I honestly don't know what on earth I was thinking when a couple months ago my mom was signing me up for the first debate tournament, and I said to her, "Why don't you sign me up for extemporaneous... that sounds like fun."
Mhm. Well here I am, 3 and a half months later, and I'm still alive. I seem to have survived that experience. Let's just say that extemp is like NOTHING else that I have ever attempted. For interp speeches, you need to know how to act out a piece believably. Platforms, you need to know how to present information. Apologetics, you need to know the Bible. Impromptu... you just need to have a lot of stories in your head that apply to a lot of topics. And then there's Extemp. Where you actually have to know something (or in my case, you have a vague idea about what you're supposed to speak on, and then try to make it sound intelligent).
I remember back in January... it was a few days before our first tournament. And I was starting to get pretty freaked out about the fact that I was signed up to do extemp. I was definitely having second thoughts. I sent a rather panicked email to a good friend. I told her about how I wasn't ready to do this, and how I was stressed about the fact that I might get 3 topics of which I knew nothing. This friend sent me back an encouraging email. She told me that I was brave to try extemp. She reminded me that even if I drew 3 topics that I knew nothing about, it shouldn't matter... because while it may seem like a big deal at that time, it's only 30 minutes of prep time and 7 minutes of speaking time. Only 37 minutes. Even if those 37 minutes were the worst minutes of my life, in the big span of life, that is absolutely nothing.
Of course, my biggest fear entering extemp was... failing. I have a fear of failure... I don't want to do badly at ANYTHING. This encouraging friend helped me move past that. She said to me, "Anne, if something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly. If you are willing to try, even though you are afraid of failure, it shows the strength you have."
So I did extemp. And believe me, it pushed me WAY out of my comfort zone. Before that first tournament, I had always had a general idea of what I was going to say before walking into any event. But this time, I didn't. 5 minutes before walking into my very first extemp round, I was sitting outside the round. Just sitting there. I didn't know what I was supposed to do or think. So I just prayed... and I gave that round to God. I asked Him to give me the topics that I needed the most. I asked that He would give me the words to say. And then I walked into that room and drew my topics. And I gave my first extemp speech. It wasn't perfect, but I felt a sense of accomplishment because I had conquered my first extemp round.
Thankfully, throughout all the tournaments, I didn't draw any topics that I knew nothing about.... until the second round at the Regional debate tournament. It was International round, which isn't my favorite anyways, but the inside of me sort of died when I drew my topics and I didn't know a thing about any of them. I spent the next 30 minutes (my prep time) trying to choose one of them and think up something creative to say; when in reality, I didn't have a clue what I was going to say. When my prep time was used up, I walked into my presentation room, and found that my mom and a couple of friends were there to watch me. I then proceeded to talk for what seemed like the longest 4 minutes of my life (I had 7 minutes to speak... didn't make it quite that far, heh). It wasn't fun. At all. I was embarrassed that I didn't know what I was talking about, and annoyed that I didn't have anything at all to say about my topic.
When I look back on that round though, it doesn't seem so bad. As my friend pointed out... it was only a few minutes of my life. They may not have been the most fun minutes of my life, but they still look pretty insignificant when put in the large scope of everything.
Extemp this year... has been a good experience for me, I think. Yes, it was hard. No, it was not the most fun event. In fact, I completely hated it at some times. And despite the fact that I didn't always have the most amazing time doing it, I did come out of it learning something: I should never rely completely on my own knowledge or speaking skills -- because even that will fail me at times (as I experienced in round 2 at Regionals). I'm positive that God had a reason for me drawing each topic that I drew in each round at each tournament. God always picked the topic that was the best for me... the topic that I needed to get. And I always learned something, which is the important thing.
Next year? Well, I think I have more to learn from Extemp. I can improve myself. It's not my favorite event... but I'll be coming back.
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