Cody and a few kids on his debate team. Please ignore the scuzzy looking kid-he is a pain in the butt and thought it would be cute to get in the picture.
Cody, Sarah and Steven, (Steven is the funny one from Cody's birthday party).
Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week Cody has been going to a Las Vegas high school for a county debate tournament. Thursday and Friday they left school at 11:30am. They got to miss 4th period both days. He did not get home until 10:30pm Thursday night. Now mind you that he was up until 2am that night trying to get ready for his "expos". That is an 10 minutes or less original speech on a topic that he has chosen that he writes and then makes poster-type boards with pictures as visual aids. As he talks he interacts with the boards and adds and removes various pictures depicting and demonstrating what he is talking about. (Mom, this is what he showed you over Thanksgiving). His topic is Wheel of Time vs Lord of the Rings. He compares and contrasts those two different book series with his point being that WOT is better than LOTR. Anyway he stayed up until 2am fixing up his boards and then he got up at 5:30 am to go to Seminary. This he did after he whined to his dad and said "Can't I just skip seminary?' The answer of course was no and especially no because he had procrastinated for almost 2 months on fixing his boards up and so it was his own fault that he had to stay up until 2am. Then Friday morning he got up again for seminary under duress with the same plea of skipping but again he was told no. They left school again at 11:30. Here's the thing-the tournament does not start until 3pm so what did they do for 3 1/2 hours-went to Fazoli's and were dissed on the "all you can eat bread sticks" and then they went to Krispy Creme donuts to beg for "reject" donuts. He had asked me to come and help judge that day and so being the wonderful mommy I am (and knowing that I had already been to Vegas 3 times this week which is beside the point I guess as it is just our precious natural resources that I am using up as I cruise up and down the 1-15 most of the week) I agreed to go. I arrived at the school at 2:30 with the first round starting at 3. I judged 3 rounds 3:00-4:30, 4:30-6:00 and 6:00-7:30. I wanted to go home a lot sooner but Cody wanted me to wait and see it he made finals because if he did not then he wanted to ride home with me instead of waiting until after finals to ride the bus home. He did not make finals. He was disappointed sort of but he was also glad to get home a little sooner than every one else as he had to be to the school again this morning at 5:15 to go back for the last day of the tournament and the awards ceremony tonight. They will not get home until 11pm or later again tonight and I expect that Cody will be none to thrilled to get up for 9am church tomorrow. Cody really enjoys this and he has found his nitch. He is a great writer and is able to use that talent in this area. Debate is not all about arguing which we found out but is about among other things writing and sharing original speeches, sharing pieces of prose or poetry in a "theatrical interpretation" or "humorous interpretation" and also being able to think on the spot and deliver a speech with little or no preparation. They also debate in areas called Senate, Lincoln Douglas and Policy which are more of the areas that you think of when you think of debate. Anyway he likes it and he has actually taken first place and placed a few other times with his "expos". I did not mind the judging part as I was able to see what Cody has been doing and see what his competition is like. It was really long though and then we had to drive home again. I'm glad that I took my book and Ipod for entertainment purposes.
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