A Trip To Remember

Dressed in full attire, my team and I sat in a nervous trance. While sitting beside my fellow teammates I reflected on all the work I had put in within the last 3 days. I looked at the clock and it read 9:30pm. I thought of when I first woke up on the first day of the tournament at 5:30 am.

The sound of my alarm clock ringing in my ear startles me as I was shook from my dream. I stumbled over to the room’s light switch. As, I turned on the light my roommates rolled over in the bed as a tired groan rose from their mouths in what seemed like the same time. “Wake up!” I struggled to say. Everyone silently recited their speeches and pieces in their heads. We all didn’t want to let our team and coaches down. Once my hair was as hard as a rock and every piece of lint was off my suit; I walked to the elevator and rode it to the lobby floor. Teams were running around frantically while debaters wrote their last minute cases, you could smell the stress in the room. My coach spoke words of encouragement then reminded us that this was a national tournament and to not be surprised if we did not place. My stomach turned as she spoke the words, national and tournament. The sun was a light bulb in the sky as it lit up the world with each drop of sunlight.

We all wished one another good luck as we went our separate ways to the buildings we were assigned to. As other duo partners began filing outside the door to wait for our judge we all silently scoped each other out. I looked at one group’s suits and I thought to myself, “Duo partners that don’t match? Psh, not a threat.” Our judge finally sashayed in. We followed her into the room and took our seat. We were being judged as we sat there, no performance was needed for this crucial moment. If you coughed wrong, breathed to heavily, or blinked your eyes to fast and the judge didn’t like it? Good luck, to you young solider because you would have been marked down so fast you wouldn’t have time to say your first word. “KV 101 and 102,” the judge spoke. I was startled to hear my number called first, we stood up and walked to the center of the room in front of the judge. The duos were staring at us with faces of boredom; I tried not to make eye contact with any of them. I was too scared I’d be turned into stone by Medusa’s twin in the second row of desks. I scoped out the lecture room trying to find my focal points. But, I was stopped by the judge’s words when they coughed up, “Whenever your ready.” I couldn’t tell you what I said because it was so surreal I was almost certain I dreamt it up. After we spoke our final sentence in unison, we placed our hands at our sides, and nodded at the judge to tell her we were finished. Fake claps of approval filled the room. We walked to our previous seats and sat down as we watched our competition.

When everyone was finished performing, we walked out of the lecture hall and back outside and headed back to the cafeteria. It had the same structure as a coliseum, there was a stage and many different levels going up from the stage that held tables on top so you could sit and eat your meal. I walked up the stairs to the first level to meet our team. Round one was finished. This cycle went on for about five rounds for two days.

At the end of the second day, is when they posted the quarter finalist. Quarter finaling means that if we pass this round, you can semi, than you might be able to final. Finaling also means you placed and you get the right to take home a trophy. A little man grabbed a microphone and said the most deadly and scary words you could ever here. It wasn’t anything like, “I’m going to kill you all,” but what he actually said was, “Quarter Finalists are posted.” The little man ran for cover as a mob of speech kids surrounded the table that held the truth on it. That piece of paper tells you whether you’re good enough or you suck. Before I could even get from my seat, my other coach sprints to the table. Her hair flopped as she bounced up and down in clogs trying to run down steps without dying. I laughed out loud as I thought of her falling. I needed some type of entertainment to cheer me up after the weekend I just had. I turned around and waited for her. She finally returned with a piece of paper in her hand. Her face wasn’t happy and it wasn’t upset either. As she laid the paper in front of me, she patted my back and said, “Good job, girls.” When I heard that sentence I immediately grabbed the paper and searched for my name to see if she was pulling my leg or not. My eyes fell down the list of people until I saw: KV 101/102 Adkins and Dyer. I refused to believe it. Everyone congratulated and wished us luck as we walked across campus to the quarter final round. Usually, after the first round at a speech tournament you never get nervous again; but if you’re able to qualify for any form of finaling, it is the worst feeling you could possibly go through.

We reached the room and our three judges filed in as we followed them. We were the last speakers, so we had to watch the same pieces we have seen at least three times already in complete agony. It was finally our turn to liven the room up a bit. I looked for my focal points in a room about the size of a normal high school classroom. When one of the judged nodded to let us know we could begin, we sucked in our breath of air and began to spit out words that we have said so many times we don’t even realize we were saying it. We heard laughter a few times. I thought to myself, “Yes, laughter. Laughter is good.” I even looked at the judges and two of the them were enjoying it except for the crabby man in the back. After we spoke our last sentence in unison and nodded to confirm we were done claps were dispersed into our ears. I felt confident for the first time all weekend.

On the third and final day, we woke up to look online to see if we semi-finaled or not. Sadly, we didn’t but being one of the few people from our team to even final at a national tournament is really impressive. We drove to watch other performances and to support our other teammate that finaled. After about six hours of watching different events and pieces from other schools perform awards were finally here.

The upset speech kids stood around the room with their arms crossed over their chests. The tall lady running the unorganized chaos read off a script as she said, “Will all finalist of duo interpretation please come to the stage.” We stood up and walked to the stage that was about six or seven feet in length. There was about twenty groups, which means there were forty kids. After we all managed to squeeze in they finally began calling names one by one. I was a small pebble in the crowd, barely noticeable. The stage began to get roomier after each group took their award and sat down. I couldn’t see what they were handing out. A huge kid was standing in front of me blocking my view from what was going on. The lady spoke our names, “In 13^th place, Keely Adkins and Lilly Dyer.” Keely walked to the guy handing out the awards. He handed her a key. I reach out my hand to receive mine and he says in a nasally voice, “Duos only get one key.” There were so many things wrong with that sentence. I walked down to my seat trying to figure out what just happened to me. “Duos only get one key.” Two people who don’t even live with each other share a key. A key was our award? I was so confused and distraught over this dumb tournament I had just been apart of. I went through two days of constant work, quarter finaled, and I don’t even get something to show that I did what I did? “Can we please go home?” I asked my coach. I was finally able to go back to the hotel to lay down and try to grasp what I had just experienced. Atlanta, Georgia probably gave me the most wasteful experience of my life.

Blog #5

Just as everyone else in the world Chris McCandless has some positive and negative personality traits. I believe Chris's greatest positive personality traits include:
devoted
giving
adventurous
Being adventurous caused Chris to want to go out into the wild and take this journey. When he made his decision to go into the woods, there was absolutely no way he was going to flake out. He set his mind on the idea and didn't want to give up on it. Chris was devoted to the thought of going into the wild on his own. Before and during his journey Chris gave and cared for many people. I believe Chris has a genuine heart, he just doesn't show it.
Chris's negative personality traits include:
rebellious
irresponisble
reckless
Chris was very reckless and did whatever he wanted even if there were bad consequences. Chris's irresponsibility caused him not to be prepared while he was in the wild. I believe Chris's rebellious spirit caused him death. If he would have listened to everyone and would have done what people told him. He might still be alive.
I think Chris's greatest personality trait that weighed out the rest would be his rebellious trait. I think with this trait, the readers see him as someone who doesn't like authority. Chris wants to be his own person and not someone else.
Part 2:
 Both of them set out on an adventure (135). They were crazy (138). They both had a sence of  unpreparedness; however, Krakauer was more prepared that Chris (139). They both were hard working.  Krakauer went to the most difficult place to climb (135). They both had distant relationships with their fathers and families. (147).
Krakauer did not die on his journey. Krakauer got lonely (138). Also, Chris was umprepared and had lack of supplies.  Krakauer was afraid (140).

Blog #4

My reaction towards Chris working at Mickey D's wasn't very extreme. To be honest, I did not think anything of it. I just thought the guy was running low on money so he wanted to get some extra cash by working for it. But now that I think about it, maybe there was a deeper reason for working at a resturant that is as famous as that one. Chris might have worked at Mickey D's to make a statement of some sort. An experiment almost, to see the reaction of people towards a homeless man working at a fast-food chain like Mickey D's.
Chris's co-workers described as a distant and strange kind of person. It seemed like Chris didn't like them either. He kept to himself and did his part just like the others. Im not gonna lie and make myself seem kinder and nobler then what I am. Let's be honest if I was working with Chris I would think he was a freak show. I wouldn't treat him differently just because he has less then me, that's not who I am. If a man who talked about nature all the time and didn't like wearing socks worked with me I'd think he was off his rocker.
Chris, Jan, and Bob were people with a simialr nature outlook. They seemed to have a lot of things in common and I think that's why they clicked well and stayed in contact after Chris set off for Alaska once again.
Franz was affected by Chris more extremely because it seemed as if Franz was just striving to get a son figure back into his life. He needed someone to take care of and love and to get that feeling in return. When Chris died it was just as if his own son had died all over again.

Into the Wild Blog #3

20 different things about Chris that I learned:
1. Young                                          11. focused
2. High-Strung                                 12. determinated
3. confident                                      13.  He never gives up
4. immature                                      14. He always has to find an answer to everything
5. ignorant                                        15.good morals and values
6. adventurous                                  16. giving
7. rich                                               17. misunderstood
8. he likes to talk about traveling     18. wants to be independent
9. educated                                        19. struggles with who he is.
10. has little common sence              20. hardworker
     I believe Chris's first intentions were to be a different person for a while. I guess he wanted to try out being a different person. See a different perspective of someone else other than himself. His relationship with his parents seem vague at this point. His parents don't listen to what he is saying to them. They are giving him "things" that he doesn't exactly need or want. They are struggling to buy his affection. I wasn't very surprised when I read Chris's note to his parents. I kind of expecting it to read something along the lines of what it said.
     For someone to take that much of an extreme action with their life, they must have had a life-changing or near-death experience. There is a reason for everything. No one randomly thinks to themselves, "Hey, why don't I give away my life savings, burn everything in my wallet, and go hang out in the woods for a bit." It just doesn't happen, unless an event occurred that we don't know about. Like in the old westerns, Chris could have robbed a bank, but got away with it because the sherrif told him to leave the town by morning or regret it forever. Clearly, he picked leave the town but took it to a very dramatic measure and burnt his money along with his identity. Someone could have pulled an Insception and planted an idea into his mind while sleeping to start new and begin a fresh start. But, he couldn't get the idea out of his mind until he actually accomplished it or even tried. Chris also could have just gotten sick of being Chris. Chris being someone he wasn't or didn't want to be anymore. What it looks like to me is that Chris's parents created Chris other then Chris creating Chris. He could have just wanted to start new with a new life and name.

Into The Wild #2

     After reading chapter one I believe that Chris thought truely that survival was possible with what he had. He had food, a gun, and clothes on his back. Why wouldn't he survive? All Chris had to accomplish was to find some type of shelter to protect him from intruders or weather. Chris was a educated man, but it doesn't mean that he was educated in nature. I think Chris was wanting to exist in nature. Even if he had few supplies it does not mean exactly that he was asking for a death wish. For all we know he could have watched an episode of Man vs. Wild and wanted to try it out for himself. No one exactly knows yet. In my opinion, I don't think Chris was exactly "smart enough." Considering at the beginning, the man that picked him up desrcibed him as being around 19. Let's be honest with ourselves, when your a teenager your not mature; even though we all like to think we are. When imature, stupid mistakes are made and you think that you can take care of yourself. Clearly, that is what Chris thought he was going to accomplish. He had his mind set on going into the woods and living off the land and the equipment he had.
     In my opinion, I like how the author started the story at the end. I think his mission was so that we would predict why and how he died before we found out the real story. He accomplished the goal that might of set out to do. With what we would think what the end of the story is at the beginning of this novel, it grabs the reader's attention. When we continue to read we will always have his death in the back of our mind. The novel will have more twists and turns to the plot as we read.
     After reading the note that Chris left behind, it surprised me. I didn't expect to read or here that he died so soon. I remembered Mr. Roush giving us a "spoiler alert" and telling us he died and they found his body in a van before I read the chapter. But normally, I would have expected it to be in the middle or end of the novel. With this twist so soon into the book, it made my eagerness to finish the story grow. Questions filled my mind about what would happen next. The death so soon into the book raised my expectations for more twists into the story.

McCandless seemed to be just a small town boy looking for an adventure. He wasn't crazy or noble. Chris was just wanting to escape from the pressures of the world. Chris could have been sick of doing the same routine over and over again. His family could have been pressuring him to do what they wanted him to do and it might of been getting down into the depths of his soul; so far it caused him to crack. By cracking, he decided to get away from pressure and start over. So he set off to go into the wild. How people described him, they said he would sit and talk for hours about adventures and travels. (Pg. 16) Chris may have just wanted to go on one of his travels he has always talked about. Chris Candless might have been simply a dream chaser. Chris Candless may have went out into the wild so that he could find some answers to his own questions. On page 18 Westerberg talked about how he tried to make sence of things. If he didn't suceed right away he would stay on it until he figured it out. Chris might have went out into the wilderness to try to make sence of things. Getting away might have been the only answer to get what he wanted. I don't think Chris was noble or crazy for doing what he did. Chris McCandless was simply a man with a good education who wanted to live his life. He knew what he was getting into. (Pg. 6)