Glory be, we survived the Home Speech Meet.
Even happier, it went really well.
It so wasn't because of me - my assistant coach, Paula, was phenomenal. She subbed at the school most days this past week, and she often stepped into my room to see what she could do to help. She also was fantastic the day-of at just getting stuff done - if there was a need, she did it and did it well without coming to me first to check. I love that.
My other assistant coach, Trice, stepped up and ran the debate draw for the first time. A small group of students stayed after school Friday to help set up the rooms, won with promises of extra credit and candy after the speech seniors collectively abandoned their earlier promises of help for a Key Club project. The parents brought food, the judges came and worked well, the Team Mom did a fantastic job setting up and cleaning up, and most of teams came on time.
We started about 30 minutes late, since we had to wait for two teams to show. However, since I had so many judges and so few competitors (relatively speaking - we had 8 schools competing with around 80 students. Normal meets get 15 schools with 160 students), I sorted the speechers into sections of 4 or 5 students (rather than 5-7). As a result, we not only caught up on the lost time, we wrapped up 30 minutes early. Cleanup happened swiftly, thanks to my speechers who stayed after to help and who got started as soon as the competitors were out of the rooms (before awards). We were totally done and out of the building by 5:20, although I had to stick around in the parking lot until 6 waiting for two students to get picked up, thereby bringing my day to a solid 12 hours.
I ran back to the condo to throw my stuff and cat into the car and head back down the mountain. I celebrated the day by watching the Halloween episode of "Community" with Rachel and Ben. Then I went home and slept for 11 hours. And now I'm dying costumes for Robin Hood.
Another week, another production.
I especially enjoyed having Rachel and Brian come judge - it was fun to share a little of what I do with them, and I liked having people I like to talk to around during the day. I think they both had fun, too. Brian even asked if there were other meets in the Denver area he could come judge at. I told him we were heading to Lakewood High School on Saturday, and promised to call that coach on Monday to ask if they needed more judges. He was especially excited to hear that it was a tournament meet, so it will have the kind of debate he did in high school (as opposed to the festival-style debate that we do and he so frequently poo-poos).
The night before the meet, Rachel, Brian, Ben, and Jack came up to the condo. We had dinner together and played a game after I made sure the team doing the homestays were all secured. It was nice to get some Jack-time and have something to look forward to in the midst of the craziness. Also, Rachel gave me a "yay-Speech Meet" present, which I'm very much looking forward to reading.
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