Disappointment

Hello! As the title suggests, I didn't have a very successful time at the tournament yesterday. We weren't given the judges' comments so I'll be excited to see what they want me to improve upon and what I did well. I think I did well for my first ever tournament in this event. There were only five people in varsity OPP (Original Prose and Poetry) and so we heard the same speeches 3 times. I wish they did what they did for Thematic Interpretation where they combined varsity and novice so people listened to different speeches but were still given trophies based on varsity and novice. There was no final round for TI either (we didn't have enough people, I don't know why they didn't) so my friend and I watched the final round for varsity Humorous Interpretation. I'm not sure why they combined TI but not OPP. It was disappointing to leave the 7+ hour tourney without a trophy but it was a learning experience and I'm determined to return to the tourney in January and beat the guy who gave a speech about a house fire tragedy.

It's December 2nd! Tis the season for gingerbread houses, decorative lights, Christmas trees, and all sorts of different merriments. I love the holiday season for all the joy that you can tangibly feel in the air. Radio stations play holly jolly music and TV shows bring back renditions of favorite Christmas stories or original stories bringing holiday cheer. It's a time to be thankful for what you have and spend time with your friends and family, and of course the arrival of Jesus. Needless to say, it's my favorite holiday.

I am also super excited for the movie edition of Les Miserables (too lazy to type an accent) with Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Russell Crowe, and Hugh Jackman. I watched the musical and it was really fantastic. The movie is coming out on Christmas Day (25th of December) and it looks really awesome. I highly recommend it! My movie list is growing and growing and growing. I hope my school newspaper gets some early tickets for this movie because it's one I'd really love to see. We've gotten tickets to see a lot of different things early, like Twilight, The Vow, Texas Chainsaw 3D, Playing for Keeps, etc. The bad thing is that these showings are early premiere for the "press", so it's always random nights. Most are on Wednesday nights at 7:00 so it's a really bad time for us busy high school students with an overload of homework.

I found a super cool blog hosted on tumblr made up of comics! http://domics.me/
During the weekend, I also started reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. It's a really relatable book told in little chunks at a time. I love how she writes and how she has that ability to transform even the most mundane of tasks into something magical.

Well, happy December! Hope you keep warm and happy in the colder weather (at least for most of us). xx