Sing me to Heaven

I am enamored...

NCFCA Alamo Qualifier

I think the biggest thing that I learned during this tournament was to trust God. I mean, I knew to trust Him before, but I was brought to a deeper realization of His trustworthiness and ultimate authority. It’s easy to rely on yourself at competitions when so much seems to depend on your own talents and abilities. For the most part, at this Alamo Qualifier, the Lord granted me a wonderful peace that flowed into everything I did. Not just in competing, but in conversing, and just… living. I was very thankful for that.

The State tournament was amazing, in the full sense of that descriptive word!

Ten things I am mentioning about the tournament, because I feel like it:

1.) The schedule was really weird. Until I got used to it, I kept forgetting the day and the time.

2.) LD rocks over TP. No offense, just personal preference here! *hides from angry TPers*

3.) I suffer from an appalling lack of music at tournaments. I soaked up as much of it as I could get, whenever I found an opportunity! I should get an ipod.

4.) I had cards on all my apologetics topics!!

5.) 5 hours of sleep per night is NOT enough.

6.) I now have 3 Narnian ’siblings’. Peter, Edmond (spelled the French-Canadian way), and Lucy.

7.) I was late for almost every meal. I got the LAST Taco Cabana bag.

8.) The next generation of NCFCA is going to blow our minds!

9.) I’ve seen Fleming/Hardy’s duo 10 times now.

10.) It’s pretty fun to write random notes and draw random pictures on your flowsheets. And words, like gracious and revenge and incompatibility and ardent, as they come to mind! Sometimes I was bored enough, even when timing! The back of the timer sheet is also a good place to write music.

11.) I know, it wasn’t in the thesis statement, but I just had to say, ARCers are awesome!

Another tournament

Hello, neglected readers! It's good to be back with y'all again! I'd simply love to post on some amazingly profound subject, but....

So anyways, I got back Sunday from another speech and debate tournament. This was the 2009 NCFCA Texas National Open. There were like 500+ people there. Now don't worry, I'm not going to rattle on about it like the last one. I think y'all can pretty much envision tournament life now. And besides, I didn't have the camera with me, so I got NO pictures, and that is making me feel very un-inspired. Christina H. took some pictures, though, and promised to bring me a CD of them, so I may still end up posting a slideshow. Stay tuned!

I competed in Apologetics as well as Dramatic Interp this time. Apologetics is awesome! This being my first try, I did not do terribly well, but I had a great time. Apol is a limited-prep event: basically you go into the room, choose from three questions lying folded up on the table, and have 4 minutes to prepare a speech on one of them. Then you're supposed to speak for 6 minutes, but I never exceeded 3:51. Which is to be expected. But anyhow, even though I was not very good, it was really amazing, and I'm looking forward to the State tournament next week, where I can do it again!

Highlights or interesting facts from the Houston National Open:

1.) Timing every preliminary debate round! I like timing.

2.) Flowing for the first time. (fun!)

3.) Watching all the duos in the finals round! They were all amazing. Naturally I'm biased towards the teams from Texas, though. ;-) Fox/Louis and Fleming/Hardy rock.

4.) Timing OI semi-finals.

5.) ARCers. I love y'all

6.) Getting to play the piano just a little bit every day at our hosts' home. It was all the music I had, besides my singing!

7.) I spilled water *counts on fingers* like 7 times over the weekend.

So, yeah, it was memorable! I'll try to get that slideshow up, because I am well aware of how boring narratives are, and I'm not one of those people who have the power to make them amusing, deep, or otherwise original.

Check out ARCblogs for more info!

~Grace

Today I am feeling... happy.

Copyright © 2008 by GraceElizabeth

So there was this tournament...

And it was really awesome. Tada!

Just kidding.

Presenting... the NCFCA 2009 January Warm-Up Tournament recap! Sponsored by Sing Me To Heaven, www.ncfca.org, and www.arcblogs.com! *insert drumroll*

Disclaimer: This is a very long post, as you see. You probably will not have time to, or even want to read the whole thing! I wrote it mainly for my own benefit, because I don't want to forget this! I would have written it in my journal, but it's ever so much faster to type than write by hand. ;-) If you want to see pictures, scroll down and watch the slideshow I made!

Now, to acquire the proper perspective, we must go back, way back into history! Well, not as far as we probably should go, that is, to tell you how I first became involved with NCFCA, and etc. We'll go back to the beginning of last week- Monday night. Monday night was peculiarly significant because I came down with a cold. Yep, and I was in bed all day Tuesday. Very disagreeable, because I was not able to practice my speech. Wednesday morning was spent packing (ick), and Wednesday afternoon saw me and my dad leaving for my grandparents' house! I was still sick, btw. On the way, we stopped at a UPS outlet or something of that sort to copy about 40 pages from the book that I took my speech from. I wish we had one of those amazing printers that scans once and prints your copy in like 10 seconds.

But anyways... fast forward to Thursday morning- the first day of the tournament! I was dragged out of my warm bed at 5:30 that morning by the worst sound in the world- an alarm clock. We were on the road to Houston by 6:15, I believe. It was dark and cold. *shivers* But soon the horizon began to blush, and we got to see the most spectacularly splendid sunrise! Ah, it was beautiful. ;-) And also, that morning I discovered that I was over my cold! For the most part anyway. And I was too busy to notice throughout the day, but I had no problems at all! I'm very thankful for that little blessing- small in normal life, but when you're about to compete in something.... it's SO nice to be well!

At 8:30 we arrived at the church where the tournament was held- a massive place with three floors, a huge cafeteria area, a labyrinth of hallways. And we only had access to half the church! It was big. You may now picture me, with my bag of... stuff on one arm, my purse on the other and holding my script and submission form tightly in my hands, entering the door to the cafeteria. The number of students milling around was mind-boggling. I have since decided that there were only about two-hundred and fifty competitors, but when I first came in and was trying to find the registration line, it seemed like a lot more. And it made me seem very small. I walked up to a couple of people to ask if they were in line, and if this was the place we were supposed to be, but most of them answered that they weren't so sure, and the line was here a minute ago, but now it seemed to be moving in the opposite direction. Needless to say, this was not very helpful. Except that everyone was very friendly! I finally found the line, and registered.... And I made friends with several people.

Them: Hi- I'm _____!
Me: I'm Grace. Nice to meet you! *hand-shake* So what events are you doing?
Them: Oh, I'm going light this year. My schedule has been pretty busy. I'm only doing Apologetics, Original Oratory, Humorous Interp., and Team Policy Debate. What about you?
Me: Oh, I'm doing a Dramatic Interp. (To be henceforth referred to as DI)
Them: Oh! Well that's cool! What's it about?
Me: (This was my stock answer throughout the tournament) It's about a Romanian girl who tried to escape the communist country, but was captured and put in prison.
Them: Sounds really neat!
Me: It's very dramatic! *grin* I like it.
Them: Well, I hope you break (advance)!
Me: Thanks! You too!
(And etcetera and so on....... everybody is so friendly. But I didn't meet anyone else who was only doing one event. :-)

 After submitting my script (and hoping they didn't notice the few pages of the book that I left out by accident), I made my way over to the ARC table and said hello to the few of them that I knew previously. And I met the rest- yay! Some of us had met before through homeschoolblogger, but not in person. Go say hi to Beth, Anna, Toni, Alex, and Katy-- who I had an amazing time with all weekend! As well as my dear friend of two years, Christina, and her brother Paul. This is not including my other wonderful companions who don't have blogs, or whose link escapes my memory. ;-) I love you guys!!
You must realize, dear readers, that I have no connection with ARC, and the members still accepted me by faith, and immediately! I cannot tell you how much that meant to me- to become one of them in such a short time. They are truly amazing!

Before the tournament could begin, Mr. Larimer had to come up and welcome everyone, thank some people who helped out, and remind us to 'respect the facilities'. And then we began with a Lincoln-Douglas debate round! I timed one of the rooms, despite my conscience telling me that I really should go practice my speech, unless I wanted to forget half of it. But they needed timers! That's my lousy excuse. I love LD. I love Team-Policy too, and I timed quite a few of those rounds!
So, fast-forward to postings for my speech round. I 'excused myself' through a gob of people hovering around the wall, and managed to get a glimpse of the room I'd be performing in. #360. I was somewhere in the middle... maybe 4th- I can't remember. I hurried up there, lest I be late! But I discovered that the judges weren't even there yet, so my fears were unjustified. The entire tournament was always running behind. ;-) I spent my spare time wandering around the third floor, reading my speech over and over. But it's hard to concentrate when you're nervous. So I soon ended up standing outside the door listening to Paul and another guy talk. I don't remember what they were talking about. Except I think McCain came up in there somewhere. :-P I finally decided to go in the room, although it wasn't my turn yet. I watched this boy- who looked about 12- do his speech on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And then it was my turn. Ack!
I took my ring off so I wouldn't twist it. :-P And then I threw my nerves to the winds and asked if the judges were ready. They were, alas. So I bent my head... and began my speech. I'd post the script except I don't know what the rules are on that. The most exciting thing about this round was that I cried! I've never, ever cried on cue before! My happiness knew no bounds. ;-) The worst things were that 1- I forgot one of my accents, and 2- the time was 10:58. Ouch. Each speech is supposed to be 10 minutes long.
When I'd finished, Paul, who had been 'judging' me too, explained to me the high and low points and gave me some notes on how to improve.... Beyond that I don't really remember what happened until the next speech round.

In the next speech round, (there are two because there are so many events. Half are in one round, and half in the other.), I went to watch... duos, I think. Duos are the best kind of speech ever. I first saw one about women's fear of lightning. :-D Then I saw Fleming/Hardy's rendition of Peter Pan. Talk about amazing! I don't know how long Ian and Tim have been doing this, but they're basically pros at it. The duo was amazing, even though they completely forgot their lines in one place, and left out like half of the speech! They well deserved to get first at the tournament, which they did. ;-)
After Fleming/Hardy, I went downstairs to see if Jessie and Reid were about to go on yet. But their judges were still absent (without leave). I meandered aimlessly around in the hallways for a while, until they were ready to perform. They did so well! It was brilliantly blocked, and brilliantly executed! All of you who attended the tournament with me know that I think they should have gotten second! As it is, they got 8th, but that's absolutely amazing too!

The rest of the day was, on my part, spent timing, watching, and doing my speech one more time. I think the second round was my best. Even though the time was 11:24! *gasp* But my ballots are highest from the second round.

11:30pm saw the Hastings vehicle pulling out of the church parking lot. I stayed with the Hastings all weekend! Christina and I talked all the way home, much to Paul's chagrin. Once at the house, we decided who would take showers when, and collapsed in bed as soon as possible.

Only to be awakened at 6-something to get ready for the day! Christina and I curled our hair with her excellent rollers, and told each other that "You look gorgeous!" (the WallE quote)

The second day was as awesome as the first. Shall I narrate it for you? I guess not. :-P
But Friday night, breaks were announced. I don't know what thoughts went through my head when my name was called... I wasn't that surprised, but I wouldn't have been surprised if I hadn't broken, either. I had blocked all expectations out of my mind. ;-) The most fun part of the evening was hearing all my friends' names called! The people's choice awards, or 'purple choice', were pretty hilarious too. So was Tim's song. And the team impromptus, except some of those were over-the-top goofy.

11:30pm once more saw us leaving the facility.

But this time, we had to be back earlier, because Mr. Hastings had work to do in Bastrop. So we got to the church at 7am or so. And nobody was there. It was creepy. It didn't last long, though. ;-)

The Semi-Final Round was held Saturday morning. The best part about my speech in this round was that I cut it down to 9:54!! That completely made up for my not advancing to finals! And during finals, since I wasn't competing, I got to watch all the duos except one, and I also saw Christina's OI through the door. They have thick doors in that church, because I really had to strain to hear her. Except when she was yelling. She was amazing! And she got 5th place. *applause* Her OI is heart-rendingly sad. *cries*
Jessie/Reid rocked in the finals round! And so did Fleming/Hardy. These were my two favorite duos of the tournament. Can you tell? :-) Fleming/Hardy said ever so many more lines than the first time I saw them! And the hands-down best part of the duo was Ian's wink at the end. He was Peter Pan, and it was perfect, I tell you.

After the speech round-- came debate semi-finals! I went to watch Ian and Tim debate each other. Best friends debating.. it doesn't get much better! It was the best (and most amusing) LD round I've ever seen! But I haven't seen very many..... The best part was the cross-ex-ing.

Ian: Hello Tim, how are you?
Tim: I'm doing great!
Ian: I like your tie.
Tim: Thanks! I like yours too! (they both were wearing the same tie, but in different colors. :-P)
Ian: Where'd you get it?
Tim: Um.. I think the same place you got yours.
Ian: Yeah, I think I bought it for you. But anyways....

Lol. It was hysterical.

Before the final-final debate round, I walked around linking arms with Anna. She was taking pictures of me with the people I met at the tournament. ;-) I also taught her to swing-dance! That was fun.
The final-final LD round was held in the cafeteria, and everyone attended. I sat next to Beth, and we giggled through the entire thing, we were so tired! People do strange things when they're very tired, and so was the case with Bethy and I. I don't even remember what we talked about! Haha! Except that Beth noticed that the Affirmative guy kept saying 'thus'.....
We skipped the Team Policy round! A bunch of ARCers went upstairs to play games and goof off. But we tried not to make too much noise, seeing as we were in the room directly above the cafeteria! We played the Great Dalmuti... (or however you spell that), and I was Lower Peasant most of the time... *sigh* I am horrible at all card games.

*gasps for air* So, everyone, you should come to an NCFCA tournament near you, if possible! They're absolutely fabulous! There's no way I can relate to you all the wonderful little memories that sold me on this one. How could I re-create every conversation, every event, every laugh? You'll just have to come see for yourself.

The End. And yes, I am well aware of the defect in one of my subtitles. Windows Movie Maker published it wrong! It's typed in correctly.

Copyright © 2008 by GraceElizabeth

San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival

January 9th and 10th. Ok, so that's when the Festival was. I had to go look it up on the calendar, since all I knew was that it was on some weekend in January. :-P You may now get on my case for neglecting to post about it. *grin*

Vision Forum did an amazing job with this event, as usual. I'm not sure how many films were showcased, but I saw a lot, and I didn't see the majority by any means. All the films were hand-picked by a panel of judges. And there were... tons, yeah, tons of intitial submissions.

Here are a few pictures that I borrowed from Doug Phillips' blog, and Paul Hastings' blog. There's no way I can tell you in full about all the great movies I saw, and all the awesome people I hung out with. But if you're seething with curiousity, Paul did an elephantine post on the Festival, so here you go.

The heart of the Festival was here, in the Lila Cockrell Theatre. The closing ceremonies on the last night was a sold-out event. The feature-length films were all shown in this theatre. Amazing. It brought back lots of memories, too, because when I was in the Texas All-State Women's Choir, we sang on this very stage. I know how to get backstage! I amused myself throughout the Festival thinking that, if I wanted, I could just pop up on stage at any time! Not that I would've had the gumption, but still....

Friday night was really fun, except for us being tired to death! And our blisters... Emily and I were really dumb Friday, and we each wore cute shoes. Now everyone knows that if shoes are cute, they hurt your feet. It's inevitable. What with all our walking all over the convention center, we soon developed blisters. Ouch. The next day, I wore my most comfortable shoes. With socks. Anyways... Friday night.
Everyone, and I mean everyone... like all the homeschoolers within a thousand mile radius. And more besides! We all gathered in the Lila Cockrell theatre for whatever Vision Forum had planned. And they had a lot planned. (I think the whole deal took three hours.) One was an interview with Dean Jones, who many of you may know from such movies as The Love Bug, and Flubber. Most recently, he played Abraham in a film called Abraham and Isaac that was shown at the Film Festival. He has a really wonderful testimony, and I enjoyed hearing him speak.

The Von Trapp Children were featured! It was so amazing to hear them sing live. We have two of their CDs, but they sound even better now! Their blend is fabulous. The songs they sang were such classics as, The Lonely Goatherd (above), Amazing Grace, My Favorite Things, and a couple others from The Sound of Music. Their traditional Austrian costumes were so neat! The girls were wearing dresses that Maria Von Trapp had worn.
The Sound of Music is one of my favorite movies that I watch over and over again. Of course, it's a romantisized version. The real story of the Von Trapps is just as intriguing, or more so. And it was so cool to see these, the children of 3 faithful generations, singing for all of us. The legacy of the Von Trapp family goes farther than The Sound of Music shows.

Fireproof was also one of the movies featured at the Festival. I saw it for the first time, and it was so awesome! Sure, I know all of y'all have probably seen it already. But wow, what a powerful movie! Mr. Phillips interviewed Stephen Kenderick, the director, and Kirk Cameron, the actor who played Caleb Holt. They talked about the making of Fireproof, telling stories, touching and funny, and giving us an all-around behind the scenes view. When the DVD comes out, one of the special features is going to be 'Fireproof in 60 seconds'. It is what it is. Fireproof the movie retold in 60 seconds. Guys, go here: http://fireproofthemovie.com/  and watch it. It's histarical! I won't give anything away... but Christina H. and Emily and I were nearly rolling on the floor laughing. Literally.

~~~

To briefly mention the movies I liked... my favorites were (not in order) Fireproof, Pendragon (a period film about Britain and the Saxons. Made by one family, and, for their budget and resources, an amazing movie.), For Honor (A couple of my friends made this movie! They did a great job!), Dialtone (a kind of wierd movie about witnessing. I liked it though! It was a real eye-opener.), The Widow's Might (This movie won the Audience choice award, and the Jubilee award, the highest honors of the Festival. And it was a musical! That's enough get me in the theatre. ;-), Abraham and Isaac, and The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry (This is coming to theatres in the fall! Don't miss it! It also won the award for best film score at the Festival.). I encourage you to go to the links and read about each of them! I think you'll enjoy it. You can also download a lot of them easily from http://behemoth.com/.

~~~

The Christian Film Movement is well under-way! Be watching, because we're going to see some great things from these amateur film makers very soon!

~Grace

Copyright © 2008 by GraceElizabeth

Sixteen...

16

Sixteen is a composite number, and a square number, being 4² = 4 × 4. It is the smallest number with exactly five divisors, its proper divisors being 1, 2, 4 and 8.

Sixteen is the minimum age for being allowed an official beginners driver's license with parental consent in many U.S. states and in Canada. In Australia and Norway it is the age one can begin to get a learner's licence.

Sixteen is the minimum age for getting an adult job in most states and provinces across the globe.

Sixteen is the minimum age at which one can obtain a 10 year passport in the U.S.

Sixteen is the minimum age that one can drop out of school in the US.

There are sixteen pawns in a chess set and each player in a chess game starts with sixteen pieces.

A note played for one-sixteenth the duration of a whole note is called a sixteenth note or a semiquaver.

In the story of the Sleeping Beauty, a spell is placed on the princess that when she reaches her 16th birthday, she will "prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die."

Alas, how dreadfully old I am! ;-)

Copyright © 2008 by GraceElizabeth

Vacation Recap

Hello again!

Yes, I'm finally back! Thank you, everyone who commented on my last post even thought I was gone. It made me feel loved when I came back and read all of your notes. Since you all enjoyed the scenic pictures, I'll add to them with some action photos taken during the trip. I hope you can see what fun we had!

 The L. Family from our church was with us for the first 5 days, before our cousins came.

Fishing in the pond. I believe everyone caught at least one fish.

Silly children splashing me relentlessly. I plead innocent! Oh, what have I done to deserve such unjust treatment, I ask you? (The fact that I splashed them first is beside the point.) :-D

Aww, look at the cute baby! We went upstream to where there's a lot of clay underwater (we've called it slippery soap since I was 5). And after slipping and sliding around on it, we gathered up some pieces and proceeded to paint our faces grey and yellow. So that's the yellow stuff on Alan's face.

After the L's left, our cousins came. We go together for a family trip every year. This is my adorable and hilarious cousin, Kate.

And here's Kyle trying to stay dry. Biscuit's a pretty strong dog!

Rope Swings are great fun, but I wouldn't reccomend doing them with dry clothing unless you are an expert.

Kyle's a goner! We tried to save him, but the rope swing mutinied against us. Or maybe it was gravity. At any rate, both Kyle and Kate were soaked. Hehe, it was pretty funny. ;-)

I was taking the pictures that morning (the previous 5 pictures and the following two are all from the same day.)

This might take some explaining. In the gift shop, there were these very... interesting Hannah Montana wigs. We had a camera and a few willing models at hand, soooo, we made the most of the circumstance.

Goofs. This is me, Kate and Anna. Kyle completely refused to pose with a pirate sword and sunglasses. But I do have a priceless picture of Emily with 4 wigs, et cetera. She would kill me if I posted it.

Here are some of the 19 catfish we caught and ate. 19 is a lot, but with 12 people, it's no more than enough.

So I think you can gather what a good time we had, and how tired we were when we returned, at midnight last Friday!

~Grace

Copyright © 2008 by GraceElizabeth

A Circle of Heaven

 This summer has been one of the best ever for me. I've made awesome new friends and renewed other friendships.... I've developed a sudden and irrational affection for old-fashioned water pumps.... I've cried in front of people on purpose.... I've been part of a world that consisted of several fold-up chairs, with masking tape boundaries.... I've left myself behind and become someone else, for periods of time....

In other words, I've been a part of an amazing production this summer. Maybe not the most professional; maybe not up to the level of Broadway, or with the most talented actors and actresses. But I'm sure of this: no one who had a part in this will forget it any time soon. I've been part of so many other productions, but I think I'm safe in saying I enjoyed this one the most. We all had such a great time learning, laughing, and acting together. The cast was the best part of this production, hands down. I had an awesome time with this group! I love you guys!!!

Together, we produced a play to be proud of (at least, I was!) Our director and his family put so much into this production to help us live the story he'd written. And we did. When that world which was marked out with masking tape transformed into a true stage with a backdrop of Texas cornfields, we were ready to unveil A Circle of Heaven to our audience. Every moment of those three performances was jam-packed with suspense, supressed giggles from backstage, team spirit, and a sense of accomplishment. You don't get this feeling just anywhere. I've only experienced it in theatre,and I love it. Now of course I'm disappointed that it's over, (I always am, it's called PPD: Post Production Depression!) but I am so grateful that I was able to be a part of this, and I hope I'll be doing it again next year!

Now, for your amusement: PICTURES!!! (Courtesy of Jessie S.)

Our very strict (haha) director, Alex.

Lovely townsladies rehearsing scene 3.

Zebediah Andrews fixing his suspenders!

Yours truly dressed up like an 11 year old! Yep, that was my part- Missy Faulkner, the youngest of the Faulkner sisters who is both mischevous and spunky. I had so much fun with this part, I got to do everything from yelling at people, to screaming in fright from off stage, to crying on cue!

Mike- alias Jeff Faulkner- putting on make-up with that infamous funky headband in his hair! The guys actually made less fuss about wearing make-up on stage than I'd expected! Lol.

Our beautiful Mia putting up with the camera! Her hair looked exquisite when it was done!

Isaac with his new friend. I actually took this picture!!! *gasp*

So, there you have it, everyone. Now I suggest you go find an acting group near you! ;-)

~Grace

Copyright © 2008 by GraceElizabeth