Showcase Night 2: Yes That's a Scarf (or Everybody Does Dumb Stuff Sometimes)

For showcase 2014 all the girls were supposed to wear something purple. I own a purple tank top. Tank tops are usually not considered professional wear.

So this, my friends, is a scarf wrapped around me and hidden under a suit jacket.

Iiiiif you're awkward and you know it clap your hands! *clap clap* 

If you're unphotogenic and you know it clap your hands! *clap clap*

If you're nervous and you know then your face will surely show it!

If you turn red when you're nervous clap your hands! *clap clap*

So what's the moral lesson in all this? (I do Mars Hill, I can't help it, okay?)

We're all awkward. We all have those embarrassing photos and dumb speeches and facepalm moments. I do it, you do it, Isaac Summers may even do it. Actually, I can't verify that. I met him once though and he seemed pretty normal for being legendary.

 Take a deep breathe and realize this is an opportunity to laugh at yourself. To feel human. There is something beautiful about being human. 

So maybe you messed up. To make you feel better, here's a list of times I messed up so bad it was a triple facepalm moment. Aka, all three judges probably really wanted to facepalm because of me.

1. I said "Thank you and I respectfully urge a negative ballot at the end of today's round." I was affirmative. The whole audience laughed.

2. I had a  mind blank during Mars Hill. I ended up preaching that Katniss would have felt better during the Hunger Games if she had had the Bible and it would have solved all her moral dilemmas. #no

3. The judge said "Thank you for speaking!" and I said "you too!" 

4. I once went an entire tournament day without nylons, by accident, and I had bruises and mosquito bites all over my legs.

5. My earring fell out during my first ever round and when I stooped down to pick it up aaalll my papers fell out of my debate folder. As a result I accidentally read for my negative case as the affirmative.

And you know what? I survived. I'm okay. I've broken in debate, I've broken in Mars Hill, I've learned how to look judges and the eyes and say "my pleasure!" with a firm handshake. I remember my nylons. I now have my cases separated into different folders.

I would not be where I am today without who I was then.

Dramatic Interprations: The Right Way

I'm sitting in DI finals. The door creaks open. The first speaker walks in. I grip the edge of my seat in excitement. It's like that moment when the lights dim in the movie theater. The judge's set down their pens. They're ready. The timer's ready. She didn't ask, but I'm ready. I'm ready to cry till my face hurts and be scared senseless until those little goosebumps appear on my arms. Let's begin.

I'm not going to give you a play by play of every speech, but this is a few of the endings.

"I was so happy I'd found a friend."
"All was well."
"They cheered for me."

Etc.

No.

No.

NO.

NO.

NO.

This is not DI at all.
This is OI, at the most.
This makes me want to squall.
Do this in front of me and you're toast.

Had a Dr. Suess moment.

Seriously, though.

Let me give you a little history of my own competition in DI, which will help explain my position.

My first year I gave a speech about the death of a military captain due to the actions of their mentally unstable PTSD confidential informant. It was well cut. It was sad. Let's set aside the fact it was my first year and I could not act, pop, or enunciate properly.

Afterwards, I asked my friend Jamie how I did. His response was, well...

"Er...."
"I know it was terrible, now tell me why."
"It was like the old DIs."

This was a reference to the way DI was a long time ago (and me and Qui Gon Jin tried to talk the Federation into cutting them a little slack...) before Jacob Aschmutat.
Jake, my Parli coach, reinvented what DI was. Before him, DIs were all sad Steel Magnolia-esq speeches. By the way, don't do Steel Magnolias. It's overdone.
Then Jake did The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.
He made DI's scary.
DI has never really been the same since. He changed the whole thing. I'm not saying sad DIs are bad, in fact some of them are really good. (Watch this one, one of the very very select few sad DIs I like: Mick Harte Was Here. It took 6th place at Nats.)

What I'm saying is DI should not be mellow.

DI is not the mildly depressing chick flick category.

STOP MAKING IT THAT WAY.

It's like my coach Carys was constantly trying to tell me my novice year: Just because somebody dies doesn't make it sad.

This has caused me to form a bias towards scary speeches. Honestly, those are the speeches I'd rather watch. Those are the speeches everyone will talk about all season long. Maybe next season, too.
The best DIs I ever watched were scary. I'll link them here:

WARNING: I would advise not watching these if you are under the age of twelve. They are both quite scary and have actually given people I know nightmares. In fact, my general rule for scary DIs is if you don't have to ask the under-agers to leave the room you're not doing it right.

Christine Reid's The Crucible
Carys Aschmutat's  Sybil

Let me talk a little bit about each of these speeches.

Christine and Carys were friends during their competition years. Carys's was the first DI I ever saw. Afterwards, nothing else seemed to compare. It was like eating expensive dark chocolate on the beach while be serenaded by British Alt Rock stars, and after that being stuck doing Chem homework nibbling on Great Value imposter M&M's. Until I saw Christine's.
 Carys has re-told the story of the Glass Regionals many times. I will now tell it to you:

Once upon a time in NCFCA regionals, all the classrooms had glass walls. This was extremely distracting yet really cool at the same time. 
Carys was standing in the courtyard talking to a friend when she was shocked to see Christine in a speech room through the glass walls, writhing and apparently screaming, twisting a wrenching and throwing herself around the room.
Later Carys found out Christine was just doing a Dramatic on the Crucible, and all was well.
But not really.
Apparently, one of the judges in Christine's room was missionary pastor who had spent a lot of time in Africa and other foreign countries. He had witnessed many possessions. After judging Christine's speech, he rounded up her, her coach, her parents, and the tournament director and insisted Christine herself really was possessed and wanted to do a exorcism. 
According to Christine, she had done extensive research on possession, looking up the ticks, habits, and posture of a person inhabited by a demon to make her DI more realistic, and practiced endlessly, making her blocking perfect. The pastor was not convinced, and when he couldn't convince her parents to do a exorcism, tried to get her disqualified.
Carys assured us all her sweet, kind, Christian homeschooled friend was most certainly not possessed. 
Carys always ended the story saying that she thought that was the greatest compliment to Christine's acting ability she could have received and that that was how good, how scary, you should be when DIing.
I completely agree.

This is a call to all DIers everywhere to step up their game. I want to cry, I want to get goosebumps, I want to feel so freaked I out I want to leave the room.
This is only time I you will probably ever here me say no more mushy sweet endings.

~Kylie~