Learning to...

         Let me start out with a story. The story of you. I learned to love you this past week. Yeah, right. The end. Last week was amazing in its own unique way, yet it was definitely not my favorite tournament ever. At all of these speech and debate tournaments, and this one especially, I'm learning...

I'm learning to live.
I'm learning to love ("just starting to crawl")
I'm learning to fall. (Andrew is too. Funny story.)
I'm learning to learn.
I'm learning to run higher and jump faster.

I'm learning to chase after Him. This is the beautiful thing about tournaments. Everyone is learning to chase after Jesus and everyone is in a different place. Everyone is learning something different. But we walk together.

        One of the most important things I learned at this tournament is why, why you are so amazing. The fact that I see you so little is the very reason you mean so much to me and the very reason why these tournaments are so special. I realized that I don't want that special thing to ever change. But it will for some of you, and I will have to face it someday. It will change from seeing you very little  ...to never again.

 It's life bro. 

          As I said, this story is in fact about you. Yeah, right again. If you have ever said a word to me, it's about you. I am learning through you. If I didn't talk to you, you were likely talking to Thomas (and that doesn't mean I hate Thomas guys. it's just a joke). Seriously, if I didn't hang out with you, I wanted to.

        Oh, this is the perfect opportunity expound on my brilliant affirmative debate case: without love, everything else is worthless, which is why love is to be valued highest. "If you speak with the tongues of debaters and do not have love, you gain nothing." <-- quote from my debate case. Just kidding. Bonus negative debate case quote: "And these three remain; life, liberty, and property. But the greatest of these is liberty." Oops, this has nothing to do with the tournament. 

       Some other learning experiences would include how to take a breath mint, what to do with lemons, how to treat a pancake, and most importantly; how to not talk about myself. Not even in a blog post. I haven't used the word "I" yet.'

         I am now going to talk about the actual tournament and the actual competition. I might even talk about how my debate rounds went. Just kidding, that would be weird. Highlights from the tournament:

 -Doing somewhat amazing in my open -
- My brother doing amazing in humorous -

- Awesome friends -

- and then there was Applebees I guess :) -

        If you will excuse me I will be drowning out all of my cares with tears, sweat, and cupcakes. That's right; I workout.

...A goal for Regionals 2014:

Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and wrong. Sometime in your life you will have been all of these.

~ Dr. Robert H. Goddard
(Rocket scientist.
...literally)