Journal of the Rocky Mountain Classic

6 Days Until Tournament

By Allegra Tschappler

Hello! As part of the assignment for my Journalism class, all the students are required to keep a journal of the daily events. Hopefully this will inspire others to time, join speech and debate if they are the right age or judge competitions if they can't compete. If you are at all interested in judging, please let me know via comments on this blog. We have a competition coming up April 20-22 in Colorado, and judges are always appreciated.

But, to start this journal, I'll just let you know what going on for the Tschappler/Tschappler team today: We started out by working on history and finishing it up for Spring Break. We get one week for a break while we frantically prepare for the tournament.

At noon, we ate lunch and then headed over to the Griffith house to practice speeches with Joanna, Susanna, Kenny Scheumann and Caroline Scheumann. I presented my Original Oratory and got a good response out of the audience. Then I went and prepared for my Extemporaneous speech. It was only 3 minutes long and took 45 minutes to prepare! I need more practice.

Lydia presented her Dramatic Interpretation but didn't feel comfortable presenting her Original Oratory, so she watched the other ones. After presenting speeches, we watched Joanna do Apologetics and Impromptu. Then we discussed debate.

Kenny, Caroline, Susanna and Joanna all said they were nervous about the Rocky Mountain Classic. They are excellent debaters, so I feel better about being nervous. Thing is, Lydia and I don't feel that prepared. Joanna doesn't either, but she is more so than we are.

The ultimate stress is hitting me now! I wonder what it will be like with the excitement of the tournament, the fun of staying with our host family and the stress of actually speaking. However, one must remember that no matter how well we do, we are creating relationships and strengthening our ability to communicate. I enjoy talking to community judges, so this will be better than debating in front of experienced coaches!!!

I will try to post photos on here, but we won't have much internet access during the Rocky Mountain Classic. I'll take them and write on *gasp* paper, then put it all together on here...at least, that's the plan.