One of the Busiest Weeks Ever

I meant to update this this weekend, but I didn't. Anyway, last week was one of the busiest weeks of the year so far, and while it was stressful at times, it was also one of the more enjoyable as well.

First of all, last Saturday, I spent the entire day- woke up at 5:45 to be picked up at 6:30 for a debate tournament that lasted from 9:00 AM to 10:00 PM- in Blanco with a couple of my friends. If they hadn't been there, I don't know what I would have done; the tournament was unusually slow, and it took nearly ten hours just to progress through four preliminary rounds. I ended up winning two out of my four debates, but every opponent I had was a good match for me, so it was a good experience.

This last week was homecoming week at our school. Since we don't have football, we celebrate it during basketball season. Each day, we can dress up according to the theme for that day, and this year's costumes ranged from board game pieces to video game characters to sports teams. The Fun and Games theme this year was a little bit tricky to pull off, but even though my planned Assassin's Creed costume didn't work out, I still had fun.

Besides this, I participated in the annual talent show on Thursday night not once, but twice. My first performance was a piano solo of John Schmidt's "North Pole Express," and my second round was a performance of "All I Ask of You" from the Phantom of the Opera with the talented Ms. Isabella Haws. Despite my nerves before going up on stage, both were good experiences in performing- my main goal in participating- and I did well in both of them. Unexpectedly, I ended up winning first place with Isabella, although after watching the video of our performance, I cringe at the sound of my own voice. I wish I could look at my own performances/writing without being so self-critical, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

On top of everything else, I, of course, had homework throughout the week and a Calculus "quiz" that I'm still waiting to see. Oh, yes, and I recorded four songs during my piano lesson on Tuesday.

On Saturday, I spent six hours with most of my class at what is called a "Super Senior" event, in which each member of the class is honored by a couple of friends and a parent. It was more emotional than we had expected, and although there was more laughter than tears, it was still a reflective experience.

After this, I went to see the movie "Marley and Me" with my mother and neighbor (I had read the book a while back, and we all love dogs). It's a real tear-jerker, but more than just the beautiful story of life with "the world's worst dog," the memoire of John Grogan's life coupled with my experiences earlier in the day made me reflect on where I might be in ten to thirty years. All in all, it was quite an emotional day.

Right now, after having worked on the piano accompaniments I'll play with the choir soloists during contest and after catching up on my 2YN assignments, I'm trying to make the most of a late start on this day off to finish a rough draft of my newspaper feature.