more. We also didn’t feel as anxious about it as we did with the first round. It resulted in us adding an extra 25 seconds to our time which was good for us. At this point, I was having a lot of fun with it–I felt confident after the second round and I enjoyed being able to hang out with everyone. When everyone was between rounds, two or three really talented students played on a piano that was in the corner of the large room everyone stayed in. It was a highlight of the trip for lots of us, dancing around with new friends and singing with big smiles on our faces. We got to the room where we would be doing our third and final round. Both Adalyn and I were happy it ended up being the same room we did our second round. We thought that maybe because we had a good round in this room before, it would be the same this time. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. During our skit, we skipped a whole section of the script. When I realized this I started to get a little panicked. I tried to go back to where we were supposed to be and ended up doing some improv until we got back to the place we jumped to. In the end, we were both a little disheartened because we thought that our third round didn’t go well. After the third round, the tournament took another hour to calculate all of the rankings. We all were anticipating the final results of every competitor. When they started calling out people and giving out certificates I didn’t expect my name to be called; so when it was called, I audibly said “Wait, what?”. I was so surprised that we were being called up to receive a certificate, but there we were! I’m very happy with how everyone did at the tournament. I had a ton of fun, and it was great to see how everyone else did their skits and blocking in comparison to ours. It was a good way to see what we did well and what we could add to make ours even better.
After the tournament, we all went on a well-deserved trip to the mall. Many people went to get food, but I decided getting time at Barnes & Noble was more important. Everyone in Ms. Wilczewski’s van met at the designated meeting place and we were off to the airport. Wait… not everyone. After we left we realized we were missing someone. Ms. Wilcheski was very stressed and we were a bit worried we would miss our flight. But in the end, there wasn’t much to worry about. We got the missing camper and got to the airport with time to spare. As soon as I got on the plane I started to dose into a deep sleep. Well, as deep of a sleep as someone can really get on a plane.
Overall I had a wonderful time at my first-ever speech tournament and I can’t wait for the next one!
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