Nov. 26: Oral interpretation
In junior high school, I was a member of the debate and speech club.
This made me an even bigger nerd than I already was. The school did not
have a drama club so I had to content myself with debate and speech.
There were two or three speech competitions every year. Participants could choose from four categories:
- Original composition
- Solo acting
- Improvisation
- Oral Interpretation
Original composition was when you wrote a speech and then delivered it. Solo acting was when you recited a monologue (like Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech.) Improvisation was when the judge gave you a topic and you had about 15 minutes to write something and then deliver it. Oral interpretation was when you read a story that someone else had written.
I always got stuck with oral interpretation because the club moderator, who also happened to be my English teacher, told me I was good at reading out loud. This was true. It also made be a bigger nerd. (The cool kids would never join the debate and speech club.)
There were only a few of us in the club. My friend, Grant, was in improvisation. Once his topic was "my favourite fictional character" and he spoke about Sherlock Holmes. One thing I learned from his speech is that Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson." Sometimes he said "Elementary" and sometimes he referred to his sidekick as "my dear Watson" but he never used those expressions together. I have retained this knowledge for more than 25 years and so far, it has proven absolutely useless to me.
But let us speak of oral interpretation.
When I was in junior high, I went through this Greek mythology phase and I decided that I wanted to recount my passion in the speaking contest. I would get up and speak stirringly about Perseus's fight with Medusa or Theseus slaying the minotaur, only to get trounced by 14-year-olds reading old Erma Bombeck columns. The coach said this was because the judges, mostly fathers and mothers, could relate to trying to get their teenager to mow the lawn. They couldn't relate to a snake-haired woman who could turn a human being to stone just by looking at them.
There was a black girl in the class named Tonja and she had memorized Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech and she recited it one year at the speech competition and blew everyone away. She qualified for the provincials but she was unable to go for some reason. I think I went that year. My dad had to drive me up to Edmonton. I delivered my speech and I failed to win a medal and then my brother got sick and we had to go home early and I felt like I had wasted the weekend for everyone.
Jason and I were in the debate club and we qualified for the provincials one year and our mothers drove us up to Athabasca so we could spar with our fellow 15-year-olds about the merits of mandatory organ donation. We got our own hotel room and somehow, through a process completely unknown to me, we found ourselves in the hotel room of three teenaged girl debaters from Red Deer. We stayed up and we talked all night and Jason seemed to think we might get laid but I knew that we wouldn't and I think when we were asked to return to our hotel room later that night, Jason was mad at me because I thought I had sabotaged his plans to get nasty.
There were two or three speech competitions every year. Participants could choose from four categories:
- Original composition
- Solo acting
- Improvisation
- Oral Interpretation
Original composition was when you wrote a speech and then delivered it. Solo acting was when you recited a monologue (like Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech.) Improvisation was when the judge gave you a topic and you had about 15 minutes to write something and then deliver it. Oral interpretation was when you read a story that someone else had written.
I always got stuck with oral interpretation because the club moderator, who also happened to be my English teacher, told me I was good at reading out loud. This was true. It also made be a bigger nerd. (The cool kids would never join the debate and speech club.)
There were only a few of us in the club. My friend, Grant, was in improvisation. Once his topic was "my favourite fictional character" and he spoke about Sherlock Holmes. One thing I learned from his speech is that Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson." Sometimes he said "Elementary" and sometimes he referred to his sidekick as "my dear Watson" but he never used those expressions together. I have retained this knowledge for more than 25 years and so far, it has proven absolutely useless to me.
But let us speak of oral interpretation.
When I was in junior high, I went through this Greek mythology phase and I decided that I wanted to recount my passion in the speaking contest. I would get up and speak stirringly about Perseus's fight with Medusa or Theseus slaying the minotaur, only to get trounced by 14-year-olds reading old Erma Bombeck columns. The coach said this was because the judges, mostly fathers and mothers, could relate to trying to get their teenager to mow the lawn. They couldn't relate to a snake-haired woman who could turn a human being to stone just by looking at them.
There was a black girl in the class named Tonja and she had memorized Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech and she recited it one year at the speech competition and blew everyone away. She qualified for the provincials but she was unable to go for some reason. I think I went that year. My dad had to drive me up to Edmonton. I delivered my speech and I failed to win a medal and then my brother got sick and we had to go home early and I felt like I had wasted the weekend for everyone.
Jason and I were in the debate club and we qualified for the provincials one year and our mothers drove us up to Athabasca so we could spar with our fellow 15-year-olds about the merits of mandatory organ donation. We got our own hotel room and somehow, through a process completely unknown to me, we found ourselves in the hotel room of three teenaged girl debaters from Red Deer. We stayed up and we talked all night and Jason seemed to think we might get laid but I knew that we wouldn't and I think when we were asked to return to our hotel room later that night, Jason was mad at me because I thought I had sabotaged his plans to get nasty.
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