Weekends Are What You Make Them

Speech is harder than it sounds!

What a weekend.  I’m not even close to recovered.  For the second time, my team at John W. North high school has qualified for state competition.  This year, we went to the semi-finals round, the furthest any North team has gone.  In June we will attend the National Speech and Debate Association (formerly National Forensics League) tournament in Salt Lake City.

WOOO!

Part of my exhaustion is from judging eight rounds at the California High School Speech Association State tournament—the first four were policy.

Note to policy debaters—If all three judges on your panel voice issues over speed, DON’T SPEED!

That's not how this works!

Also, despite the conflict of State, two of my speechers were able to attend the RCC Friends of Forensics tournament.  Usually, we have an entire squad going, but due to conflicts with other competitions, we were only able to send two competitors.  Still, those two brought home three trophies and managed to snag 5^th place in sweepstakes.

Then, of course, there was yesterday’s drive back to Riverside.  Even watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens (awesome!) and Singin’ in the Rain (also awesome!) it was a bit more brutal than imagined.  Going up to the tournament only took six hours, but coming back we were treated to additional potty stops by my three boys, who apparently were on a rotating schedule.  It added up to eight hours total, the last hour of which was spent in SoCal rush hour traffic.

Still, a great weekend was had by all.  If you get the chance