Transatlanticism

08/08/08 -
The best day ever.
It feels wonderfully gratifying to win. (Screw you Pierre Coubertin. You meant well when you equated participation and losing, but you also lied, so screw you!).
It is about the best feeling in the world to stand up triumphant in front of your personal demons. (Balls to YOU.)
It is the best feeling in the world to have a non-hostile audience cheer your win. (It's true. The claps are much more sincere.)
It is the best feeling to see your debate advisors grin like six-year-olds with chocolate-covered teeth, to hear that your principal did a little jig in her office, and to have the whole class whoop for you when you enter, grinning from ear to ear. (Also true. Although I don't want to picture the jig.)
It is also pretty awesome to be told you were brilliant by people you have never seen before, and people you will never seen again. (I'm a junkie for attention. I know, so do you.)
But it is even more awesome when people you've lost to have now lost to you. (I'm also a junkie who loves to gloat.)
The prospect of missing an exam is also rather lovely. (Hoo-ha!)
And Winners' Certificates are still shinier than regular participation certificates, even though they're actually the same damn thing. (Seriously.)

P.S. - I love you Frank Anthony. <3