Blog

Recently I haven‘t had much time for my blog, so now I have a lot of catching up to do.

Halloween At school a lot of kids wore costumes. The reason why I didn‘t, was because there are too many restrictions in this school — yes even for costumes. In other words, skirts, leggings, hats, ripped fabric and showing shoulders was not allowed. Leaving the students only little room for creative costume ideas, I decided to not take part and a lot of other kids did the same. In the evening there was another football game but I didn‘t go because it was an away game and I rather wanted to give candy to the children who were trick or treating. My host dad was on a business trip and both of my host siblings, since they are in band, were at the football game, leaving me and my host mom the only ones at home. The first thing the two of us did after school was going to Walmart to buy candy for the children. Next, we put the candy into a bowl and put it on the porch. Then my host mom took me to a nearby neithborhood to show me halloween decorations. We didn‘t see that much though, apparently the decorations turned out poorly this year.

When we came back home and looked at our candy bowl, we saw that a lot of children already passed our house, since it was almost empty. I started studying for a quiz on the couch and a few times the doorbell rang and we gave out candy. Afterwards we picked up Ximena and Luis and went to get dinner.

San Antonio About two weeks ago me and my host family went to San Antonio for the weekend. The reason why we went there was because the Wylie Band had a competition there and my host mom never misses a performance, plus, it was a great opportunity to see the city. That Saturday, I got up at 5 and left the house at 6. My host mom was driving me and Adriana (her bestie), my host dad went to San Antonio directly from his business trip and my host siblings went with the band by bus. It was a 5 hour drive, so naturally I slept most of the time. After we arrived, we went to the stadium where the band competition took place. We were there for about 7 hours, so I was really bored and depressed. I had seen different bands perform a thousand times and was sick and tired of seeing it all again. Also, we couldn‘t even say hii to the Wylie kids, since the band directors are way too strict and treat their kids like slaves! But anyway, after those 7 hours of pure agony, we finally checked into the hotel. Since my host mom shared a room with her husband, I was roommates with Adriana. I‘m glad nobody from EF knows about my blog, since they would have background checked her (if they knew about it). So after checking in, we went to the famous river walk of San Antonio. We had dinner at a cool restaurant, but it took a while to find one, everything was full. The river walk was better than I could imagine; a beautiful canal, restaurants, lights, music and a good atmosphere.

After having dinner we went on one of those boats for a tour around the river walk. It was dark by then and the lights created a magnificent experience. It was so beautiful and reminded me a bit of New Harbor in Copenhagen.

When we got off the boat, we went back to the hotel and got ready for bed. Adriana and I talked a long time and from our room we could even see the fireworks. I like her a lot, actually I like all of the Landrums.

Sunday, we went to have breakfast at a German restaurant which earned the title as the oldest still existing restaurant of San Antonio. I had pancakes and a doubled portion of fruit because from time to time I really miss eating fruits here in the US. After breakfast, we downloaded an app for renting scooters. My host mom wasn‘t a big fan of the idea but eventually she gave in. We used the scooters to get from place from place faster and it was really fun! This way I actually met up with Jacob. He was checking out the city with a group of other band kids and my host family and his group just happened to „accidentally“ see each other 😉.

After bolting through the city for two hours, we went back to the hotel, checked out and headed home. I have to say that San Antonio was definitely the most beautiful part of Texas that I‘ve seen so far. Most of Texas is flat and the nature doesn‘t impress me, but San Antonio is definitely a place that I‘d recommend visiting.

My last football game A week ago, the official football season at many schools ended. That doesn’t mean that my school was done though. Wylie High School had won literally every football game against schools in the same school district, meaning we’re DISTRICT CHAMPIONS! So last weekend, there was the first playoff game against bigger schools from further away. The High School we played was Prosper, and everybody was excited about the big game. I went to the game, but it was extremely cold and the other team was clearly better than ours. I don’t remember the final score, but it was something like 24:0. Losing a playoff game means the immediate ending of the football season, which made it my last football game this year.

Last weekend On Saturday my host mom’s family came to visit. Before eating a late lunch, her mom and sister with all of her kids came to our house. It was really depressing for me, since neither of them could speak English and naturally, my host family spoke Spanish the whole day. Being unable to communicate with our guests, I decided to get ahead with homework. An hour later, we got in the car and drove to a nearby Mexican restaurant. For dessert we even had a chocolate pinata. It was just a huge ball of chocolate, that was filled with other desserts. So my host mom’s sister took the bat and smacked the chocolate ball until opened. Much to my dismay, the insides of the pinata weren’t that good…… After lunch/dinner we went bowling. That was more fun, since my host siblings said that it was exhausting for them to speak Spanish the whole day and they started speaking English with me.

On Sunday, I had my boyfriend come over for a video chat with my parents. It took quite a long time to convince his parents to let him come over before church, but they finally agreed. After the video chat, we got bubble tea for my host sister, because a day earlier she agreed to get her hair done (she usually hates it). Then we just chilled on the couch a little, until Ximena and my host mom wanted to go to a mall. Jacob and I had to go with them since my host parents have this weird rule that couples can’t be alone at home 🙁 But the mall was alright and the christmas tree in the center of the mall was amazing. It was the same mall that the EF meeting took place the day before. But we skipped this meeting, telling the staff that I had to attend a debate tournament that day. I just don’t like EF meetings and my host

Yesterday was the day I was awaiting for a long time: Homecoming. The actual dance was in the evening, but the event „Hoco“ was the whole day. And with the special day came an old Texan tradition of exchanging mums and garters with your date. This is how it works; the guy makes (or buys) a mum for his date and in exchange the girl gives him a garter.

This tradition only exists in Texas, and a lot of people participate. The whole day you could see a lot of students, especially girls, wearing mums (and garters) in the hallway. So after my bus arrived at school, I exchanged the garter for the mum and Jacob‘s sister Gretchen took a picture of us.

I really like the mum he gave me because of the colors and the things he put on the ribbons. And I liked it because it‘s a rather small one. You should have seen other girls, their mums were bigger than the girl!!!! And some had mums with electric lights on them or even cowbells. I heard a girl scolding her boyfriend for putting a cowbell on her mum because she was embarrassed that it sounds every time she moves 😂. I felt sorry for her and I‘m very glad Jacob didn‘t do that to me. Since I had heard prior to Hoco what boys could put on mums, I told Jacob: „No bells, no feathers, no lights and make it small and short“, before he started making my mum. He listened to all of that, except the length. I was kinds upset because it made it difficult to walk. You can‘t see it on the picture but it was long enough to touch my ankles. But as I found out, he wasn‘t the one deciding how long it was gonna be. His mom and sister were in charge of that and didn‘t take into account that I‘m short……

I usually just wore it in the hallway and took it off for class, which is what most girls did. A lot of students in my classes complimented my mum and asked who made it 😁.

For lunch Jacob and I planned to go across the street to Kroger‘s, like we do every day. But unfortunately it had been raining the whole day, which was bad at lunch time, but would become a really good thing later. Since neither of us had a rain coat or an umbrella, we decided to go eat at Whataburger, which is in driving distance of our school. This way we actually had to spend less time in the rain than walking to Kroger‘s. Lunch was very nice and the staff at Whataburger is always extremely nice!

After lunch I had environmental science and I was 5 min late because we left too late from Whataburger. I didn‘t think it would be a bug deal though, since my ES teacher doesn‘t really care. But it was that day of all days, that we had a sub. And he actually counted me tardy 🙄.

We were on pep rally schedule that day, which means each class is 5 minutes shorter so we‘d have 35 minutes left for a pep rally in the gym. The rally was funny this time. Some football players dressed up as cheerleaders and performed a dance 😅. And afterwards the pep rally pretty normal. A performance by the pacesetters, the cheerleaders, the step team, and the band playing the school song and the fight song.

After that, I took the bus and went home to get ready for the dance. I showered, dressed up and my host mom did my hair and makeup. I‘m so happy to finally have somebody that can make pretty hair styles and do really decent makeup 😃.

Now comes the part where the rain positively contributes to Homecoming. During the dance, there was also a football game going on. During every football game, the band has to stay in the stands and play music. So everybody in the band, including my boyfriend would have missed Hoco completely or maybe attended the last 20 minutes. But since it rained, which is bad for the instruments, the band couldn‘t play at the football game and they were released earlier. So the rain is the only reason why I was able to go to Homecoming with my boyfriend. So he picked me up at home around 8 o‘clock.

Arriving at the school, I started to feel overdressed, although I was only wearing a skirt and a blouse. All of the other kids were wearing jeans and hoodie, which made me feel a little uncomfortable. But then I say some girls in glittery dresses and felt more normal. But lets be honest, the dance was sooooo lame. To give you an idea of it, there were tables in the cafeteria with candy and students were standing around those tables eathing the candy. In the background there was playing some music. So basically that sums it up pretty well. It was really a waste of time to go there, but there was one little moment that made it worth going. Maybe you remember what I wrote about Micah, the annoying debate captain. He hates my boyfriend without even knowing him personally, just because Jacob‘s family is republican. That being said, we actually saw him at the hoco dance. Jacob had his arm around me and then Micah came up to us and said: „Make space for Jesus“. I didn‘t understand what he meant first, and the second time he said: „Break up with him for Jesus“. That was sooooo weird and I responded saying that I wasn‘t religious and don‘t care. So Micah explained that he is at the dance signed up as a chaperon. So after he said that, Jacob deliberately kissed me in front of him and Micah left, saying „Ewww that‘s disguesting“. 😂😂😂 That was so nice to see his face.

Since the dance was really boring, Jacob and I decided to go to IHop instead. It is a restaurant next to the school that mainly serves breakfast. We saw a lot of other High Schoolers there that also ditched the dance. I ate strawberry banana pancakes and well, it was delicious!

We spent quite a lot of time at IHop and after that, Jacob dropped me off at home. In conclusion I would say that the day was fun, it was just the dance that was really poorly managed.

My school‘s homecoming takes place on the 25th of October, together with a football game. Here in Texas, it‘s a tradition for guys to ask girls to homecoming with big gestures, normally including a poster that askes the girl to be their date to homecoming.

In other schools, homecoming is a huge, formal dance with dressing up and everything that comes with it. But at Wylie High, homecoming is more like a fun night at school with food, drinks and movies. Girls don‘t wear dresses and before going to the actual event, couples watch the football game.

So last week, guys began to ask girls out with their posters etc. Since I have a bf, I obviously expected him to ask me sooner or later, but I was really unsure, because Ximena had told me that he was gonna ask me at the home game but he cancelled that plan. I was quite disappointed that he apparently didn‘t wanna do it at the game anymore, but at the same time I was glad because quite a lot of these homecoming proposals are cringy and embarrassing. But I was still a little bit upset and waiting for him to ask me.

So yesterday he finally asked me!!!!!!! When I came home from school and opened the door to my bedroom, I was shocked for a moment, because Jacob was standing in my room, which I hadn‘t expected. He was holding a huge poster that said: ¨Roses are red, your eyes are stunning, will you be my date to homecoming¨. In his hands were roses and a bag of chocolates and on my table I found a frosted limonade, which is my favorite drink here. Of course my host mom recorded the whole thing on video tape and threatened to send it to my parents 😂. So I said I would do it if I could only send the photo we took and thank god she agreed ….haha.

I find it very cute how he asked me to homecoming and I was clearly happy about it. But Now I have something else to worry about…… the mum.

It‘s a tradition in Texas – and only in Texas – that girls wear a mum to school the day of homecoming, while guys wear garders. I can‘t explain what a mum is, but there are many pictures on the internet of it. So the guy makes a mum for the girl and the girl makes a garder for the guy, they exchange it before school starts and wear it the whole day until the dance. I wouldn‘t have a problem with it if the mums weren‘t that ugly. I‘ve mostly seen pictures of horrendous mums and very rarely I‘ve also seen a nice one. The problem is, that most of them are WAY too BIG. So I told Jacob that I want a small and mostest mum. I really hope he listens to me. If you don‘t know what dimension I‘m talking about, google ¨mum homecoming¨, and you‘ll see a lot of pictures of girls wearing mums that are 10x too big for them……..

The annual Wylie tournament started, like all debate tournaments, early in the morning. I had to get up at 5 already and be there at 6. I was still extremely tired, because the evening before, I had gone to my boyfriend‘s house to meet his grandparents that were visiting from Georgia. Looking back, I probably should have stayed at home, preparing for the next day. This tournament took place at my school, meaning we all had to work at the tournament instead of competing. My partner Sumehra and I were still signed up to compete because H (our coach) said that it would be good training. So I was competing and helping with the tournament at the same time.

When I put my stuff in the choir room, there were already a lot of debate kids there to help set up the whole cafeteria. We had to put all of the tables and chairs in the cafeteria, prepare the librarie for the judges and open all of the rooms that we would be using for the tournament. We needed about an hour to complete all of that. We had a lot of moms volunteer for preparing the food. We were expecting 900 students this year, which is three times as much as last year. Everybody said that the reason why Wylie tournaments are so successful was because we had good food, so apparently the moms had been doing a really good job the last few years.

At 7 am the first schools started to arrive. My job at the tournament was to be in the hallway and show the debaters how to get to their rooms. So I was sitting there until 8 am, which is the time my first round started. My partner and I were assigned neg, which we were really happy about. The two girls we debated were from a school that‘s further away and they were also doing it for the first time.

The first thing after a few minutes of socializing was to exchange our cases (the arguments etc that we use for the round). We had some problems with their flashdrive, so after a few minutes we decided to do an email chain instead. We already lost a lot of time because of that, so when the round started, I was even more nervous. In case somebody doesn‘t rembember, the topic was: The United States federal government should substantially reduce Direct Commercial Sales and/or Foreign Military Sales of arms from the United States.

That round went pretty well. The mistake of our opponents was that they blamed potential wars on Trump. They argued that Trump was trigger-happy and would not hesitate to start a war. What they didn‘t know, however, was that Sumehra and I had prepared a disad proving that Trump could easily loose the 2020 election. With this one disad we could practically prove that all of their arguments were invalid. So after the round, the judge declared us the winner and we were so happy about it! Winning the first round ever is definitely not something I thought about actually happening.

When we were done with our second round, the third round had already started 23 minutes ago. We entered the room when we were 2 minutes away from an automatic loss. In the second round we were affirmative. We presented our case about Taiwan, but after a few minutes we knew we would loose. One of the team members was not new to debate like everyone else. She had done it for several years and just did this event to show her partner, that was new, how to do it. Not only was she a varsity member, but also she spread, meaning she talked very fast. Spreading is so fast, that most people cannot understand a word. That‘s also how my partner and I felt. We really couldn‘t understand what she was saying and horribly lost this round.

Then we had a lunch break. I went back to my spot in the hallway and talked to some other debate kids, while giving some directions inbetween. Then we had our third round, which went almost the exact same way as the first. Our opponents were two boys, obviously freshmen, that also did their first tournament. We beat them without a problem, since they didn‘t even know what hegemony was and they also didn‘t really answer our questions during cross ex. It was clear that we won, but they were very polite and the atmosphere in the room was a lot better.

After the third round I was so relieved that we were done for the day, which I knew we were because at our own tournament we can‘t advance to the next round anyway. So I went back to the table in the hallway where I should be giving directions. My partner, again, didn‘t show up. I was glad that I still wasn‘t alone. Sam from my debate class was there also and we actually had a lot of fun. He‘s crazy! XD

A little bit later, Jacob actually showed up at the tournament, which he shouldn‘t, but as I was told, his grandparents wanted to see the tournament where their granddaughter Gretchen was participating. So Jacob said hi to me real quick.

At my table in the hallway, at that moment, were quite a lot of other debate kids gathered, talking about ….whatever. One of them was Micah, a junior and my debate captain. He is not only what in America we call a snowflake, he‘s also a socialist. So after Jacob left, Micah lectured me for about an hour how it‘s inexcusable to date a republican and how disguested he is when seeing Jacob and me together. Some of his homies actually agreed with him and added that republicans would be racist, intolerant homophobes that hate minorities. That made me so mad! As far as I can tell, are all the republican people I met here a lot nicer than lefties. For instance, all of my favorite teachers are republicans and I just love them for standing up for their country and not taking shit from anybody. Also, so far, republicans have turned out to acutally be MORE tolerant. Jacob had never said anything bad about people that have different political views, while it seems to be Micah‘s hobby to bash everyone that doesn‘t agree with him. I didn‘t say anything though, since I really didn‘t wanna get into an argument. I just played it down a little and thought Micah would forget about that and move on. But that day wasn‘t the only moment that he brought that topic up. Actually today in school, my cx partner (now ex-cx-partner) said „Your boyfriend is a homophobe, isn‘t he“. Again, that is not only completely wrong, but also so rude to say……. Seriously, I‘m telling you…… Republicans are nicer!

Anyway, after that we started cleaning up already. There were still rounds going on, but the rooms that weren‘t used could already be cleaned and locked. So we cleaned up and by the time we were done, it was already 11pm. After we left the school, we still went to Whataburger together for team dinner. Adriana (my host mom‘s ¨sister¨) picked me and her son Nathan up from school and drove us to Whataburger. On the way there, we talked about the tournament and I said that I was thinking about switching out of CX and do another type of debate instead. I told them that the biggest reason for that was Micah and to my surprise, Nathan said he completely understood my decision and the reason why he doesn‘t do CX is because of Micah. He added that if I did LD (Lincoln Douglas Debate), Micah would not be my captain anymore and certainly would not be my boss anymore either.

So the next Monday, I told the coach that I wanted to change to LD and not do CX anymore. I‘m so glad I made that decision, I have the best captain now: Deborah <3

On Saturday I had to get up at 5 and be at school at 6 already. It was a 2 hour drive to Lindale High School where the debate tournament took place. It was the second time I went to a tournament, but like the last time, I didn‘t compete. I watched some rounds of CX, but mostly I watched speech events. My friend Michelle did a lot of those events and SHE‘S GOOD <3

Also, some other kids that are new to debate competed for the first time and I went to watch some of their rounds for support. After that I walked back to the cafeteria to get some food. On my way there, two debate guys from another school randomly came up to me and asked of I wanted to watch some of their LD rounds. I ended up not actually watching their rounds but I talked to them for like a half hour and they seemed really interested in my country haha…. I think they don‘t talk to girls that often 😂. I got that impression from a lot of debate guys. They are actually quite regular dudes, some even fairly good looking, but just the fact that they‘re in debate kills their confidence…

So after watching some speech events, I went to the cx rounds. Those really scared me. Not only was it varsity debate, but they also ran a K-Aff, which means the affirmative side chooses a topic that they prepared. It‘s not normal though that somebody runs a K-Aff.

Anyway, the tournament was a success and we had a lot of fun. After arriving at the school, we went to our team dinner at Whataburger. It was really cool and I like the debate kids a lot!

So next week we have the debate tournament in my high school. We have to help our there but my partner Sumehra and I will compete for the first time. I‘m so nervous…..

This Friday was a very …….interesting…… day. I went to school like always in the morning, but during first period we heard an unusual announcement. It wasn‘t our pricipal, and that man that had the mic seemed quite stressed.

„Attention students, our school is on lockdown! Please lock the door, turn off the lights, be quiet and stay away from the windows!“

So our teacher rushed to the door, locked it, turned off the light and told us to huddle under the teacher‘s desk. We all just sat there on the floor, listening if there were any noises in the hallway. Luckily I had grabbed my phone during the announcement, so I could text my friends and my host parents. We all expected it to be a drill, but after like 30 minutes everybody knew it wasn‘t. Everybody was as quiet as a mouse and secretly we expected to hear shots at some point…….

I texted my boyfriend and some other friends to ask if they know what was happening. They all said something slightly different things, but it was clear that it wasn‘t a drill and something was seriously wrong. I heard that the police was running around the whole school, and that kinda made everyone worry. I was quite scared but thank god everybody around me was rather calm.

After an hour, someone opened the door of our classroom from the outside and turned on the light. It turned out it was a cop, and he was telling us to stay exactly where we are. After another 20 minutes, there was an annoucement that the lock down was over and we should go back to normal class. But only after 5 seconds, there was the next announcement that said we should immediately go back to the lock down mode and that it wasn‘t over yet. At this point we still didn‘t know what was going on, but then our principal posted on Twitter that there was a man in the cafeteria that wasn‘t supposed to be there and that he was possibly armed. My host parents also texted me and asked what was going on. I was the only one they could reach since their children didn‘t have their phone on them.

We were in the lock down mode for about 1.4 hours, until we actually got the announcement that they had caught the target and we could go to our next period. So like the annoucement suggested, I went to my second period, which was over 5 minutes after arriving in the classroom.

In third period, Karen, the woman that‘s responsible for the exchange students, gathered us and asked how we were feeling about the lockdown. We all said it was scary but we were okay. For the rest of the lesson we had a sub and then in debate we mostly talked about the lockdown and what might have happened to start it. The school doesn‘t really tell us what happened, so obviously rumours spread. A lot of students had called their parents and got picked up from school for the day. My host dad also texted that he was outside the school and if me and my host siblings would like to leave, we could. But we all decided to stay in school to not miss any classes.

In English class, our teacher Mrs Anderson (my favorite) wanted us to talk about Trump‘s proposal to arm teachers. She herself is really conservative and pro gun. She asked us whether we would have felt safer if she‘d had a gun. About three quarters said yes and she also said that she would want to have a gun in case of a school shooting so she could protect the students. This kinda changes my views on that issue. In Europe all I‘ve heard was how ridiculous Trump is suggesting to give guns to teachers. But I can tell you that I personally would have felt safer in that situation to know that the teacher had a gun, and the other students seemed to agree.

When I got home, my host parents told me what the police had told them outside of the school. Apparently, a former student of this school went to see his girlfriend who‘s still in going to Wylie High and they got into an argument in the cafeteria. He then threatened her and then mentioned that he‘s carrying a gun and would shoot her. Some other kids in the cafeteria overheard the conversation and informed the school administration. The school was then immediately locked down because this guy had pulled a knife on people before. He was later found at his home and arrested.

After school we had a pep rally because of the football game that evening. I didn‘t go though, instead I went across the street to get a starbucks drink with my boyfriend‘s sister Gretchen that I know from debate.

The football game was great! We finally won, although it was quite close. After the game I went out with Jacob and after midnight I finally went to bed because there would be a debate tournament the next day.

Today we didn‘t have normal school. There was an event going on called Wylie Way Day, which should teach us respect and responsibility. Basically, we should be aware that we are representing the brand (AHMO) of our school. In the morning I was quite excited for the day and also the decoration I say was awesome…..

While the decoration was beautiful, I grew to hate the Wylie Way Day already. It was so boring, all the teachers were just telling us how to be a better human being. In two of my classes, we even had the exact same thing. After the first lesson I thought I wanna go home already. I was thinking about skipping, while Jacob acutally did it without me. So I had to endure the whole day teachers saying how we should be better people. As much as I heard, there‘s a Wylie Way Day every 9 weeks. I already know which classes I‘m gonna skip this year.

When the day was almost over, two minutes before the bell rang, there was the firealarm going off. Apparently, some idiot pulled the fire alarm. The whole day is also worse, because I caught a really bad cold.

Anyway, yesterday I finally got my locker. I was so excited, although it‘s really hard to open it. Today I cleaned it a little and then put decorations into it.

The last days were really stressful, so I didn‘t have much time to write my blog. But long story short; there was a football game on Friday. It was at another high school, we played the Hawks and lost 41:44. That was a shame, because everyone was so sure that we‘d win, since the last few years the pirates always beat the hawks. Here are some impressions:

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I came home at about 1:30 am, so I went to bed immediately, not because I was so tired, but because I would have to get up the next morning at 5:30 am.

My first debate tournament started Saturday at 8:00 at Princeton High School. It‘s a one hour drive, so we left Wylie High School at 6:30 in the morning. I didn‘t compete at that tournament, but it was really nice to watch my friends and get an idea on how such an event works.

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At tournaments there are different categories you can sign up for. The one that I will do is cx debate, which this year talks about gun sales. The contestants (group of two) have to cover either the affirmative or the negative and then try to convince the judge to vote for their side. The rounds take place in classrooms and there is one person judging. A round works like the following:

1. 1AC: The group arguing for the aff presents their case and advantage (8 min)
2. Cross ex: opponents can ask them questions and try to trap them (3 minutes)
3. 1NC:The group arguing for the neg presents case and disadvantage (8 min)
4. Cross ex (3 minutes)
5. 2AC: aff group reacts to the neg and extends own arguments (8 minutes)
6. Cross ex (3 minutes)
7. 2NC: neg group reacts to the aff and extends own arguments (8 minutes)
8. Cross ex (3 minutes)
9. 1NR: Rebuttle, neg points out opponent‘s mistakes and tells the judge why to vote for neg (5 minutes)
10. 1AR: Rebuttle, aff points out opponent‘s mistakes and tells the judge why to vote for aff (5 minutes)
11. 2NR: second negative rebuttle (5 minutes)
12. 2AR: second affirmative rebuttle (5 minutes)

Because there are time restrictions and everyone wants to present as many arguments as possible, cx-ers talk extremily fast. If you look up „cx policy debate“, you‘ll probably find some examples of how fast they speak. For everyone that‘s not used to it, it‘s almost impossible to follow all of the arguments. And that‘s what kinda scared me. But in this round, my only job was to flow what they said, which means take notes. It was just training for me, since while debating you also have to flow what your opponent argues, so you know what to respond to.

The round went about 1:40 minutes. Afterwards I went to see another type of debate, called LD. It‘s also a kind of debate, but it‘s more about morals than facts and politics. In addition you debate alone and the speed (called spreading) is not as much of an issue than in cx. I watched two rounds of LD, because my friend Justin was debating. The topic was whether colleges ought not to consider standardized testing, such as the SAT or AP tests that the US currently uses. LD was easier to watch and flow, since they didn‘t speak fast at all. I‘m now already considering to change to LD, but I‘ll try cx first…

Afterwards I went to watch my friend Michelle perform her dramatic interp. She doesn‘t debate, but the subject debate, as well as the tournaments also provide speech events. In DI (dramatic interpretation), each perticipant performs/acts a dramatic written piece. Michelle‘s piece was about a mother that lost her daughter Andrea due to a car accident. She put herself in the role of the mother, telling the audience the heartbreaking story about the accident and how she as a mother copes with it. She acted it so well, almost all of the people were sobbing, including me. No wonder Michelle made it to the finals!

For lunch I ate a hotdog and then the results were posted. None of the students of WHS made it to the next round; except Michelle. Following, everybody went to Michelle‘s performance to cheer her on, since she was the only remaining team member. One of the girls that were also in the finals even came into the room with a bin. since she was sick and vomited before, she just wanted to warn everybody. She mastered her performance, but afterwards ran out to empty her stomach again. It was kind of gross, but she did well for being ill…….

The finals took place at about 4:30 pm and after Michelle was done, we all went back on the bus and drove to Wylie High School. Afterwards we all went to Chick fil a and had a team dinner together. It was really cool, I met some new people that are on the debate team but not in the same class as me. This group dynamics is something I had never witnessed before. It‘s full of spirit and support, and the debate team is a second family for a lot of the students.

Today, I went to a chocolate event in downtown Dallas with my host family. Some of the chocolate was really good, but there was also bad chocolate. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and after leaving the event, we walked to a nearby park, that apparently is located over a highway.

At about 5:15 pm, my boyfriend picked me up at home we went to church together. His family is really religious and they asked me if I wanted to see their church sometime, so I of course said yes. The church wasn‘t like a typical catholic church in Europe, it looked more like a reformed church would look like from the inside. The mass wasn‘t any different though, and let‘s be honest, I just went for the one sip of wine 😉

After church, me and Jacob went to Firehouse subs to get sandwiches and then we went to a park, before he dropped me off at my house.

Yesterday was my first football at Wylie High School. As a student you could start feeling the spirit and support for the team during the last period of the day. After half of the lesson, we could hear drums playing in the hallway, wandering through the school. So all of the students got out of the classroom and followed the drums. The students playing it were a part of the marching band, that lead us to the gym, where the pep rally took place. The pep rally is just an event where all students gather to get into the spirit and cheer for their football game.

In the gym they had stands put up on both sides, devided in 4 sections for the students to sit (everybody is standing though); one section each for the freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors. Since I was coming from stats class where all the other students are seniors, I just went to the senior section with them. In the middle of the gym, there were cheerleaders dancing to the music of the band. The pacesetters were also performing one of their dances and the band played about ten songs. Then they greeted the football players and cheered for them a while. They even had t-shirt canons!

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After the pep rally, I went home with the school bus and me and my host family headed to the game at about 6pm. The problem I was facing, was that almost all of my friends were in band or color guard, which means they can‘t sit in the stadium with me and watch the game. But I still knew one guy from debate that wanted to watch the game with me. I agreed, although it‘s kinda uncomfortable because I he‘s told me that he had a crush on me. But I was desperate, so I went with him. Fortunately I met the German exchange student Konstantin at the stadium when entering with my host family. So I let him sit between me and that guy haha….

In the beginning there was the marching band that was showing the first two movements of the show. They also played the theme of pirates of the caribbean, since the school mascot is the pirate. Then the pacesetter came on the field with their sparkling outfits and performed a dance. After that, everthing got prepared for the football team to get on the field. There was like a blow up tent that looked like a pirate and the footballers ran out of the head of the pirate running along the path between the band and the pacesetters. The cheerleaders were cheering at the side of the field. But much to my surprise, the cheerleaders aren‘t really a big thing here. The center of the whole event are the football team and the band.

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The team that the pirates were going to play against, were the lions. It‘s a private school that doesn‘t have many students. We clearly saw that when looking at the size of their band. They had about 20 kids in band, while Wylie has about 300. But their football team was huge nonetheless.

So after both of the football teams got on the field and the band played a couple more songs, the footballers lined up and everybody was standing to hear the national anthem of the United States.

Then the game finally began and the clocks were ticking! I didn‘t understand any of the rules of American football, but I loved the energy in the stadium. Everbody was cheering so loudly after the touchdown for my school. But unfortunaltely the other football team was just better. They had 14 points already at half time, while my school had only 6 points. Actually, one of the pirates scored a touch down, but the referee won‘t count for whatever reason….. The crowd was furious, and the positive energy dropped. Nevertheless, I liked the football game a lot because it‘s something….so American. Unfortunately, the pirates lost this game 🙁

After the game I went to „Whataburger“ with my new boyfriend that I‘ve been dating since Monday.

Today after getting up at about 10am, my host family and I went to get breakfast at a bagel place. I got a bagle with eggs and bacon, which was delightful!

At 2pm we had to be in Dallas in a church for an EF information meeting. Nobody wanted to go and we already talked about faking an illness to get out of this. But we went anyway in the end. The cake we saw after entering the church made it a little better though. When we got there, I had to sign in and get a name tag. Since I remembered my debate captain telling me that my name would be more exotic if spellt with C instead of S and that people would totally believe it, I decided spell my name with C for the day XD. Nobody asked any questions and just called me „Carah“ haha…..

The meeting was exactly like the 1000 others before. They litterally used the same PP presentation again! It was really boring, nothing new and when they wanted every exchange student to come to the front and introduce themself, my boredom was on its highest level. While we did this, I realized that I was the only Swiss there…….as always.

When this was finally over after more than an hour, I thought to myself: „This cake will better be good“. But unfortunately the cake was awful! Nobody liked it, so we left right away and went to Dallas down town to an Austrian restaurant. There was Austrian music and decoration and the waiters were all Austrians, which meant that I could finally order in German! I had a beef-sauerkraut sandwich and Scheiterhaufen for dessert. It was amazing.

After returning home, my host brother had one of his friends, Jessica, over to watch some series. So we all sat on the couch and watched Avatar. A few episodes later I got up and went for a walk with the dog. My host mom accompanied me. We walked around the block once, so I wouldn‘t really say that I got any exercise today XD. Back home, we started a puzzle that Ximena and Luis had given my host mom for Christmas last year. The pricture of the puzzle was my host parent‘s wedding photo. Since it had a 1000 pieces, we didn‘t finish it and went to bed instead.