Saturday, November 28, 2009

One more week...

I am so ready for school to be over. And by school I mean high school, no, school in general. I'm supremely grateful for the opportunities, but lately I've been feeling like I'm pushing myself too hard.
I'm just trying to make it to the summer, because I have epicness in store. #1 - Two epic graduations, one the night before I leave for nationals, the other the night I get back, #2 - Nationals: the most epic thing in the world, #3 - Club Rust!! #4 - Sheila's and my Senior camping trip in Yosemite and a possible #5 - go visit relatives on the east coast.
I sent in the last of my college applications a few days ago so now it's just time to wait. I already got accepted to PLU and Tulane - each offering me sizable amounts of money each year. Actually, I'm going to give it a pretty good chance I'll get a free ride to PLU. Then I have Gonzaga and UW which I haven't heard back from. Gonzaga I should hear from next month, UW could definitely take a while.
At any rate, life is pretty good. My mother bought Organic Valley Egg Nog today, and if you have never had that it is the best type of eggnog around. Yup.

Well I'm feeling a little out of it today, so I think I might just wind this up prematurely, with my regrets and promises for a longer post after finals. That is, if finals don't kill me first.

I leave you with my newest source of entertainment and laughs: LolZombie

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Two Pinches of Nutmeg

So this past weekend was the Sedro Woolley tournament. First of all, I never knew "Woolley" had two L's in it until this weekend. Somehow, I do not feel stupid for never knowing that before.
Friday afternoon I got out of micro feeling grateful I had an hour and a half to get ready before I had to be at the park-n-ride. Turns out I misread the invitation so I only had 15 minutes after I got home to get completely ready. I threw my stuff together, packed up my make-up and heels and stuff I could do there and left. I made the van. :) The ride up was lots of fun, then once we got there it turned out there were only 8 schools competing and there were only 5 open LDers. Oh yeah, and that I had to compete in open against seasoned Varsity debaters.
However, I fared pretty well, and I knew all the judges so I know I didn't get any crappy judges. Our newbie from EWHS, Alex, came to watch and I honestly hope we didn't scare him. Some of my friends...well they're a little blunt? cynical? edgy? yeah, so maybe talking about how to make explosives and the Church/Cult of Espy which they are attempting to get tax exempt status for wasn't the best idea. Oh well...
As far as the debate portion, I felt like my cases stood up pretty well, I know how to use them and I'm fairly comfortable with them. I need to add a kick into my Aff and further refine my Cr for the Neg but other than that I think they're pretty good, Neg especially. I have a wicked second contention. :D
Saturday I made a difficult decision. DI - collapsed, not memorized, 5 competitors, no state bid. StuCo, I = rock on, state bid, collapsed, let's go. Ditching DI was a great idea, actually, because I ended up winning the State Bid + top PO so it was good. I actually really enjoyed walking the novices through Parliamentary Procedure. :D Maybe there's hope for me to be a good coach yet...
Impromptu went smashingly. I had Kirk from Snoho in all 3 of my rooms and he's a very good Imper so that made it extra challenging. I haven't seen results yet, but I do know I got 2nd and he didn't trophy so I guess I beat him. My topics were Perseverance, Income Gap (really? really?) and politics. Although my judge for the last round was a psycho and gave us an extra word we had to incorporate or else she docked points. Mine was pearl divers. So I talked about politics and pearl divers.
The weekend was peppered with surprising amounts of innuendos, drug discussions (no actual drugs) and all around great times with great people. Hanging out with Kirk and Ariel was definitely one of the highlights of the tournament, and without them it would have been EXCEEDINGLY BORING.

Now that I'm back to the hum-drum of trying to survive four more weeks to Winter Break I have three micro assignments due Tuesday, a micro midterm Friday, Spanish crap due Wednesday, and of course the GPHS tournament Friday-Saturday which I need to refine my cases for and write an expos for.
Good news - State bids for top IEs!! I'm hoping for my Pattern A, but I'm not making any bets.

Gig was pretty fun, if I didn't say before I trophied for Imp. I'm going to be disappointed if I don't go to State this year for Impromptu, considering I beat the guy who got 3rd there last year for 3A. Well, we'll see. At any rate, I'm happy with debate, I love my friends, and I got Pride and Prejudice and Zombies from the library two days ago!!! I am salivating over it - it will be epic.
Oh yeah, and I got my drivers license and I actually kind of like the freedom that entails. Haha...it took me long enough. :)

(Also...I'll do more movie reviews next post when I have a bit more time...not that anyone really cares but whatev. :P )