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 13th 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.
