Where's Hospitality?

This weekend was my debate squads tournament. The only job I did not want this weekend was working ballot return. I had worked ballot return last year and hated it so I didn't wan to do it this year. Guess what job I got. Ballot return *sigh*. Well Friday came and I got out of class all day to get ready for the tournament. The first thing I did to get ready was me, my friend Cheryl, and a couple other people had to stamp envelopes. There were three stamps so I had one, Cheryl had one, and the other people had one. They would stamp the envelope than give it to me, I would stamp it and then give it to Cheryl. Well at least six times (no exaggeration) Cheryl would think I was done with an envelope and would slide it over to herself when really I hadn't finished stamping it so when she would slide the envelope out from in front of me and I would stamp the table. Lets just say there is a table up in my schools debate room with a big green blob of the words "Do not wait for a timekeeper". After that me, Cheryl, and our friend Madi (we were the three working ballot return that day) went to make copies. Ugh, I have never made so many copies in my life! We made at least 5,000. One of the things we had to copy was these thank you cards to give to teachers for letting us use their rooms. Well for one thing we had to copy them onto yellow card stock. The machine we were told to use did not want to take the card stock. After about an hour we had only like seven copies and we were supposed to make 100. We finally called our debate coach to ask her what we should do and so she told us to use the other machine in there. Luckily that machine worked. Well there were two cards on each piece of card stock so we had to use a cutting board to cut the card stock in half. Well it was taking a while and we were in the teachers lounge and the teachers had told us we needed to be out by lunch. Well lunch started at 11 and it was 10:50 and we were out of card stock and needed like 20 more copies. So Madi went all the way to the debate room on the other side of the school brought back more card stock, started the copies and told me and Cheryl to finish the cards and meet her in another copy room. Well me and Cheryl hurried and barely made it out of the room before the teachers came. Also in the process of getting the cards together and leaving Cheryl cut me with the card stock. You know what a paper cut is like, well think about it with card stock... and the cut was almost an inch long, OW! Well we got all the copies we needed done so I had to go put up signs around the school. Our tournament was so big we had to use the weirdest rooms. Like one you had to go through a closet to get to, three of the four corners of the little gym, the stage of the big gym, and other odd places. Not to mention we were using rooms in the church across the street. The tournament finally started at 3 that afternoon. Before I was supposed to go to the ballot return table I had to help the extemp chairs and co-chairs do room check for the extemp rooms. So I checked each room three times and made sure all the rounds had begun. Then I headed for the ballot return table. As ballot return my job was that when the judges were done judging they would bring the ballots to us, we would check them to make sure everything that needed to be filled out was filled out and filled out right. Then we would put the ballots in a box to be taken down to the tab room. Seems easy right? Well its not so easy when you have like 40 people waiting in line to give you ballots. Then if there was anything wrong with the ballots guess who would get blamed? Yep, ballot return. Plus, where like the HI chair only needed to worry about HI situations, and the LD chair only needed to worry about LD situations, ballot return was involved in the situations of every event. Also we had a sign on the front of our table that said "Questions? ask me!" so we got a lot of questions. The most asked questions were "Where's hospitality?" and "where's the church" because a lot of people didn't realize the church meant the church across the street. We had to stay at the tournament until every ballot was turned in. Friday night we were there until 11:30, ugh. Finally the tournament was all over around like 7 O' clock and I got to go home, but some were not as lucky. If you hadn't turned in your judging forms on time you had to stay and clean the cafeteria which is where all the debaters hang out between rounds. I felt bad for the people who had to stay and clean that up.
     The whole weekend was stressful and caused me such a lack of sleep that Sunday I got sick. I had a little bit of a fever and just felt kinda off so I spent most of the day watching movies with my parents. Then this morning I was so sore and tired. My fever had gone done for the most part but I just felt so beat up, like someone had literally beat me up and I have a sore throat and keep coughing so I took some Advil and tried to get ready for school. Then my friend texted me that she was on her way to pick me up, so since me and my parents hadn't really said whether I would go to school or not I just said I would leave the decision up to them if I should go or not, but since I felt so bad my parents let me stay home, so yeah that's why I'm posting this in the morning during school hours, cause I'm home sick. Ugh I hate being sick, but hopefully ill be better tomorrow, but everyone is pretty much sure we will be having a snow day tomorrow so I may not be a school a whole lot this week.
     So that's the story of my weekend, not a very fun weekend, huh? Oh well. Well I hope you all had a fun weekend!

God Bless

Four Day Weekend

      FINALS ARE OVER!!!!! YES!!!!!
Last week was finals week, the week that all high school students dread. A week where every class forces you into taking a test over every single thing you've "learned" since school began, that counts for a BIG portion of your grade. I, along with most high school students hate finals. I would have to say the hardest final I took was my orchestra final. My teacher told everyone not to worry about our orchestra final. So I didn't, then I got the test and I didn't know most of the answers, I think I knew like 2, and to top it off she made the test only 8 questions long, which she thought was doing us a favor but in all actuality it made it all worse, because then just missing one question brings your grade on the whole thing down. Also the last question pretty much nobody knew and then I heard her say "oh, I just put that on there to see if anyone would know it," I was so mad, I was thinking "hello!!! This is our final!!!" Well with some prayer and some good guessing skills I only missed two, so I got a B thank goodness! We graded the test in class and graded our own so a lot of people just cheated and changed their answers but I didn't, I didn't want to cheat.
      Well we got a four day weekend after so that was good. My four day weekend was busy though. First of all I had a debate tournament. So Friday morning I woke up at 6:30 like every other school day and headed to my school to get on the bus. The tournament was around three hours away, and we had to take school buses. On the bus ride my friend Brenden fell asleep with his hands inside of his sweatshirt,

 so I tied his sleeve in a knot.

 When he woke up and tried to put his arm through the sleeve it was hilarious! Then when we stopped for lunch, there was snow on the ground so me, Drew, and Brenden got in a snowball fight! I won because I didn't get hit once and I hit both Drew and Brenden, Drew got second cause he got hit less than Brenden did. Drew might have won if it wasn't for the fact that he was being a good boyfriend and didn't aim at me. I appreciate that but I still say I won. Brenden aimed at me, he's just really bad at aiming.

When we got there the tournament was tough! My coach referred to as a "blood bath." I ended up getting a 4 and a 5 in my HI (Humorous Interpretation) and a 4 and a 6 in my Prose (Its on a scale of 1 to 6, 1 = good, 6 = bad). The rest of my squad didn't do much better. We ended up getting 4th or tieing for 3rd... I'm not sure which it was. The tournament was still very fun! I got to meet Drew's cousin Ian, and he was really cool. Very funny! You could defiantly see the family resemblance between the two them. When we got back to the hotel Friday night it wasn't so fun, though. I was rooming with my friend Cheryl and these other two girls. I was tired so I just wanted to read a chapter of my book and go to bed, but the other girls had other plans. I didn't end up getting to sleep until somewhere around 3 AM. Then later that morning at 5 AM the other two girls woke up and started getting ready. We didn't have to be on the bus until 7:30 that morning, uuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhh!!!!! Then they turned on the light and forced me and Cheryl to sleep the rest of the morning with the covers pulled over our heads :( Not fun.
      The tournament the weekend before last went quite a bit better. I ended up making it to semi finals with my HI, and Drew and Brenden made semi finals with their Duo. Our squad as a whole even ended up getting 1st at that tournament. Plus my cousins Taylor and Tinsley, who live near by where we were, came to visit me and even brought me Burger King! Yum! Plus the hotel room I had was the best one I've ever had! In the room was me, Cheryl, my friend MoJo, and one of my best friends Emily! It was awesome!!!
     Also this past weekend I went on a ski trip with my youth group. I love snowboarding and this is the only time I get to go each year.

These are from my first time snowboarding

Me and Rebecca on this year's ski trip

Photo by Rebecca Marie

Once again I had to wake up early to get to the church by 7:45 AM. We set off sometime around 8:00 AM. I ended up in a car with my friends Bailey, Sarah, Tori, Sydney, one of my best friends Rebecca, and Sydney's dad (who was the driver.) We were all squished in there but it was so fun! We played go fish and BS (which I say stands for blood sugar even though that doesn't make since with the game.) We even put this hat on Bailey's sock monkey which on him looked like a sombrero

We stopped at Taco Bell for lunch and me and Rebecca decided to give fake names with our orders just for fun. So we chose names of characters from this book series we really like called Kiki Strike. So she said her name was Kiki and I said mine was Betty :)

Photo by Rebecca Marie

Photo by Rebecca Marie

It was so fun!! A little later we made it to the church we were gonna stay the night at (which was in a town like right next to where I was for debate). We changed into our skiing/ snowboarding stuff and we were off. Once we go to the ski/ snowboard place we went in to get our rental gear (boots and a snowboard for me.) I actually own a snowboard but its not a real good one, really just good for messing around in the snow at home when we get enough. It felt good to snowboard again. I helped a couple of my friends learn how to snowboard, my favorite quote came from my friend Tori once after she fell she said "how can you learn to do this in only two years!" After a while everyone got the hang of it. I only fell really hard once, and though my tail bone hurt pretty darn bad I was ok. I'm not too bad at snowboarding except for the fact that I'm not able to turn left... lol. Once me and Rebecca were in line for the ski lift and these two boys deliberately cut in front of us as we were getting close to the front of the line. Rebecca said "thanks for cutting!" and one of the boys just said "your welcome" like he was all that. Once we got the top of the slope, I was sitting putting on my snowboard and Rebecca was waiting with me and the boy started going down the hill and well.... he stunk, total fail on his part. Me and Rebecca were laughing our heads off, not to be mean but just because we found the fact that he was acting like he was so cool and then fell like ten time while going down the hill. Every time he fell he would look up at us to see if we saw and we always did. After that we never saw the boy again, I guess he left. Once we composed ourselves we prayed for the boy just to get a better attitude and then we headed off. It was so fun and almost everyone walked away ok, other than being quite sore. Except we found out after we got back to the church and changed into our PJ's, that one guy in our youth group hit his head and had to go get a cat scan. He ended up being ok and returned to the church with us later that night. We did our praise and worship and our youth director preached. Then she gave us the option of either going to bed or playing a game so I went to bed. I was the first one to fall asleep. The next morning she woke us up at 7:00 AM to head home. Sore and tired we all piled back into Sydney's dad's car and about three hours later we were all back home. I spent the rest of the day napping on and off and watching TV.

     Have any of you gone to McDonald's and gotten a McChicken or gone to Wendy's and gotten a spicy chicken sandwich? Well these are two things I was introduced to this weekend and I must say, I love them!!! For years at school I loved the spicy chicken sandwiches but I never thought to get one from a fast food restaurant. Well I now have a new favorite thing from Wendy's!

Photo from here

     Lastly I just wanted you show you guys this, its a picture of the original Dailey Hailey

God Bless



Crescent Dragonwagon And The Day Of Many Phone Calls

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!! As you can probably tell by my "grrrrrrrrrr" I'm frustrated. For my debate squad I do an event called storytelling. Its a lot like what it sounds. I have to tell a children's story in my own words and it must last 8 to 10 minuets. Well I did this at one other tournament and advanced to semi-finals. Today when I check the roster for what I was doing the tournament coming up this weekend I was entered in 3 events which can't happen. I can only do two. Personally I wanted to do my prose and my HI which I like a lot more than storytelling, but because I advanced last time I did my storytelling my coach wants me to do it *sigh*. So tonight when I got home I got online to check for the book at my library because I don;t own it and that's how I got it last time. Well last time they didn't have it and had to order it from somewhere else and it took like over a week, well I don't have a week this time I have until Friday. So just like last time the library didn't have it. I called the library just to double check. Still no. So I called Barnes and Noble and Borders, neither store had the book. So I called the local university's library, nope. So I was freaking out a tad... a bit... ok quite a bit!!! So I was gonna text my coach and tell her I couldn't do my storytelling. Only thing is I'm afraid of her. So I decided before I give her reason to kill me I would try and type out as much as I could remember. Luckily I pretty much remembered it all and in storytelling you tell the story in your own words so I don't have to have the words exactly right. phew!! So I called the library back to ask them to order the book from another library out of town and have it shipped there so I can get it for another time I need to do it. The lady was very nice, looked it up, and said "ok looks like I can order that for you from the university, we'll call you when it comes in." I said thank you and hung up the phone then very loudly (my parents were not home at the time) I yelled "THE UNIVERSITY!?!? I CALLED THE UNIVERSITY!!!!!!" Grrrrrrrr. So now I officially hate the book I Hate My Brother Harry by Crescent Dragonwagon. Yes Crescent Dragonwagon is the name of the Author. Oy! I chose that book because my coach said it would be and I quote "perfect for me." I don't see how, the whole story is about a little girl who hates her brother, I'm an only child!!!! Why couldn't I have done Little Red Riding Hood or something? Oh well. What's done is done. And now I will go read The Hunger Games and go to bed. Goodnight.

God Bless

Cottonballs, Scuba Steve, and Trixie: Now Theres a Trio!

Well yet another night of preperation for a debate tournament! Ugh. The homework is brutal this time. Since the tournament this weekend is 5 hours away we are missing school tomorrow, which is always fun, but the make up works not. Im missing Algebra II, World History, Biology, and English. Oy! Well the weekend should still be fun! I love hanging out with my friends on these tournament weekends! On the team I have my friends Emily, Brenden, MoJo, Chandler, Mayo, and my boyfriend Drew. I also have a friend named Cheryl on the squad but shes not going this weekend. But me, Drew, and Brenden have aquired new names. Drew is now to be known as Cottonballs. Brenden is now to be called Trixie. And I am now to be called Scuba Steve. If your wondering there really is no story or meaning behind any of these names, their just fun! Plus Drew hates being called Cottonballs and Brenden hates being called Trixie so thats always fun :) Ive gotten tons of my friends to call Brenden Trixie. I even got my Biology teacher to call him Trixie today after school! haha. Well it should be a good tournament! Im doing HI as usual and Im going to try prose. Plus Drew and Brenden are going to be doing a duo! Im very excited for them, their nervous but I know they'll do just fine! :) Well I better get to bed, got a long weekend ahead of me.
Just fyi 17 days until Christmas! :)
Merry Christmas! and God Bless you all!

Taco chinese

     I apologize about yesterday and Friday's posts, with all the debate crazyness I had going on thats all I could get. To finish my story from Fridays post. I saw this awesome set of Charlie Brown episodes! It had "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" and "Merry Christmas Charlie Brown". AWESOME! And after we bought them and I opened them up, I found they had free itunes songs you could get!!! Only problem was that after trying the codes like 3 times each I noticed they all expired April 30, 2009... Bummer :/
     Well My weekend was nuts. At 8 AM Friday morning, I got on a school bus and headed for a debate tournament. It wasn't the most comfortable bus but it was a fun ride. After about 2 or 3 hours we finally got to our destination. We stopped at the mall there to eat. It was huge!!! After eating (Taco Bell yum!) Me and my friends Brenden (Also known as Mr. Grinch McScrooge man and/ or Trixie) and Cheryl and my boyfriend Drew all rode this awesome two story merry-go-round!!! Me, Drew, and Brenden rodes hoarses and Cheryl sat in a swing! I named my hoarse Flippy, Drews was Horhae (and Drew was a mexican banditio), and Brendens was Jimmy John. It was awesome!
     Then we headed to our hotel to change and get ready for the tournament. Then we found out that our room (our meaning me Cheryl and 2 novice) was connected to my friend Emilys room! Awesomeness :)
    Then we headed to the tournament. I performed my HI and Storytelling twice and then hung out until everyone else was done. I ended breaking (which means moving up) to semi-finals with my storytelling! I was doing the story "I Hate My Brother Harry" by Crescent Dragonwagon. Yeah Dragonwagon haha.
     We got back to the hotel that night, after stopping at McDonalds, around 11. I fell asleep somewhere between 12 and 1 AM. The next morning we were up at 6:15. Oh the love of sleep deprevation! Although I did get more sleep than everyone else in my room, who went to be around 3 AM.
     Well we went back to the tournament. Around 11:30 I preformed in semi-finals. I wasn't really nervous until I saw the kids who were going to be my judges. For sems of storytelling you get some kid judges. Well I performed and according to Drew I did pretty good but in the end I ended up getting 6th in the room and not advanceing but still, I did pretty good :)
     Later at lunch me, Drew, and 4 other friends walked down the street to a chinese resturant. It was werid it was called Chinatown Buffet but as well as chinese food they had tacos, fried chicken, french fries, and ice cream. Plus the TV was in spanish! Weird. All in all it was a good tournament! :)
    Today I got to go see White Christmas done as a play! I was so excited. It was pretty good but I was a little disappointed. Then after I went Christmas caroling with Drew and my friends Rebecca, Chavis, and Denver (Drews little brother) and the rest of our youth group! So fun! Plus I blew powered sugar in Drews face at Cici's pizza and it was funny!
     Well time for bed! Merry Christmas and God Bless!

Debate fitigue

Just got home. Egsuasted. Pretty sure my spelling is wrong. But in all technicallities I posted. Goodnight world. God Bless! Promise ill write more tomorrow