(no subject)

[sakon76]

Survived the Japanese speech contest. Won no prizes, but I didn't trip over myself too badly or hyperventilate, mostly because I tried to ignore the fact that I had an audience. Rather than pulling on a character, though, I pulled on a scene... the moment in LK14 I wrote last night where Akayuki first uses the tessen. Not only is the weapon cool (and she's a geisha, so fan dances are second nature to her) but the scene's pacing *feels* right, like a hard stitch locking down. Got compliments from Fujii-sensei (who I *wish* I'd had a chance to have more classes with), Lee-sensei (my teacher this term) and Fowler-sensei. The last stunned me. Academically, he doesn't like me. But he caught me as I was leaving and told me that my essay was one of the best organized and most convincing, and that it was just my (lack of) presentation that cost me.

Hell has frozen over and the demons are ice-skating now.

Anyway, my speech was on my feelings about war. It was an assigned topic and not really my area of expertise, politics being something that other people do. Third year were lucky--they got to speak about whatever they wanted.