sick
Last night, I got back from a speech tournament, as I often do. My teammates did phenomenally well- I had a coaching session with one of my younger teammates in the event that I was a district and national champion in, in the past- and, she not only kicked my ass, but won first place overall. I am thrilled. I couldn't contain my excitement last night. My teammates did unbelievably well.
On the ride home, I had a pretty serious conflict of emotions. It was stressful: I couldnt choose whether to be very disappointed in my scores or very elated over my teammates'. It led to me feeling physically ill, and a conversation that I had with Hannah just now helped me actually organize it and see, horrified, why I'm physically ill-
There are four national speech tournaments. One is for first-year competitors only; one is for persuasive speaking only; one is quite open and almost anyone can go, and one is extremely strict. In order to qualify a speech for the strict hardest tournament, you have to get into finals three times at three tournaments, and you have to overall come in third, third and second. Get a total of 8 points (so you could come in first, fourth, third, etc. it has to be 8 or less). I have four speeches that are more than one tournament away from having that opportunity. We're running out of qualifying tournaments. As of now, only one speech is entered into nationals, where I came in 2nd 2nd 1st (this speech is the reason that I have been posting lots of tweets about victory- this speech in itself causes me to be a tournament champion). I have one speech thats 4th 2nd and another thats 4th 3rd, but then, I have one thats just 4th. I need two or three more qualifying tournaments to feel safe. Those opportunities don't exist anymore. The rest of the semester, there's really only one more opportunity for scores.... and it's very, very hard. It's the state tournament thats tremendously difficult.
The problem is, and the reason why I'm shaking now and have a stomachache because I hate myself for thinking this- my terrible scores are linked to that I missed tournaments for EXP Con and Youmacon.
I am so ashamed of myself for halfway being furious for missing those tournaments, because it's been surprisingly difficult to make up those points, where it wasnt difficult last year.... I dont know what happened; we did go to more tournaments last year, I suppose; I don't know if it's also possible that my events this year are simply inherently a little weaker, but also the fewer tournaments I go to, the less critiquing I get from good judges.
I am upset because now my entrances in nationals are highly wounded. I would be very ashamed of myself if I only got one speech to nationals. I had five last year. I'm better now than I was last year. ...right? Probably, because partially I did have more opportunities last year, but even so, I have really shanked myself by not going to the tournaments during the weekends of EXP Con and Youmacon.
...this is what I'm so ashamed and sad to admit: I missed the tournaments because I thought that I could recover like I did last year, but on the whole, I dont actually believe that I care about youmacon or Exp con more than speech nationals. I'm not over-thinking or over-analyzing the situations; I know exactly what happened, and it's disappointing.
I'm beside myself. I dont know what to do. I hate myself for thinking that if I hadn't missed the EXP Con and Youmacon tournaments, I would have accomplished my goal.... those weekends were essentially just unbelievable dream-like states of euphoria that lasted three or four days and they were so, so healthy for my mourning, decaying mind in the fall, but ultimately, cons are not my goal; cons have nothing to do with my leadership role; cons are not the last thing that I ever spoke to my dying father about.
Hannah wisely reminded me that life has a balance; that cons are important because I "got to see people that you only get to see once in a blue moon".... but, even that isn't much solace, because I can go to cons for the rest of my life. Martin, I'll be seeing you in three weeks. I'll see a well-sized chunk of the Youmacon gang at Otakon in a few months. In the future, I will most likely be able to afford to go to someplace like Anime Evolution so that I can see people like Taka who don't go to Otakon. There is time in life for everything. I will never get another chance to go to speech nationals, because you can't go after you graduate. It is worth it, to me, to tell my friends, "sorry, guys, can we party in the summer?" if it means I get to go to speech nationals. That is the role by which I define friendship: I want for my friends to understand and support me in what I hope they understand are my biggest, most necessary dreams.
The other tricky thing is that on one hand it's important to remember that "it's not all about winning." The other tricky thing is that, yes, winning is absolutely the most important thing in the world. It IS all about winning, because winning represents my school and gets funding for my program. Winning shows my growth in the field of the career that I want to spend the rest of my life doing. My wins show my teammates how to grow too.
I don't regret going to EXP Con and Youmacon. I needed that kind of happiness during that time, and those weekends remain on the highlight chart of my life. I am grateful for the opportunity to bond with my friends those weekends, and to grow as an artist and friend instead of a debater.... I think that the ultimate thing that makes me sad is that.......
Youmacon 2010's unbelievable healing happiness can happen at Youmacon 2011 and Youmacon 2012 and Youmacon 2020 and Youmacon 2054... the National Forensics Tournament 2011 cannot happen for me in 2012. There is a time in life for everything, and I have made myself physically ill at the thought of possibly having made my priorities wrong. Although, granted, Youmacon and EXP con were good decisions made on good evidence that I had last year that I'd be able to make up my losses at other tournaments; it wasn't until this semester that I realized how fewer tournaments we were going to.
I guess that really sums it up: Youmacon and EXP Con were good decisions and I do not regret allowing them to be some of the best weekends of my life. Maybe it's that I wish I would have known our real tournament schedule earlier.... boy, I am really messed up in the head right now x[
On the ride home, I had a pretty serious conflict of emotions. It was stressful: I couldnt choose whether to be very disappointed in my scores or very elated over my teammates'. It led to me feeling physically ill, and a conversation that I had with Hannah just now helped me actually organize it and see, horrified, why I'm physically ill-
There are four national speech tournaments. One is for first-year competitors only; one is for persuasive speaking only; one is quite open and almost anyone can go, and one is extremely strict. In order to qualify a speech for the strict hardest tournament, you have to get into finals three times at three tournaments, and you have to overall come in third, third and second. Get a total of 8 points (so you could come in first, fourth, third, etc. it has to be 8 or less). I have four speeches that are more than one tournament away from having that opportunity. We're running out of qualifying tournaments. As of now, only one speech is entered into nationals, where I came in 2nd 2nd 1st (this speech is the reason that I have been posting lots of tweets about victory- this speech in itself causes me to be a tournament champion). I have one speech thats 4th 2nd and another thats 4th 3rd, but then, I have one thats just 4th. I need two or three more qualifying tournaments to feel safe. Those opportunities don't exist anymore. The rest of the semester, there's really only one more opportunity for scores.... and it's very, very hard. It's the state tournament thats tremendously difficult.
The problem is, and the reason why I'm shaking now and have a stomachache because I hate myself for thinking this- my terrible scores are linked to that I missed tournaments for EXP Con and Youmacon.
I am so ashamed of myself for halfway being furious for missing those tournaments, because it's been surprisingly difficult to make up those points, where it wasnt difficult last year.... I dont know what happened; we did go to more tournaments last year, I suppose; I don't know if it's also possible that my events this year are simply inherently a little weaker, but also the fewer tournaments I go to, the less critiquing I get from good judges.
I am upset because now my entrances in nationals are highly wounded. I would be very ashamed of myself if I only got one speech to nationals. I had five last year. I'm better now than I was last year. ...right? Probably, because partially I did have more opportunities last year, but even so, I have really shanked myself by not going to the tournaments during the weekends of EXP Con and Youmacon.
...this is what I'm so ashamed and sad to admit: I missed the tournaments because I thought that I could recover like I did last year, but on the whole, I dont actually believe that I care about youmacon or Exp con more than speech nationals. I'm not over-thinking or over-analyzing the situations; I know exactly what happened, and it's disappointing.
I'm beside myself. I dont know what to do. I hate myself for thinking that if I hadn't missed the EXP Con and Youmacon tournaments, I would have accomplished my goal.... those weekends were essentially just unbelievable dream-like states of euphoria that lasted three or four days and they were so, so healthy for my mourning, decaying mind in the fall, but ultimately, cons are not my goal; cons have nothing to do with my leadership role; cons are not the last thing that I ever spoke to my dying father about.
Hannah wisely reminded me that life has a balance; that cons are important because I "got to see people that you only get to see once in a blue moon".... but, even that isn't much solace, because I can go to cons for the rest of my life. Martin, I'll be seeing you in three weeks. I'll see a well-sized chunk of the Youmacon gang at Otakon in a few months. In the future, I will most likely be able to afford to go to someplace like Anime Evolution so that I can see people like Taka who don't go to Otakon. There is time in life for everything. I will never get another chance to go to speech nationals, because you can't go after you graduate. It is worth it, to me, to tell my friends, "sorry, guys, can we party in the summer?" if it means I get to go to speech nationals. That is the role by which I define friendship: I want for my friends to understand and support me in what I hope they understand are my biggest, most necessary dreams.
The other tricky thing is that on one hand it's important to remember that "it's not all about winning." The other tricky thing is that, yes, winning is absolutely the most important thing in the world. It IS all about winning, because winning represents my school and gets funding for my program. Winning shows my growth in the field of the career that I want to spend the rest of my life doing. My wins show my teammates how to grow too.
I don't regret going to EXP Con and Youmacon. I needed that kind of happiness during that time, and those weekends remain on the highlight chart of my life. I am grateful for the opportunity to bond with my friends those weekends, and to grow as an artist and friend instead of a debater.... I think that the ultimate thing that makes me sad is that.......
Youmacon 2010's unbelievable healing happiness can happen at Youmacon 2011 and Youmacon 2012 and Youmacon 2020 and Youmacon 2054... the National Forensics Tournament 2011 cannot happen for me in 2012. There is a time in life for everything, and I have made myself physically ill at the thought of possibly having made my priorities wrong. Although, granted, Youmacon and EXP con were good decisions made on good evidence that I had last year that I'd be able to make up my losses at other tournaments; it wasn't until this semester that I realized how fewer tournaments we were going to.
I guess that really sums it up: Youmacon and EXP Con were good decisions and I do not regret allowing them to be some of the best weekends of my life. Maybe it's that I wish I would have known our real tournament schedule earlier.... boy, I am really messed up in the head right now x[