A Veerrryyyy long day

I sort of got to sleep in yesterday.  I didn't have to be in Hereford until 10:00 a.m.  I made it there right on time.  We got to our UIL district tournament around 11:15.  I had to check prose documentation.  (Proof that their story is published and meets category requirements)  We had a fairly successful day, but I also think some of my kids got (pardon the term) screwed.  My best debater lost her first two rounds.  She really shouldn't have lost the first one but when you have a judge that doesn't have a clue, sometimes it happens.  Perhaps it's luck of the draw, but she didn't even break.  One of my other debaters didn't break missing the cut by two speaker points.  My other debater, thankfully, ended up placing first.  My strongest poetry student ended up in 4th place (the alternate place) because of a squirrelly judge.  (A judge that is a squirrel ranks contestants almost completely opposite of other judges)  She was ranked 2nd, 3rd, and 7th in her round.  One of my other students actually beat her and placed 3rd... which makes me happy, but I'm still disappointed for the other.  In Prose, we took 2nd, 3rd and 6th place.  I thought the 6th place person would have done a little better, but she's a freshman so she's got time.  Now on to the exciting news.  My team completely swept both Informative and Persuausive extemp.  We took 1st-3rd place in both events.   (Keep in mind in this competition I can only enter 3 students in each event)  Now these students are going on to Regional competition in two weeks.  After that, hopefully some of them will make it to state competition. 

We had very interesting weather yesterday.  We drove through a brief hail storm on the way to the tournament.  Around 9:00 p.m. we were told that students needed to stay in one building or the other because of potential several weather coming.  Tornadoes had touched in New Mexico and the storm was inching it's way towards us.  Luckily it weakened to some degree and we weren't in danger of tornadoes, but I had to drive back to Hereford in a torrential rain storm with blinding lightning flashes at 12:30 in the morning.  I dropped the students off, then had to take the car back to bus barn and get my car.  That meant I had to get out in the rain and open the gate, pull the car in, switch cars, then close the gate.  I was a bit wet after all of that.  I didn't get home until 2:00 a.m. after driving back through the thunderstorm.  When I got back to town, the streets were quite flooded.  Luckily, I made it home safely and was in bed by 2:30.  Of course I slept in this morning. 

I haven't decided if I'm going to work on the garage today.  I think I may work on the spare bedroom instead.   I may have to go ahead and give my students a party for their successes at the tournament.  Well... I think I'll go have some breakfast lunch.