serious insanity: my first competition! and sleepover and...

so yeah, lots of stuff happened over this weekend! not only did i have my first impromptu competition, but i also got to stay over at my friend's house the night before! i wouldnt really call it a sleepover, tho, since we all didnt get much sleep from having to get up early at 3 in the morning.

here's how it went: on friday after school, sydney with aliesha picked me up around 6:30 cuz we were going to watch our school play of cinderella (the musical, cuz it was played by our musical theater class) which we thought started around 7. we thought that we'd be late cuz aliesha had to go to the bank to get some money for the trip the next day, but she couldnt remember her password for her card (we were at one of the ATM machines at the drive through side), so she eventually gave up.

but when we got there and noticed that everyone was waiting in the lobby, and then we saw a poster and saw that the play started at 7:30. there had been posters hanging up all over the school that week, but none of us had bothered to look at the time. -__-"

so we waited, and i saw alot of my friends/classmates. monica, my twin, and her friends were there; we ended up sitting in a row right behind them. and kelly, emma, and nicole were all ushers. there were alot of little kids, too. mrs. jardin did a good advertising job, letting elementary kids watch parts of the play on thursday and friday during school.

so we watched it. it was pretty good. some of the singers werent as great as they could of been, tho. and geezums, most of the prince and cinderella scenes when they're in love was SO CHEESEY that i wanted to gag D:

oh yeah, a little bit before the show started, monica and her friends were trying to remember the chinese dynasty song just in case mr. jenerette was here. last semester, he told us that he'd give us 2 extra bonus points if we ever sang that song to him in public.

and we did find him after the show! cuz kelly, emma, and nicole were ushers, they saw him come in. i was walking near the doors to the lobby with my friends before i heard alot of people yelling my name. when i looked over, people were yelling at me to jump over the seats to come over there where there were a mob of my friends standing behind someone.

and i was like, "i'm not tall enough! XP" so i just walked over there the long way.

when i came over, i realized that the person everyone was crowding around was mr. jenerette! so after that, we all sang the chinese dynasty song (i forgot a part so i just lip-synced it :P) and he told us that he didnt need to take our names cuz we're prolly gonna remind him anyways.

so after that, we went to aliesha's house (sydney was staying over, too) and found out that her mom's boyfriend was over, too. so we went upstairs to the guest room after i got to look in at aliesha's room.

we played on the wii for a bit while sydney was on the computer, i got to see aliesha's library. i think she owned all of fruits basket, i need to borrow those (i havent read any of that series for a year ^^")...

and then i had to take a shower and we all decided to go our separate ways after that cuz everyone else needed to take a shower, too, and then go to bed cuz it was 11 already and we had to get up in 4 hours. i got the guest room, sydney got aliesha's room, and aliesha slept with her mom in her room.

so i got woken up at 3:30 the next day. it felt like a long nap. i was tired and felt like how i usually did after sleeping for a short time.

we left to go to the warner robins high school (krista goes there) around 4:05. the bus was supposed to be there around 4:45, but it came around 5 something. and it was cold that morning and we waited for prolly half an hour for it to come.

it was really cold on the bus. i wish that i had brought my blanket. sydney did, that loser XP there werent alot of people who were going to this competition (which is why we combined with the people from warner robins), so everyone got a seat to themselves.

i tried to not use my ipod that much cuz we were expected to go home around midnight and i didnt want it to go dying on me. but that wasnt a problem after all. i listened to it all on the bus ride there and back and throughout the day and it didnt even hit the halfway mark.

we stopped at a gas station that had a mcdonalds combined to it for a rest stop/breakfast break around 6:30. i bought a sausage biscuit and iced tea just to wake me up. the tea came with a big cup.

and then we left afterwords. i fell in and out of sleep during the whole ride. it was hard to get in a comfortable position to sleep in.

oh yeah, i should mention this: there were only 6 girls (if you count the teacher/supervisor from warner robins) on the bus and the rest were doods. the girls all sat near the front while all the guys were in the back, being really loud.

i mean, they were really loud and wide awake when we first left the high school. when they were finally quieting down and sleeping, we stopped at the gas station and they were wide awake again.

so we finally get to lincoln county after 3 hours on the road. we had to go wait in their cafeteria (it's a small school compared to ours. just looking at their cafeteria size told us; ours is 3 times as big) for the other schools to come. but every school got a bag with candy and stuff. i ate some of the chocolates later on after my first competition. :3

there was at least 7 or 8 schools who came in the end. the lunch room was pretty packed. one of the last schools to come had to stand up near the stage place.

now, even tho we're under the debate category (i think), there are two types of debaters: something (i forgot ^^") and impromptu. aliesha, sydney, and i were in impromptu. actually, now that i think about it, all of the girls were in impromptu.

the other debaters got called to their stuff first while we had to wait an hour for our competitions.

here's how it worked. you get assigned to a group of 6 or 7 to compete in, but they separate you from your school so that you're less likely to compete against each other. cuz our county didnt have alot (only 5) we've never had to compete against each other cuz there were 6-7 groups to split us up in. but bigger schools had 2 or 3 ppl from their school in the same group, tho.

when it's your turn, you get to choose 3 choices from an envelope to talk about. you pick one and put the rest back in the envelope for other people to choose from. you have 7 minutes in all to do your speech, but 2 minutes is the recommended time to prep (quickly write down what you want to say).

and the judge judges you while your talking, taking notes and all that. in the end, he ranks everyone in the order of who did best to who did worst. but we dont get to see that, of course. we can only ask about our time in the end.

oh, and there's 4 rounds each with a different theme. and the top 5 gets to be in the final round to battle out for the winner. but those 5 all get trophies anyways, cuz they did the best out of all of us.

in my first competition, i became friends with prema and kristin (who i later found out was wiccan from aliesha from her speech in their group later on in the day) asking about how this competition went and stuff cuz i really didnt know.

i was the last to go in my first group. i forgot all of my other choices except the one that i immediately chose. i did, grocery stores are the ultimate playground (the theme was food) cuz that immediately reminded me of krista and what we did on valentines day.

so i was happy with my topic and actually had experience so i made a few jokes, got really animated, and rambled at times. i thought that i did pretty good for my first time :D

i guess that i did, since i got placed 3rd out of 7. and i scored a 90 (scoring is 70-100) in it.

after that, i went back to the lunch room and continued drawing (i was nervous and it was really quiet while waiting for ppl to prep and stuff. we got some of that really long paper that i used to use in art. i folded it in half and it turned into a little book) and waited for aliesha and sydney to finish.

i talked to priscilla (she's korean!) for a bit, seeing how she did, cuz she's been to competitions longer than me. and then sydney and aliesha came and we waited for a bit for the next round.

the next round's theme was about movies. i didnt think that i did too good on that one. especially since i kinda just abruptly ended my speech after rambling a bit. i didnt get any good topics that i could really work with like last time. my topic was: themes that drawn me to a favorite movie. i got placed 3rd in that, too, and i also made the same score as last time, a 90.

there was an exchange student in that group named ben. he was from germany. i liked his accent. :P i like accents in general XP

and then we had lunch. priscilla and i talked about asian dramas (cuz of that movie theme) for a bit before i asked her if she ever listened to kpop and she said that she did! so i asked her who her favorite band was and she said 2NE1, and i told her that my all time fav was DBSK and she said that they were posers! and that super junior was better!

i was like NO WAY!! DBSK is awesome! super junior's good, but they cant compete with DBSK. and all this time, sydney and aliesha were watching us argue back and forth like it was a tennis match.

she was like, "they're posers. they say that they're great at sports and all of this other stuff." i countered saying that they DID prove their athletic capabilities in a bunch of variety shows in japan! :P

and then we got off topic or something. but i was so happy to find someone else besides krista to talk about kpop with XD and with a real korean for once! someone who can understand what they're saying!

our third theme was animals. my topic was : if i could be an animal, what would it be? at first, i picked a dragon, but then i changed my mind cuz of all of the cons to it. but i did mention that in my speech just to waste some time. in the end, i picked a phoenix.

the people in that group really intimidated me. they were all really good. i'm surprised that i got a 97 in there. i think i made 2nd place in here (we got to look at our graded papers after eating dinner later on the bus, but we didnt get to keep them and i forgot to write down my ranks on my paper) and i got a 97!

and for our last round, the theme was school. in that group, everyone except for 2 ppl were beginners, and the judge lady said that she'd give us tips at the end when everyone had done their speeches. the girl who went before me topic was: in 20 years, i would be... or something like that.

she was also a beginner, so she didnt stay up there for long. but she talked about being hopefully successful and stuff in the future. when she came back (i sat in the seat next to her), she was kind of embarrassed and stuff, so i told her that she should of said that she was a world dictator in 20 years or something to make it funny.

that was where i got my idea for my speech when it was finally my turn. i chose the topic: if i died, my friends would think... at first, i had no idea what to say, but then the dictator thing came back to me and i went along with that. it was pretty funny and ridiculous.

when i said that i was a world dictator, joe (this funny guy from warner robins who knows sydney and aliesha) pointed to the podium in the room and i continued my speech from there. i said that i was a world dictator, but an awesome one at that, so everyone loved me cuz i save the animals and made world peace and stuff. but everyone has haters which was how i as assassinated. but i died gloriously because i died saving the penguins. XD

so yeah, i liked that topic. i made 3rd place again (or maybe it was 2nd in here...i dont remember! >_<) but i made a 97! i think i got placed 3rd cuz my speech was so short, it was my shortest speech, around a minute and a half.

afterwords, she told us some tips to help us. she said that we should always have a back up story that we can use in any of our speeches no matter how ridiculous it is, and that we should be organized (i need to really work on that, i tend to just ramble :P), and that we should always add details cuz it helps waste time and makes the story more interesting.

i wished that she was my first judge so i could of used those tips -__-

it was around 5 or 6 by the time imprompt was done. sydney and priscilla made it into the final round, so they were gone for another 45 minutes while aliesha read and i drew/doodled some more. i drew alot cuz after that, we still had to wait for the debaters to finish their competitions and they take forever (i left the book that i borrowed from aliesha on the bus, so i had nothing else to do).

in the end, i turned my pages of drawings into a book. i called it the bored book. i'll take a pic of the cover some other time to show you :P

after the debaters finally came back, we had to wait a bit more for the people to get all of their scores down to decide the winners, and then went to their auditorium for the awards ceremony.

sydney got first place in impromtp! she got a trophy and a chocolate gable. and priscilla got 3rd place! for the debaters from our county, they only got 2 or 3 trophies, tho.

and then we got back on the bus to go home. it was around 8 or 9 by then. we had just left the school a bit when josh told the teachers that he left his laptop and stuff in the auditorium in his bag. so we had to turn around a wait for him to quickly get his stuff.

we drove for half an hour and stopped in betweens zaxby's and krystals. but all of the guys wanted to go to the china buffet which was right next to krystals, so one of the teachers took them there while one teacher went to krystals and the other to zaxby's.

i went to zaxby's with aliesha cuz i had never eaten there before. or krystals either (i've been so deprived in life :P), but i felt in the mood for chicken.

after that, we got back on the bus and headed home. i fell asleep on and off again while listening to my ipod. and then we got back to the school around midnight as planned. it was really cold again, i forgot to mention that :P

we got back in aliesha's mom's car and we told her about some of the stuff that happened during the trip while she drove us back to her house. sydney had to go home so she gave me a lift home.

when i got back, i found out that mommy wasnt even home and that it was just shelle and tawanda, one of shelle's collage friends staying over. i told shelle some of the stuff that happened and then decided to go to bed since it was already one in the morning and i was dead tired.

but i couldnt go to sleep, so i went on my lappytop and read some fanfics until 3 XP

i woke up around 10 later on and procrastinated on doing my homework and stuff until around 3 in the afternoon. and that's how my weekend went. :3

it's 30 minutes until i need to go to school. i woke up around 4 this morning and couldnt go back to sleep. so i decided to get on my computer and be productive and finish reading bleeding violets online before it's unavailable. but then i remembered that i needed to blog about my weekend cuz i've been meaning to ever since it happened, but i've never had the time. not to mention, i wanted to rant about how life sucks and stuff, too, but i didnt have time. i'll save it for another time.

so yeah, i need to go, but before i do, i just wanted to say HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY JAEJOONG AND JUHNO!!

jae just turned 24 (25 in korea) yesterday, and juhno turned 20 (21 in korea) the day before.

so here's some pics of them!