State Speech

State Speech:

a day of assorted theatre

(and, yes, continued procrastination)

       Remember this Tuesday, how I was so excited because I was getting my first blog post done early this week, and thus, I figured, doing better overall this week? Well, it was good to get a blog post done and out of the way that early. Yet here I am. It is Saturday, it is 9 o'clock, and I have two blog posts to write. Always. Although I did also get my first official creative writing II piece done this week, on the upside! But somehow, this always happens, finding myself at the end of the week with blogging to do. Well, there's always next week. Tuesday seems very long ago now, oddly. 

       So, brief commentary on the state of the week and procrastination aside, I am writing this blog post about state speech, which I attended today. I did not perform, as my group at districts did not qualify to move on :'( but it's always fun to go along and support my team and whatall. I love the feeling of being a member of a team like this, too. Just in general it's nice to have a group to be a part of, and it feels good to be involved in an activity again. It's always fun to see all the great performances at state speech, too. There are a lot of very good ones.

       The morning of state speech has a different feel to it than district does, at least for me. Perhaps this can be largely attributed to the fact that I know I'm not performing; as yet, I have never made it to state, though I did start speech a little late in the game, you could say. Freshman year, I was in Virginia, of course, and I don't think the speech system there is the same as it is here. Even if it had been, I never thought of myself as a speech person, and I didn't seek it out. In fact, when I came here to Iowa and found out that I was required to take a speech class, I somewhat dreaded it. I never thought of myself as a person who liked talking in front of other people. I've always been socially awkward and I've never been great at just... talking in front of and with people and communicating and such. I have, however, always loved reading aloud. Whenever a story was being read in class and the teacher asked for volunteers, my hand was the first one up. Reading aloud was just something different than speaking. It just seemed more... literary. I am socially awkward but madly in love with words, with writing and reading, and I guess in the course of reading aloud, the putting of dramatic emphasis on things developed naturally. And so, Sophomore year in speech class, we had a unit that was reading storybooks aloud, which was pretty much my favorite unit ever. I read the ever-classic "Where the Wild Things Are" and I really enjoyed it, and apparently I did rather well because Mrs. Day mentioned to me that I should try joining individual speech, and that I should do storytelling. And so it began. 

       But it didn't begin as soon as you may think. I didn't get into it that year, Sophomore year. By the time I got to Mrs. Day in January to sign up, storytelling was full, as were all the other categories which interested me. I made some fuss about understudying but in reality I didn't truly do anything that year. Junior year I was more on top of it, and I did storytelling. I performed, I loved it, and I didn't go to state. Now this year, I even joined group speech, which performed just a couple of weeks ago, and also didn't go to state. Now for individual state, I've signed up for two categories, storytelling again and literary program for the first time. Which reminds me, I really need to practice and all that. 

      I love tangents, don't you? I just came to a point where I went, "wait, where am I going with this again?" and I looked back and I realized that I was writing about this morning and in so doing I somehow digressed into a summary of my entire speech career thus far. I do love that blog posts allow me to do this. However, I kind of wish I had just gotten to my point, because it's getting late and I should post this soon. At least I have my next post close-ish to done in another tab. I was mostly aiming to summarize what I watched today, and here I am, going over my life relationship with speech while you are all waiting to hear about the rest of my morning. 

     Right. So. There's less anticipation when you're not performing. It's both good and bad; there aren't any nerves, nor is there any worry about messing up, but it is less exciting, and you don't get to perform, which you want to (or I. Whatever perspective I'm using). But it still has that fun, adventurous feeling. I was better packed today because I've learned more what I do and don't use and so have narrowed down what I bring into the contents of one, albeit rather large and over-stuffed, bag. I was also dressed in clothes that were more me. Last time I wore dark, imperial clothes, or at least clothes that struck me as decently qualifying as such, which was fun and helped my character, but this time I wore a short purple dress and tights with kitties on them, which I like very much and would wear anyways. I had a very yummy apple turnover from my grandma for breakfast, and as we sat out, soft, light snow was falling, gentle flurries like little down feathers, making a thin, smoothing coat on the ground. It was very pretty and it sparkled like glitter in the light of the fair morning sunrise. I wasn't as tired as normal either, not only because it wasn't as early but also because I had somewhat miraculously made it to bed by eleven, which is an early bedtime these days. It's not happening tonight. Speaking of which, o gosh, it's 11:50. I need to hurry up and finish this thing, plus my Rumbelle thing. So, yes, a nice morning. I guess maybe I'll describe the rest of today, tomorrow. 

      Beyond the violet mist, our peoples remain locked in an ancient struggle that has lasted through the memory of all living, with a fearsome and terrible beast known only as Procrastination, a beast that gobbles up time with its abhorrent transdimensional dagger-teeth.