Tuesday, April 3, 2012

True Life: I Get to Visit My Alma Mater for Work

About this time two weeks ago, I received a phone call in the middle of fourth period.

"Tiffany, I'm sorry to bother you during class but I wanted to see if you were interested in doing the school a favor," said the voice on the other end of the phone, that belonged to the athletic director/director of student activities. 

(FYI, I am not retelling this story verbatim.)

"The Forensics Coach is unable to attend the State Forensics Competition due to a family emergency and we need someone to go in her place. It'd be a Friday/Saturday trip."

At this point, I am thinking, "Why is work trying to cramp my weekend as well as my week?"


Then the magic words.


"I know you don't know anything about Forensics but the competition is up at JMU. It's being held at Harrisonburg High School."


My love of the gold and purple is well-known in my workplace. My answer: "Yeah I'm interested. Let's sit down and talk about the specifics after school."


That's how I ended driving to Harrisonburg on Friday (the 23rd) afternoon to act as the Forensics coach for the DHS Forensics Team. As acting Forensics coach, I was in charge of our three young ladies who made it to States. Except all of their parents were going, so I really wasn't in charge of them. 


I met them on Friday night at the hotel. Yes, the hotel. It was weird staying at a hotel because Harrisonburg feels so much like home to me. However, the hotel was super nice.




 After we went to the JMU Opera, I attempted to sleep in my amazing hotel room; but I just couldn't. I was nervous that I would oversleep for the competition that was slated for early Saturday morning. 


Saturday was an eventful and long, long day. We were at Harrisonburg High School for 12 hours! 


For those of you who are unfamiliar with Forensics, it's a competition made up of 10 individual events and 2 duo events. Each student on a team competes in one category. The young ladies I accompanied were participating in Humorous Dramatic Interpretation, Serious Dramatic Interpretation, and Storytelling.


Luckily, I got to see each of the ladies perform and I am glad I did. These girls had performed their pieces with such poise and precision. I was truly amazed by all of them. One of our students made it into the finals and took home second place in her category. (She also found out two days later that she had been accepted into James Madison University.)


When I was finally released from my duties as Forensics coach. I had less than 24 hours left of my weekend. What were my first priorities? 


Food and sleep! 
Jeremy cooked me dinner and let me crash on his couch.


The rest of the weekend, I spent shopping at the mall, the bookstore, and the outpost with Jessica and Jeremy. I visited with Beau and Josh for 15 minutes. Then I headed east and southwards back to Dinwiddie making a stop at the Green Valley Book Fair on my way home!


All in all, it was a busy, eventful weekend and I was glad I had the opportunity to attend.

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