DECA DECA DECA (+Intellectual Withdrawal Syndrome)

So I'm really happy to say that I've expanded my repertoire in public speaking clubs by joining the Marketing Communications DECA category at my school which has this really really great program with a bunch of people making it to ICDC last year in California. My DECA partner is Amy and she's just AMAZING - kinda shy socially yes (rather like me) but still extremely nice with a great sense of humor and a really witty intellect.

I'm still soaring on the euphoria of my very first orals presentation - a practice done in front of Alex, one of my Marketing Communications trainers. Ah.. my first DECA Orals Presentation... how do I describe the happiness that comes from being able to speak assertively and professionally, the delicious act of catharsis in the form of intellectual business strategy and the intricate game of drama that encompasses the amazing 10 minutes in which I finally let loose after months of being intellectually mute?

Nothing compares to the blissful feeling of adrenaline coursing through veins as your mind races to think up strategies and churns up every case study you've ever read in order to build up one's case in a presentation. Nothing compares to the feeling when you can speak assertively and professionally - when you get to ditch your little girl's voice you use in every day life that hides your fierceness inside and that acts as a lambskin over the wolf to make sure people (mostly other girls) don't get intimidated by your strong will and that the image of the perfect girl who is sweet, smart, pretty, and overall NICE is not shattered. Nothing.

I honestly felt like Mulan the moment when she wiped off her makeup in her ancestral shrine and sang "Reflection"... because it is when I'm debating, DECA-ing, MUN-ing, making speeches, acting as attorney in Mock Trials, practising alone in my basement with a video camera making speeches that I feel truly free.

For the entire summer, ever since Debate and MUN season ended in June up until now in early October, I had been 'intellectually mute'. I've absorbed vast quantities of material, obsessively consumed BBC News, Maclean's, TIME, world issues, textbooks, case studies and second hand law textbooks bought at Value Mart and more but had never really gotten a chance to express and let out all that knowledge. My family is fairly conservative in their views and very religious so any dissent that goes against religion isn't really allowed to be aired. Furthermore, I've never been allowed to talk back to my parents regardless of if it was a personal matter or a discussion on world affairs (unless I agree with the viewpoint they are stating) so I've always kept my views and analysis on certain issues to myself. Taiwan was even worse - I wasn't on best terms with the 12 other youths who went volunteer teaching with me (8 of the 12 were girls and I usually got along better with guys in a platonic manner due to my rather direct and assertive manner of speaking, plus everyone there was chosen due to their leadership ability in athletics, an area that I was sadly lacking in - but which I made up for in my leadership positions in MUN, Debate, etc. - and none of them really understood me and my dorm desk filled with books on economics, world issues, social and cultural identities of China and other various nerdy pursuits - my goodness, I felt that I was back in those cheesy 1980s films in which the jocks ruled the world and the nerds got trampled underfoot).
Basically to avoid me having to fish up bad memories of silent treatments and homesickness, I'll just say that I felt as censored there as pro-democratic dissidents feel in mainland China.

Long story short, I didn't utter a peep the entire summer, although debating with HL was my only sanctuary from slowly going insane.

When the school year started, it didn't get much better - I was consumed with judging the new debaters as a Debate Trainer, and now as the President of Model UN, my days with MUN consist of training new delegates (of which we have an astonishingly large number this year due to a very dedicated marketing manager). I haven't gotten a chance to properly debate in 3 months or do a proper speech other than class presentations since the orals in DECA. I can't really describe the feel of, when judging new debaters who didn't model or roadmap, who finished their speeches in 2 minutes while debating this delicious resolution that I almost literally salivated over, of wanting to run up there to the podium, push the newbies aside and launch into a passionate and intense 7 minute speech. Ugh, I feel like a druggie with withdrawal symptoms - except debate, MUN, DECA and Mock Trials happens to be my drug.

So understandably, in the first chance in forever that i get to warm up my long hibernating public speaking skills, I get high off the adrenaline rush.

During my orals presentation, the feeling that encompassed me was so blissful - the intensity of it and the quick thinking that was required freed my mind, the drama required for me to role play a marketing executive was thrilling and I thoroughly enjoyed milking the role for all it was worth, injecting humor and professionality into it.

My partner Amy also did brilliantly and she was calm, composed, utterly professional and sharp throughout.. I felt the sense of synchronicity that I thought I only felt with HL in debate. Omg at that moment I was applauding this partnering arrangement so much.

After the presentation, our trainer Alex gave us feedback and asked if it was our first presentation done together in a rather incredulous voice. After answering yes, he proceeded to tell us that was one of the better first presentations that he had ever seen. I know this probably sounds small to DECA veterans that a newbie like me is positively gushing over her first presentation but honestly... this feeling of freedom after so long, the thrill of doing something well... it's addictive.
So please bear with me as i gush XD

Anyways so Regionals is coming up on Oct 26th and I'm planning on prepping as much as possible over the long weekend.... got to run now!

Happy thanksgiving!!!