*sigh of relief*

If it seems as if I disappeared from the world for the past week, there's a very good reason for that. I had another tournament that ended Saturday. The week leading up to the tournament was filled with preparations, as usual, though the amount of preparation I had to do was out of the ordinary.

You see, this tournament, I iron-manned. I competed in Impromptu, Extemp, OO, Persuasive, Thematic, and LD debate. I broke in three of the six, which isn't a bad record after all. Let me explain. There are three types of rounds: Debate rounds, Pattern A rounds, and Pattern B rounds. I was in all three. Which meant that I had lots of running around to do.

That wouldn't have been half bad if it weren't for ::looks around for suitable adjective:: incredibly annoying, painful, and demanding social normative ideals concerning women's professional dress codes. Specifically, the ones about heels. I brought flat shoes to wear in between events, but since there wasn't much 'in between events' for me, my shin splints now have shin splints. Fortunately, my feet have finally readjusted to being flat, though it's always an odd transition: I've got major issues with my feet, and heels are not exactly conducive to pain-free living. :P

I spent Thursday and Friday madly running from one event to the other, but Saturday not so much, which made it an 'off day', except it wasn't. See, I broke in extemporaneous, the current events event. This is entirely amazing considering that out of seven possible minutes of speaking, I usually filled about five. Also, although I did extemp two years ago, I never competed with it at a qualifying tournament, so the tournament this weekend was only my second time doing it. It was completely surprising. Since Extemp takes roughly 40 minutes to do (30 minutes prep, seven minute speech) I was late to the other speech I broke in. In semis, I arrived at the room only to discover that two of the three judges had gone for lunch while waiting.

Well, I'm slowly recovering from the tournament, though I've got a post-tourny cold coming on. Oh, joy. I think I'll toddle off to class now.

Yawns,
B