Grab Bag 2

Wow. Life has been happening at such a velocity that I once again find myself in need of a grab bag of assorted topics. I rather hope it slows down after next week.

So, let's work this in reverse chronological order. Next week there is another tournament, in which I shall be competing in five speech events and debate. Scary, right? Well, it's even scarier because I haven't finished writing one of the speeches, and I need to memorize another.

Because of the tournament, I went judge recruiting yesterday at Coop A. I talked to about 20 adults, and got at least one confirmed recruit, if not more. I spent almost the entire lunch hour, plus half and hour after lunch selling the NCFCA. But I was quite exhausted afterwards.

I've also started getting expressions of love from various colleges. I got four pieces of physical fan mail yesterday, and all week, my inbox has been flooded with emails from various colleges (some of which I've never heard of) expressing interest in my mind. The funny thing about it, though, is that they're not addressed to me: these letters, emails, and pamphlets are all addressed to some Arab girl that has a name roughly like mine. As far as I can tell, the PSAT I took last year got my name wrong, or couldn't read my handwriting, or something, because everything I've gotten from them hasn't been addressed to me. So someone's created an alter-ego for me, and I haven't even got a say in it. Oh well, I might use this new ego in a story someday.

Well, last night, I went to St. John's Cathedral in Seattle for their "Great Music in Great Cathedrals" program. It was absolutely amazing. Before it started, though, I got to go up behind their giant pipe organ, and look at all the air supply equipment. The amazing thing about it was that most of the equipment (including the bellows) was made out of wood. You could hear the air moving through the system, too.  The entire time I was up there, the overture from Phantom was playing in my mind. It was most salubrious.

I also recruited judges at Coop B on Wednesday, but because my Rhetoric class got out late, I arrived ten minutes after people had started recruiting, leaving very few parents interested in hearing my spiel.

On Tuesday, I finished the translation of Ovid's account of Orpheus and Eurydice, a feat which I am very proud of. After all, Latin poetry is like Latin, only worse. I have less-than-fond memories of a particular sentence that spanned eight lines, and word order/matching entirely ignored. That sentence took me a good 30 minutes to piece together. >:|

Also on Tuesday, I once again kidnapped Lady Specs before speech club, leaving myself in charge of waiting for our speech coach to show up. I don't know what drives me to do it - it's not like club particularly likes me anyways. I'm too sarcastic, and not nearly enthusiastic enough. But what Lady Specs doesn't know won't kill her, right?

After spiritual classics on Monday, Mom drove me home, and once again, the man on the corner was trying to signal to passengers. This time, though, he appeared to be saying that eating them would make them handsome, strong, and acrobats. I believe he's taking his job a little too seriously.

Last Friday there was an extemp filing party. It was there that I learned that Mrs. Incredible will be paging at the WA State Senate the same week I am. Most exciting. As extemp is wont to do, we discussed current events, filed, and generally made fun of each other.

A week previous to this Tuesday, Calvin generously gave me a online profile which he, Hobbes, Escapist, and Johnny wrote on the way down to a tournament the weekend before. It certainly was amusing in a 'let's not go there again' sort of way, if that makes sense. And no, I won't be posting it online. I humiliate myself enough on this blog; I don't need someone else to do it for me. In exchange for the only copy of this profile, I agreed to write the biography of Calvin, which I am almost done with. It's rather turned into a police report or mental hospital report, but that suits him better, anyways. Another perk of mine is that it is less noticeably awkward, though I'm slightly worried about how Calvin will receive it: I don't exactly hesitate in my more kritiky remarks. :P

Now, for the past week, I've been struck by a mild cold, which seems to have graduated to medium this morning. I hope that if I get sick now, I'll be better by next Thursday. Ach, Murphy'll probably make certain I am sick through the awards ceremony, but who knows?

Finally, I've got a couple of prayer requests for any willing prayer buddies: Last week, my uncle told his daughter that he was dying, and since then, things have been pretty rough for the extended family. My mom is looking to fly back there soon, but she's had two false starts already. The second is that I'll finish and memorize my speeches in time for the tournament next week. I've got a huge load of school work currently, which raises doubts as to if I'll get them done.

Speaking of school work,
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