As I mentioned in my previous entry, Allyson has taken her role as co-captain of the Academic Decathlon team very seriously, especially in recent weeks as they were preparing for their regional meet. Over Christmas break, I was shocked when she woke up early one morning to meet her teammates at a coffee shop for a study session which she had organized. And I was even more impressed when she came home and said she'd really enjoyed it.
Last Monday (January 23), she went to her room with an energy drink after an early supper to study and finish planning her speech.
"Will it be a late night?" I asked. "I'm afraid you won't be able to sleep if you drink that."
She nodded. "I need it to stay awake. I'll probably be up until 2 or 3."
The next morning after she'd left for school, I came across the note cards for her speech on the bathroom counter. The top card captured my attention with a riveting introduction. I knew she planned to share the speech with me when she was finished, but I couldn't resist reading the whole thing right then. I smiled as I flipped through the cards because it took me back to speech class in college, when I'd written my notes on index cards just like these; I'd figured that no one wrote notes in ink anymore due to all the electronic options these days. (The notes, it turns out, were only for practicing. At the actual competition, she would have to give her speech from memory.)
I noted with satisfaction the smooth transitions, the appeals to emotion and logic, and the statistics she used to back her claim that hateful rhetoric in the media incites physical violence. I noted one section where the transition felt a little abrupt but decided not to mention it unless she asked for my advice.
That same evening, Allyson asked me to brew her a pot of coffee after dinner for another late night. As I twisted the hand grinder that I use each Saturday to prepare my one cup of coffee each week, I marveled that my little girl was old enough to drink coffee--even though she's actually been drinking it for several years. It felt different, somehow, like when my parents used to drink coffee from a Thermos to stay awake all night on cross-country trips.
About four hours later, when I was getting ready for bed, Allyson came into my room for a few minutes for our usual bedtime prayer. When I asked if she had any requests, she asked that God would help her perform well at the upcoming Academic Decathlon competition scheduled for the coming Friday and Saturday (January 27-28).
"You left the notes for your speech in the bathroom today," I said. "I hope you don't mind that I read them. I think your speech is really strong. I especially like the intro. It really grabbed my attention."
She frowned. "I don't like my speech at all. I'm going to work on it tonight."
"Are you just tweaking it, or revamping it completely?" I contemplated offering advice about the transition, but her answer made it irrelevant.
"Revamping it."
Next, she told me about the sleepover she'd planned for the team on Friday night. Other teams who'd traveled to compete would be staying in a hotel and using every moment together to study, and Allyson wanted her team to have the same advantage. "The whole team--well, the nine people who are competing--will be spending the night at my dad's."
"Won't you need to go to bed early?"
"We have to cram for Saturday," she said.
She said it was the first sleepover some of the girls had ever been to, and she was nervous about making it an experience that everyone would enjoy. I was touched that she was not only concerned with the studying, but also with making everyone feel comfortable.
So we prayed that the study session would be productive and fun for everyone, and then I asked God to help Allyson as she reworked her speech that evening, and that He would help her deliver the speech in a way that would impact everyone who heard it.
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| Quizzing Each Other with Flashcards The Sleepover Was A Success Both Academically and Socially |
