So Sectionals.
Usually when you think of Sectionals, you think of sports teams and trophies and then the winners moving on to State. It's pretty much the same thing for Journalism, except it's all writing competitions. There's competitions like Copy Editing, Headline Writing, Features Writing, Editorial Writing, News Writing, Sports Writing, Yearbook Layout, Yearbook Theme Design, Review Writing...You name it.
Yeah, believe it or not, we actually have Sectionals and State for Journalism. IHSA sponsored and everything.
And because we knew you wouldn't believe that, we decided to write a blog post about it.
Well, Mr. Long mostly decided we were going to write a blog post about it and I pulled a Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games and was like, "I VOLUNTEER."
So here I am.
Writing you a blog post.
So we left West campus at 8:00 am today when it was like 30 degrees outside and way too early for anyone to be awake on a Saturday morning.
But there was an awesome coffee machine and that's all that counts.
But I'll get to that.
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6:00 a.m.: It’s way too early for this. Seriously, anything before 9:00 a.m. should be illegal. Especially school things. On Saturdays.
7:12: My mom’s freaking out that I haven’t left yet. We’re supposed to be at West at 7:30 and it takes me 10 minutes to get to school and she’s like, “If you don’t leave now you won’t make it!!” It’s 7:00 on a Saturday morning. I could walk down the middle of Lake Street and maybe get passed by 1 car. I’ll make it. I was going to leave at 7:15 but I guess I’ll just leave now so “they don’t leave without” me.
7:22: Wow, look--I’m at West and I’m the second one here. It’s too early.
Sometime around 7:30: Mr. Long showed up with the bus and we’re waiting for Joe, then we’re leaving. Abby, Olivia, and Kaitlyn all grabbed Style Guides from East yesterday so we’re actually prepared this year (We didn’t know we could use them last year), and we all brought homework. Last year we literally brought nothing to do and we kind of just sat and stared at each other all day until I found these really tiny Tinkerbell cards that were really hard to play with.
7:50: Apparently Joe’s not coming so we’re leaving.
8:45ish: Got to Lewis University in Romeoville. It’s still way too early. Instead of putting us all in their cafeteria area this year, they’re putting us all in classrooms we have to share with one other school. That’s nice. Maybe it’ll be quiet and we can study for our AP tests. The lady checking us all in told us about 6 times in a row that she’s impressed we have “so many AP books, oh my!”
9:05: Olivia’s writing integrals on the board. I don’t know what it means but apparently it’s something about we’re going to win today. I don’t miss math.
9:30: Hinsdale South showed up. They’re in our room. The wifi here is password protected. I actually have to study for my AP tests now. I’m a little upset. In other news, this school has the most amazing coffee machine ever. Seriously. It’s 75 cents for this huge cup and there’s so many different flavors and it’s pretty sweet. Iowa State better have one next year.
10:00: We have a meeting about the rules and stuff, and then Block A of competitions starts at 10:15. I don’t remember what Block A all consisted of, but Copy Editing (me), Review Writing (Seona), and News Writing (Frank), are all going. Abby, Olivia, and Kaitlyn are in Block B for Headline Writing, Features Writing, and Editorial Writing this afternoon.
11:20: Back from Copy Editing. I feel like it went okay. The style guide was really nice to have this year. Caitlin didn’t have one last year and she said it would’ve helped her out a lot (And yes, Kaitlyn and Caitlin are 2 different people, I didn’t randomly just change spellings.) I wish it had been on the computer though, everyone else’s competitions are, and I had to cross stuff off and rewrite stuff and it kind of ended up a huge mess.
11:30: Going with Kaitlyn, Abby, and Olivia to go get lunch. They have this cute little café thing in their commons area & there’s not a lot of options, but it’s pretty much the only place there is to go other than the snack machines.
11:45: Just found out Raffi Torres got a 25 game suspension for hitting Hossa on Tuesday. It made my and Kaitlyn’s days. We’re huge Hawks fans. I wish it would’ve been forever. Brendan Shanahan should’ve just kicked him out forever.
12:00 pm: Frank’s back. He said News Writing went, “okay. It was fine.” He doesn’t sound too excited.
12:02: Seona’s back too She said she “thought it went well.”
12:10: Going down to the commons for Block B, then Seona and I are getting lunch.
12:50: Lunch finally. Their café is really confusing. There’s a menu above this counter that looks like the one you’d find at Subway but you actually order your food on the opposite side of the café, so we kind of stood in the wrong line for a while. Then when we figured it out, the line was super long and the lady at the register was all confused and gave me the wrong copy of my receipt so I didn’t have an order number on there and when I pointed it out to her she was like, “No, that’s yours.” And I was like, “No, this one clearly says ‘merchant copy’ in big letters and it doesn’t have an order number,” and she was like, “No, that’s yours.” So that was fun.
1:20: Mr. Long has his music so loud I can hear it on the other side of the room. I can’t tell what it is but I definitely didn’t have him down as a music-with-guitar-solos kind of guy.
1:37: Abby’s back. She said she feels like, “It was easier than last year.” Apparently some the articles she had to write headlines for were reused from last year and “they were dumb then and they’re dumb now.” There was one article about how the girl in the story was a junior and her boyfriend was a senior so they were going to the spring dance and prom, because I guess the made up school in question has two spring dances, and that’s a big deal. Then, to ask her to prom, her boyfriend followed her to Chipotle and stuck his head in her car, held out a muffin, and was like, “I would like ‘muffin’ more than to go to prom with you!” I’m sorry, but that’s terrifying. I’d just say no. Even if it was Patrick Kane. Please, boys, don’t stick your head into your girlfriend’s car and ask her to prom. That’s weird. If that was your plan and you’re like, really stuck for ideas now, here’s a list of some normal and vaguely cute ways to ask a girl to prom.
1:45: Kaitlyn’s back. She’s “feeling good. Really good.” Awesome. Maybe we’ll actually place this year. Last year the closest we got to placing was 4th, but Seona got bumped up because someone that actually qualified for State couldn’t make it.
1:55: Kaitlyn and I are going to get another cup of coffee from the Super Awesome Coffee Machine. Gotta stay up for the Hawks game tonight! I wasn’t paying attention and I accidentally got the Almond something one instead of the French Vanilla one. I’m kind of heartbroken but it’s the coolest coffee machine ever so I can’t be too sad. And it’s not awful tasting. So I guess I’ll survive.
2:00: Also, we’re going to make a music video called Perspective and We Know It! We’ll let you figure out what the original song was because it’s probably not school appropriate so I can’t post it here. We’ll put the video up when it’s done. It’ll be awesome and you should check it out. Ms. Gordon’s helping us film it and Mr. Long’s sitting in the corner pouting and refusing to participate.
2:12: Olivia’s back. She said she did, “I don’t know.” And the word limit threw her off.
3:15: Going down to the awards ceremony now! Hopefully it goes well!
3:30: It’s starting!
3:35: The lady announcing the awards randomly just walked off the podium and disappeared…
3:40: Apparently they scored a few of the competitions wrong and no one noticed until they had some of the awards passed out, so they had to recollect them all and we’re starting over. Yay! Maybe I’ll place for Copy Editing this time around!
4:10: On our way home! I placed 2nd for Copy Editing, Olivia placed 1st for Features Writing, and Abby got 1st for Headline Writing! Downers Grove North got the super awesome plaque to hang on the wall, and I’m kind of sad we didn’t get it (Especially because as we walked out the girl holding it dropped it on the sidewalk—We totally would’ve been able to carry it. We can take care of it haha.) but three is apparently the most people we’ve had going to State in a really long time. I’m a little bit upset I’m not going to make the concert I was planning on going to on Friday because I’ll be at State now. It would’ve been my 6th time seeing this band so it’s not like I’ve never seen them before, but unless they come through here this summer, I’ll probably never see them again because nobody tours through Iowa ever.
4:20: Mr. Long’s driving the bus in circles in the parking lot. Kaitlyn’s backseat driving.
4:35: Just drove past the Montana Charlie Little American Flea Market. I don’t know why this is relevant to our trip to Sectionals, but we all thought it was super entertaining and we’re trying to convince Mr. Long we should go on a field trip to find the weirdest things we can and write articles about them and whoever writes the best article wins.
4:40: Olivia’s calling her mom to tell her she placed first. All I heard was, “Who placed?! I DID!” Apparently she didn’t believe her haha.
5:40: Back at West. There’s probably going to be another one of these Friday or Saturday depending on what time we get back from State, so keep an eye out for that as well as our Perspective and We Know It! video.