1. While the debate "midnight madness" sessions are completely necessary, they're in part utterly useless.
I can't tell you how many times I watched this.
I don't know why it's so funny. But it is really really funny. I feel like, if someone were to compose a soundtrack to my life, it wouldn't be the dramatic score usually accompanying a film of note. Instead, it would be a rip off of another franchise, covered by an aspiring (but for the moment failing) flautist.
2. Watching Miss Representation is like putting on a pair of tinted sunglasses (or maybe like taking them off). Everything I saw and heard - everything - somehow became a reflection of what I learned at Friday's screening of Miss Rep. Things that I heard in the hallway, in rounds, in speeches - I was almost shocked. There's definitely an element of "I'm just a silly girl" at debate tournaments, especially in IEs. Girls show up in these ridiculous flowery or supershort or mismatched get ups, and it just kills your ethos. Do not wear a miniskirt at a debate tournament. You want to look like a prosecutor, not a prostitute.
But it's not only how girls present themselves at tournaments - it's how judges perceive us. In a round where I have a similar speaking style to a boy on another team, a judge calls him "confident" and me "passionate". That one drives me up the wall. I don't want to be defined by my emotions in a round - I want to be defined by my competence. If I have another judge tell me, "I appreciate your passion because it's not what you know, it's how you feel," I will kill someone. Because I know stuff too! I feel things, yes. But a Public Forum round is not the place to be judged solely on that. He's confident, I'm passionate. He's assertive, I'm catty. He's aggressive, and I'm a bitch.
The question of course becomes "How do I fix it?" Because getting angrier doesn't work. Getting quiet and meek makes me lose the round. I suppose the happy medium requires channeling a college professor type, where instead of aggressive, I'm just better informed. Instead of getting angry, I get helpful. Let me explain this to you. Let me be polite.
I know altering my ethos is important. I just wish I didn't have to do it for the reasons I sometimes feel I have to do it.
/endrant
3. Sometimes we feel a little...
Thank goodness for the many connoisseurs of bizarre youtube videos in my life.
4. Turns out, even though I'm not terribly talkative in it, I'm taking a ton from my AP English class (a class I am, at the moment, genuinely enjoying). Every one of my impromptu speeches was essentially a one woman show entitled "Scenes from AP English". Ms. Powers would be proud, and perhaps disturbed, to hear the words coming out of her mouth coming out of mine. That said, turns out AP English is a powerful resource for impromptu material. I'm actually proud of the impromptu speeches I gave. I think they were different from the usual Utah Girl's Impromptu Speech. And for the first time since I started impromptu, I got to give a speech compelling enough that the judge wanted to hear it.
Topics I pontificated upon included words, Miss Representation, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, no pants o'clock, Miss Representation, Disneyland, poetry, the Waterford uniform, and Miss Representation.
5. The funniness of a knock knock joke is directly proportional to the number of times it's been retold, as well as the recency of the subject matter.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Spanish Fork.
Spanish Fork who?
Wait, where?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Jillian Combs.
Jillian Combs who?
....plastic bag.
6. Debate tournaments give out weird trophies. This year, I have received a Viking helmet, a sword, a wooden block, golden plastic "clappy hands", and now a lei with a medal fastened on. I have an entire ensemble.
Next tournament I'm gunning for a cape.
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