acadeca liveblogging

[decathdiaries]

so, I recently got a couple of ask notifications on my phone and it hit me that my last post was half a year ago.. I totally didn't mean to ditch you guys! I don't have a big following at all, but I feel badly about just leaving.. I'll try to keep up with this more often, swear't! c:

[purplebuddhaproject]

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

John Muir (via purplebuddhaproject)

[decathdiaries]

cookin' up something special for y'all because we're picking the team in two days and ive been especially negligent sorry

will link it when it's available

bonus: look it's cuuuute 

[decathdiaries]

HIiiiii! I was wondering if you could show me the ways of your magnificent speech ideas. I don't know why but I'm having the hardest time thinking of a topic and it's killing me. yours are so creative andwitty pls help i want to be creative and witty...

hi decathlete! and thanks, haha. i'm sure you can be too! you just have to ~believe~

okay, all shitty peter pan references aside, there isn't exactly a process to it, but there are things to keep in mind when picking a speech topic.

don't pick anything radically controversial, because chances are one of your judges will hate you.

think of what you like. no, seriously! topics that you seriously enjoy (in my case, criminals, pep talks, human emotions, history, etc.) make for perfect material because you can go on and on and on about them. thataway, if you forget your speech because it's the heeeeeeat of the moment (i'm sorry for the references everywhere) you can always just fall back on what you'd normally say. maybe it won't be refined, but you aren't getting time penalties!

somewhat similar: rants are great. but not really. what i mean is, think about it: rants are just passionate (re:angry) speeches.what do you rant about? things you hate. but if you can give a spiel about that, you can think those points through, write them down, and rant, but use a fine tooth comb and edit the crap out of it so you don't sound whiny. or annoying.

you don't want to be basic. what do i mean? judges sit there listening to you and a million more kids give speeches: chances are they already heard 80 about how much dad loves baseball and how that's ~symbolic~ of the civil rights movement, or something. be interesting! which leads into my next point...

google weird things. i'm not telling you to look up some freaky tentacle porn or anything, but check out the super badass history of german women or the weird as hell american pig war. look at strange stats, funny world occurrences, wtf-trends. they make for interesting topics that everyone will just be captured by.

appeal to your audience. remember, you don't want to do something about grumpy cat because your judge will be like 45 and will look at you like you're an idiot.

ask around! listen! what do people talk about?

find out what you're good at talking about. me, i've got one of those natural pep-talky voices that's loud and boisterous and mega-annoying, but totally gets my point across. take action-y and tinted with comic relief. but my friend sandra, oh holy hell, she's got a voice that makes you feel like humanity is both beautiful and doomed. she's got that soft but emotionally powerful voice. my boy daniel's got a perfectly rant-y voice and a demeanor that speaks "make fun of me, i don't give a shit," so he likes to point out everything that's wrong with the world, but tends to end on a lighthearted note because he's funny as hell too. i can't do what daniel does, and sandra can't do what i do. play up your strong points. figure out what you can do.

do some impromptus. notice the trends you take when you talk: do you always talk about flowers, family, athletes? work it.

take a minute for some deep thinking. what do you think about a lot? do you find nature fascinating? do you question the methods of building the white house? take something you actually want to explore.

have a little fun. your speech says a lot about you, your interests, and your thoughts. don't do a research based one if that isn't you, but at the same time, if you just aren't a joke-y kind of person, don't force it. you want to sound as natural as possible, because that's when you're strongest.

SO I HOPE THAT HELPED. sorry for lag.

[decathdiaries]

wait, so first you guys go through packets and then take tests on them? how does your schedule usually work?

yup. we start during summer and that's primarily spent using digesting info, reading, and flashcard testing for about two months to make sure we got the shit down. It's a lot of basic memorization, but it helps and the ~interactive activity~ stuff is an added bonus that (fun fact) helps you memorize too!

aaaand during the school months, it's hell.

like, we go everyday weekday from 3-5, and sometimes 3-10 on fridays, and just test test test. I think we have acalon, demidec, USAD, and something else i can't be bothered to remember, so we have enough tests to last. tyyyypically, we have 2-5 tests a day.. but it's all in good fun! (i guess)

for the "varsity" (i mean the legit team that does subjectives too, not the junior team that only competes objective and not the c division) team, there is practice for speech, interview, and essay typically on fridays or saturdays. it's pretty rigorious tbh. :(

but it's very worthwhile.

[decathdiaries]

how many hours do you usually sleep daily?

aw, shit, sorry anon, i've had a busy junior year :sand tbh like 5. the range is like, 4-6 but yeah. it's not healthy but oh weeeell~

[decathdiaries]

sorry this is so public, bunny-bonbon, but i am clearly incapable of making anything fit in like 160 characters or whatever, and also it's been so long that i don't know about you, but if it were me i wouldn't remember what i had asked. (x SORRY 3:

ANYHOW, response:

of course i did! and now i'm responding like 200 years late, haha, sorry! ): erm, it's been so long that you probably dont remember your message, but i'm going to respond anyways, if that's okay!

that's a really good attitude to have btw~ it's super positive and yeah. ^^

OH MAN THATS TERRIBLE! It's definitely a struggle to get good test scores on a practice test; out of fifty, i normally only get 40-45's/50 so i can see how that would totally kill your grade...

i totally get that; spanish is screwing me over for study time because projects, and i bet you have the same problem. i agree, i'm in my junior year too and it really does; there is just so much going on, and it's not fun to look at all the AP's, IB's, SAT's and all the rest of those dumb acronyms for school stuff. sigh. but hey, it get better next year, or so i've heard, so i'm just slugging my way through it, and you can too~

i hope it continues to! <3

honestly... ages. and at least 3 read-throughs, not including my cram. usually i know about a decath test the day before, so i'll do one in depth read, where i try to focus on everything, and i look super dumb because i'll start saying facts to myself so i remember it. this takes like, an hour per section of each resource guide, which is ridiculous but oh well, i guess. then i do two skims that usually only take twenty minutes or so, but i space these out over the night. usually like, one before hw, one after dinner, and if i can squeeze one in before bed then hoorah, but that's ridiculously rare, haha. then i do a five-minute cram, right before decath, and that's just looking at all the dates and names and making connections; not really reading. so, to actually answer your question, it takes me the whole night, but i spread it out because i find that it's easier to remember things when i've given them time to settle in my mind and allowed myself time to digest things. (: it's a long process though.

don't get too discouraged! it's your first year, and figuring out HOW to best study is genuinely the most difficult part of decathlon. (It took me a whole year of getting consistent 20-28/50's to get a routine.) it's a lot of really hippie-like ~getting to know yourself~ to finally raise your scores. how've you been since? (:

a little tidbit of advice: try writing down a basic outline of the chapter or facts you can't seem to get straight on an index card; the action of writing it will help you remember and plus, you can cram throughout the school day with that without having to drag around the resource guide. c;

[decathdiaries]

Hi I just started decathalon this year and I was wondering if you can give me some tips and pointers because it's one of my classes and I'm failing because I don't know how to study the packets ): How do you manage to absorb the little details and memorize them in such a short period of time? It's been so stressful for me because I have to balance all of my AP classes plus extracurriculars PLUS decathalon T^T Please help me!! Oh and can I have the password to the art flashcard? It would help ):

Hello decathlete!~

Well, let me say, sorry, this turned out as a longer response than I thought… and I’m also going to post this and message you the answer, because I guess pointers should go on my blog too.

First off, let me just say congratulations to you for deciding to join! I know decath isn’t exactly one of the easiest things in the world, nor is it exactly fun, per say, but it is definitely worth your time, so you made a great choice. c;

Also, props to your school for making it a class. That’s such a good idea; believe me, having it as a club and having six other classes is a nightmare, so you’re already on a goodishsorta path. c:

Okay, take it from me that those packets are r i d i c. Like, seriously, whoever wrote them was obviously trying to murder us with the onslaught of info, and they didn’t even bother making them pretty to soften the blow. sigh. :| but it’s possible! …but it isn’t easy. Trust, I have varsity bball, like 5 clubs, IB classes, and decath and I like to keep an active social life; I know exactly how you feel. It’s crazy and stressful and sometimes you wonder if you’ll ever get sleep again. But just try it in steps~

See: My team started off reading it and just trying to get the general gist of everything, then verbally testing. It was a lot of just getting down little facts, like what the heck the Battle of Somme was, and who fought in it, and which artists didn’t go to the Academie Julian. That was the easy stuff, and it typically took about a week to two weeks to get through each guide.

Then we went in with the big guns. I don’t know about your class, but my coach ordered TONS of supporting materials, i.e DemiDec tests, and we’re still in the process of reading, testing, reading, testing, and so on.

Other than that, it’s a lot easier to grasp the Decath shiz if you make it relate to you. In my case, I try to draw mini-comics of stuff, or make really bad jokes out of the info because it helps. It sticks. I color code my resource guides with highlighters too; yellow for places, orange for dates, green for key words, blahblah. I know there’s some decathlete on tumblr that used to write haikus about events. My friend even sings the music while he exercises, so he knows how each one has a dip in pitch, and where. It’s a lot of just trying to figure out how you usually remember stuff, and then applying the BIG PICTURE stuff to it, and then adding on as many little things as you can remember.

(I find that it helps to read aloud with a study group too. Not just because verbally saying the info helps with recall, but also because you find that when you read, typically someone will make a bad joke or snicker or not understand something about a little part, and later you’ll find that you remember the whole thing verbatum. It’s adding experience to the learning and yadda yadda teacher stuff, but it works.)

Also, read it as a bedtime story! It sounds dumb, but reading things before you sleep might help you remember them. Just don’t be disappointed when you find out you have imprints of WW1 on your face or something. They’ll come out, I swear. I mean, not like this has happened to me, or anything.

The goal to doing okay is that you havetohavetohaveto time manage. It’s a cliched answer, I’m sorry, but it’s legit as well. That also means making some hearty sacrifices. This year, I realized that I had to seriously cut down on things like tumblr and fb. I’m not antisocial, but I try to keep my phone away from me when I sit down with my resource guides or I know for a fact that I won’t be able to focus. You might have to quit a club or two, if you’re super involved. (I quit interact.)

Make a to do list every day. Tape it to your bedroom wall and mark the priorities. See what’s due tomorrow and what’s due in a week; figure out which tests you need to study for stat. Since Decath is a class for you, remember to schedule in an hour at least going over the material you’ll be tested on. 

Prioritize. Say it’s monday, and you’re taking a madarin test wednesday, math test friday, and need to finish an English book by next tuesday, on top of that Matisse test tomorrow. Read that matisse. Try to cram it in time you would normally text someone or sit there waiting; read it in the car, the waiting room, the gym while everyone’s changing, while the soup’s cooking for dinner. Whatever.  But don’t neglect your classes too! Get on top of those characters, and write down any formulas you need. Read like, a chapter or two for english. Bam, you did enough so you aren’t behind in those classes, and you should still have about an hour for Matisse review. Get on that.

Most of all, you really just need to develop a way to digest everything. It took me two years of decath before I learned how to read the guides adequately, and I’m still learning. It’s hard. I won’t lie. Half the time I find that I just read something and totally forgot the first part of it. But just try try try. You’ll get it.

Also, remember not to stress out too much. Yes it’s important to read. Yes it’s important to stay on top of all your classes. Yes you need to cut out some of your free time. But dont get overwhelmed, you’ll just have a breakdown and find that you won’t remember everything. Decathlon is hard, but it shouldn’t kill you. Make it routine and natural, not something you find yourself breaking your back over. Slave away, fine, but don’t deprive yourself of sleep for 2 days because it sounds like a good idea. (It’s not.) Decath should be a learning experience; it should be bonding with your teammates; it should teach you how to be a better student.

Remember, if you’re overly stressed, talk to your coach. I realize each coach is different, and they may not be as understanding as mine, but if you think the workload is too hard, if you’re sure that everyone on the team is 2 seconds from dropping dead, tell them. They may be able to see from your point of view and find ways to make things a little easier at least.

But decath is still on you. Read, make lists, connect with visuals, find shortcuts; do everything you would normally do for any of your AP classes in Decathlon, because even if it’s memorization, you’re still learning. Watch a WWI movie if you think it’ll help you remember Jutland; visit the nearby Duchamp exhibit; act out scenes from All the Dead Pilots. Whatever you can, do it.

Uhhhhhhhhm, I hoped that helped. Basically just manage your time. Uh. Yeah. If it didn’t I’m so sorry, and remember that I support you, fellow sufferer! 

[decathdiaries]

tHANK JESUS

I FINISHED MY SPEECH HAHA YAH

[decathdiaries]

Hey! Love your spirit for Decathlon! And, oh, your icon is just sooo attractive! ;] I recently came across your art flash cards - by the mention of that, you probably already know what I am going to ask; so here it is: what's the password to access them? Thanks, lovely! and keep on studying!

hi, decathlete!oh thanks. ;3 for both accounts, haha.oh man, well, i TOTALLY WOULD, but i don't want to just post it on my blog, unfortunately. so it would be awesome if you could message me on your account so i could answer you privately? sorry about that! D: 

[decathdiaries]

joPLIN WROTE “THE ENTERTAINER” HOLY FUCK I KNEW IT FELT LIKE DISNEYLAND

[decathdiaries]

unfortunately,

i'm taking like 4 IB classes, and these past two weeks have been a total pain in the ass, man. so the flashcard that i meant to have done are very, very incomplete. i apologize with this glorious picture of franz ferdinand

here he is trying to figure out why no ladies want him (apparently it's because he's a bit of a little bitch; whiny and all that) but still a confident little hipster

okay in all seriousness, one of these days i'll get around to finishing them. after my psych hw lets up (which should be soon; we have a test soooo)

[decathdiaries]

ey whaddup look im productive

check out my totes free flashcards b/c ily

note that they are not yet finished; i will be continuously working on them for as long as the season runs or as short as today, who knows?

only thing is, you gotta get a password for them, but just send me an ask and i'll give it to you, no prob. (you don't even have to be following me!!!)

so clickedy-click the title bby <3

if you do find mistakes, please note them in the discussion board, thanks xx

recommended settings are to set the flashcards to show one side AND the term first okay okay

[decathdiaries]

well FUCK

lookit all my speech topics there are too many to pick from because fuckshitballs i could talk about all of them

thats what i get for trying to be creative and pulling out like everything i could think of in the hour mr. michael allotted us. now i have to pick from this shit ugh

(also if youre from a rival decath team it would be superduper awesome if you could not steal my ideas okay thanks ily)

Poetry: The Lost Art

Horror: How We Like to Be Scared

Political Messages in Music Since the Dawn of Government Suckiness

The Strangest Gods and Goddesses of Mythology (Greek, Norse, Chinese, Japan)

Demon Ladies: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

Cannibalism: From (the original) Hannibal to Sagawa

The Corner of Your Eye: Things We Pretend Not to Notice

Homophones: English Sucks

Delicacies: Escargot and Other Kind of Gross Foods

Bees Knees and Hell’s Bells: Where Did These Sayings Come From?

Our Weird Obsession with Showers and Cleanliness

Our Unsung Villains

Family Pride: Where Did It Go? (Crests, the “family name,” etc.)

The Importance of Drummers

The Renaissance Man and Man Today

okay so i asked gabriel, russel, daniel, and mr. michael which one was the coolest and then like because they are no help (im just kidding theyre great help i love them but they seriously narrowed down my list by like five) i still have a fuckton of ideas to pull from. anyhow the bolds are the ones they like best and the italicized one (b/c gabe hates poems i guess) is supposed to be the "no don't even go there" one

AND TO MAKE IT WORSE mr. michael was like "omg i like all of those ideas nikki wow i think any of them would make a great speech"

like aw, wow, thanks, man. i appreciate that, really, and it makes me grin wide and feel fuzzy that if nothing else i have great ideas

but

hep

the list

what i am going to end up doing is just writing/brainstorming as much as i can for each topic so that i can figure out which one flows the best and is the easiest to ramble on about yakow

yah this is going to take a while

also to make this worse i got distracted and cant remember the really great speech i put together while i was taking a shower earlier

it was about the cannibal one and like wow i was quite impressed with myself for making it sound so nice but nope i lost it

fuckshitcrap

[decathdiaries]

i'm just going to leave this here.

if you can't tell, we're onto science now. yay for reproduction!!!

[decathdiaries]

Marcel Duchamp was a pretty cool dude.

Like, seriously.

Reminder: this is The Fountain (aka the Urinal) guy

I like his "fuck all y'all, we ignore feelin's here" attitude. Not that he's Drake, but same premise, I suppose. He's out to make you think and he wants to make you feel, and he doesn't care how you feel about his approach. 

He's pretty reckless, and yet he's a master at his goal.

How many people can say the same thing?

[decathdiaries]

On Speech Topics

it seems that, apparently, every Thursday of summer will be devoted to making sure that we make progress on the prepared speech. now, I know that some people seem to actually like this stuff, but I find it horrid. impromptu really is my strong suite, and nothing gets me quite as nervous as having to recite something that I’ve written before an audience. for an impromptu, at least you know that you cannot be faulted for rambling a bit and sounding more or less conversational— that’s the point, because you thought the whole thing up in less that five minutes. when you’ve actually prepared something, you worry that you don’t have it quite memorized or that you don’t have an interesting enough topic, especially considering you’d picked on completely independently. then you go through the worry that it isn’t perfect; sure, when you write it for six months, it really ought to be, and you’ve convinced yourself that it truly was, yet the second you’re to say it, you realize that it really isn’t perfect. you find everything that could possibly be wrong, and you hate youself because you had months to fix it; why didn’t you fix it?! I might be a tad hateful, but I can’t be bothered. on another hand, I was to talk about my speech topic before I forget again. when the year started, I had originally planned to write about materialism. yes, the money, the fame, material things that to some have value; to others, are pointless. I liked the topic, because to be honest, I am an incredibly material person, and I do not see it as bad, despite what society says. this is only furthered by the fact that while society says that materialism is not proper, it pushes one to be so. it sounded good and I sounded confident as I read the introduction, but… I couldn’t get past the lack of passion I had. Passion— that’s key. Why bother talking when one has no passion to at all? that’s what I always tell myself. there is no point. speech, as in the act of speaking, is meant to get personal opinions across and meant to make you ponder your own thoughts. it is meant to show you, but without passion, you are not you, you are robotic. you speak because you have to. perhaps you may want to, but it is more superficial than complete lust to speak. you are going through the motions and saying what you mean, but I don’t care what you’re saying if you don’t care enough tp mean it. I want passion, always, and I wouldn’t expect anything less from myself as I would anyone else. So I abandoned that, claimed that i’d forgotten it. last week was the first established Thursday to do this, and I sat with janine to figure out what to talk about. while I love her, it is hard to be inspired while talking to janine, because her tastes are childish and “mainstream” and simply unstimulating, academically, for me. it is fine for normal conversation, and I love that she is all of these things. she is fun to talk to, and her youthfulness is a wonderful trait, but she isn’t much help to bounce ideas off of because of it. she’ll twist the idea to be cheesy and humorous and light, which isn’t me. I’m humorous, but I’m dark, and I delve deep into emotions whereas janine skims them. I got into the idea of princesses. I was inspired by royals, by lorde, which was my favorite song at the time. that isn’t the point though. princesses are fascinating, if you really delve into it. there are many types, definitions, and cliches of princesses, yet there is a truthful ugliness that comes with being royalty as well, and many people fail to see this. I wanted to highlight it, to show that it was fine that we’re all, for lack of a better word, commoners. that, as lorde put it, “that kind of lux(ury) just ain’t for us.” it was a good topic, and I had lots of opinions about it. however, today, when I sat down to write about it, I found nothing to say. I liked the topic, and I knew what to say, and I knew what I wanted to include, but I could never see myself saying it all with passion. So, from there, I scraped princesses too. I think, however, that I have my topic. Poetry; the lost art. I know. Its a little cliche and a lot boring. I do not know what even possessed me to think about it. however, I like it. where has poetry gone? when poetry began, poets were revered. poets were the kanye’s of their time. their work was loved, their feet praised. now, poetry is boring. it is dull and dreadful english class material. It seems that nobody enjoys it anymore— or so they say. because there is poetry in everything. Poetry in rap, in the words I am saying now. poetry can be whatever it chooses, free of form and the restrictions of proper grammar. poems are beautiful in their eloquence and their emotions. they are stocked with the later. Romances, lonliness, happiness, psychotic. there is a poem for anything. so why are poems lame? I want to explore this. Truly, I believe that it can work. In all honesty, I can always just use my potential speech. I never used it last year, so there is no saying that I cannot. But I don’t think I will.