Friday, February 17, 2006

Don stepped outside...
Whew.











...Whew.










Just got back from my first Forensics tournament of the season. It were not good. Not good at all.

I wouldn't have gone on this one, since I didn't have my piece ready, but my dad really pressured me into it, since I hadn't been to one yet and such. One thing that should be known about Forensics, by the way, is that no matter how well you can perform your piece outside of a tournament, it reflects absolutely nothing on how well you can do it in one.

So, quick rundown of how Forensics tournaments work: the team gets to the hosting school, goes to find their designated table in whatever commons area is provided, and waits around until the first round starts (or hurries into the first round as soon as their stuff is on the table, depending on how early or late you get there). During the round, you're assigned a room with a judge to go to to perform in. You'll usually end up waiting around with everyone else assigned to that room so everyone can perform. After you do, you go back to the table and hang out for the next hour/hour-and-a-half until the end of the round. Ballots are counted, scores are recorded, and into the next round. Rinse and repeat for however many rounds there are (in this case, only two). All in all, it's very relaxed.

During the first round, I came to remember the truth of that law of Forensics I related earlier. I absolutely bombed, lol. I spewed out my hastily put together introduction, stuttered, skipped, and mangled my way through the first half of my piece, then took about a full thirty seconds at the very lowest point of it all to go through and weigh the options that were available to me: keep on until I finish, or take what dignity I had left, and respectfully bow out of the room. I had managed to skip around and cut up so much of the story, not to mention the horrors I bestowed upon the characters (or, at that point, lack thereof), that if I had kept going, no matter how pristinely I had performed the rest of it, it was already at a point of no return such that I would still have been digging it into the ground further. So, to my own staggering amazement, I apologized to the judge, thanked him, and took my leave.

Trust me, my description doesn't fit how awful it was. Leaving the room truly was the better option, even in hindsight. I've never seen nor performed anything nearly that horrible before in my life, lol.

All I could think about while I was going back down the hall was that I was going to be in the same situation in the next round. The thought terrified me, but I suppose it hit some kind of animalistic backed-into-a-corner instinct, and I spent the rest of my time before round two started in intense study. And, again to my staggering amazement, I was able to actually pull it off to some degree. My performance was still a very bad one, even in the best of lights, but it was leagues ahead of the one that had been spilled out only an hour before. I got through it all, there were zero pauses, and the character's voices and actions didn't mesh together into one new character that sounded and acted exactly like an incredibly nervous, frantic me. In fact, I daresay I was proud of the pathetic drivel that it nevertheless was. It was awful and I knew it, but I also knew how much better I had done in only an hour's time.

But still. No more tournaments for me until I know my damn piece, regardless of outside influence. It should become easier in the future, since I think I'll be doing it as a prose instead of a humorous solo (unmemorized events = yes, please).

Oh yeah, for some reason, we're having a five day weekend starting yesterday. My school takes so many breaks it's absurd.
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