4n6 (Forensics) judging

Forensics, is the art of public Speaking. Students prepare pieces for categories with specific rules. There are two different types of competitions in Forensics. Tournaments are when students are in competition with another. Festivals are "against yourself". They will perform their pieces in front of judges, in hopes to better their speaking skills, and beat the other competitors.

I wake up before God does, on some Saturday mornings and get dressed. I typically wear a black dress pant, a button up dress shirt, a sweater to stay warm, put on a belt, dress shoes, and a tie on occasions. I'm half awake and half asleep, and probably still very tired from last night's party/fun. To the kitchen, when possible, I heat up a pot of warm water to make some tea, to start a warm day. As I continue to get ready, I look at my watch and notices that I'm running a little late, and needs to hurry up to be there on time. I grab my essentials: a Stop watch, Two pencils or pens, a book to read, my keys, my coat and a bottle of water. I make sure to use the bathroom before I leave, because it sometimes it is a long trip. Out the door, I go to my car and I realize, I'm missing my glasses. Back in the house, I'm running late, and I scurry to find my glasses. I finally find them and now I can go pick up my friend to go.

As I step outside in the early morning, I notice the fresh and cold air as it touches my skin. It makes me feel cold and is like a coffee wake up rush. I walk to my car, shivering a little here and there as my body attempts to warm up.  I get in my car and starts it up. The key turns, and the car starts. Thank goodness my car is running today. I turn up the heat, and get my car to warm up as fast as it can.  As I drive, my attention is focused to my next location, picking up my friend. It's like an auto pilot at times. As I'm driving, I set my GPS to my final location on where I'll be Judging.(I know I'm not suppose to operate it while driving) After I pick up my friend, we get on my way to my final destination for the meet. It varies from location to location each time I'm chosen to judge. 

On the road, on the Highway, I go to judge these forensics meets. I catch up with my friend, about things in life. How is school going? How's the love life? Seen any old classmates? What ever topic that comes up. This helps me stay awake and focused to drive. 

As we get to our location, we find parking. We get inside the school building and I usually compare their High School with my High School. Majority of the High Schools we judge at are huge public schools, so they tend to have a lot more "equipment" in their building. 

I go to the judges lounge and see if my High School has arrived. If they have, we grab these manila folders from our head coach and see which categories we would like to judge today. Depending on which folder we pick, we are assigned a judge code. When we are ready, we receive the rounds and the codes of the students who are competing in our rounds. I also start to filling out the critique sheets. Of course, the portion that I fill out is my information such as, what my judge code is, school I am judging for, what round number, and my signature. There is a sheet for each student participating in our round. On these sheets of paper, we will write out things that are good and areas for improvement. We are also handed a map, with the outline of the school's rooms, to easily find our rooms. When I am ready and it is time, usually 9:00a.m., I head to my first round to judge. (As a side note, since we are not able to judge any students of our school code, we sometimes never judge a certain category. This depends on the number of entries into each category, from our school. This causes us to consistently be selected to judge certain categories such as, Solo serious, Demo, Extemp, Prose, 4 mins, and Duo interp. This is necessary not a bad thing)  The first rounds usually are when the students are most nervous, and they are getting their first run of the piece for the day. The next round starts at 10:15a.m., and then usually 11:00a.m.

When judging, I can usually notice when a student is prepared, and when they are not. Things I look for first, are the performance techniques. How is the pacing? Enunciations? Hand Gestures? Facial expressions? Body Language? Vocal inflections or changes? Energy? interest and interpretation of piece? Eye contact? Distinction between characters? and many more. Of course it varies from category to category, on what is emphasized. If the performance is bad, it will usually distract me from getting to know the content of interpretation.  If the performance of the piece is good, then the content is looked at next. It sometimes just comes down to if it is an interesting topic or not. At the end, I also look at the timing of the piece, and how close it is to the limit of the category. 

There are three preliminary rounds for each tournament, except state. These rounds gives the student three tries to be the top in each round. If they have received a high enough rank in each round, they proceed onto the "Power" round. These rounds can be very intense. They usually contain the best of the best from that meet. I usually like to judge these if I have a "standby" in an earlier round. In these power rounds, they deliver their speech one more time for the day. This round is done once with three judges, and does not contain any feed back. Just a ranking of who each believe deserves first, second, third, and so on. If not selected to judge a power round, once all them are posted, we get to leave. And back to Milwaukee/Home I go. 

The ride back is usually tiresome. A lot of energy is used up because of mental focus, but I drive safely back home to rest. At times, the ride back is tougher than the ride to. At the end of these trips, I'm just glad to be home, napping in bed till I have to wake up two hours later to head into work. Boy my Saturdays never quits. hahaha

Some people may ask:

Why is forensics so important to me?

It is important to me because it helps the development of  life skills. In general, it's known as public speaking. In specific, public speaking deals with speaking skills, presentations, self-esteem, courage, speaking in front of a group, performance, and public display of self. These are all things of life that we have to get used to and develop, so we can get through life. 

Forensics was the way I was able to develop my performance/people skills. It helped me break out of my shell, of how I used to be before High School. Many of you knew me then, and can probably testify to how different I am now. I did sing and perform a lot before, but it was a very sheltered me. I have opened up, and become more expressive. I have progressed to be where I am today because of my development and experience in forensics. Being in forensics for three years, really helped me understand things about life, and things that I will have never learned or experienced. So I give Forensics a HUGE HUGE thanks! Also a thanks to those who have helped me get this far. So to give back, I judge to help other students develop in their life skills. 

VaiKang

Don't forget to check out my other blog posts. Click "The VaiKang Journal" at the top to see previous post. If at the main page, scroll down to the previous post. 

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