Yes. You read that right, I died. How am I writing this, you ask? Well, it could be that wizards have finally given out the secret of bringing people back from death. They just didn’t use it on Dumbledore for political reasons. Or, I am using figurative language... I’ll let you choose, Sparkle glutei-maximi!
It all began when I let my ego get the best of me. ‘Twas a fateful day in my 12th grade French class. The teacher was trying to get us to parler avec each other in francais only. My teacher -sense alerted me when she was nearby and I started pulling out all the words in my French vocabulary. I basically said to my partner in French, “Eating the foods is good they are truly healthy in kitchen-making cooking, delicious, good apples and vegetables, oui?” This sent my teacher into fits of happiness as she announced to the class that I was so awesome in French and I should tell the whole class what I’d just said to my partner. I cleared my throat and gave the best run-on sentence about food and “eating good health water from mountainous valley earth delicious”. Everyone was amazed at my awesome French skills. I tried to stop them from applauding because I knew I’d BS’d but no one in the class could tell I’d said something totally stupid (except my partner who was laughing at me as I got more and more flustered by the reaction of my oblivious peers).
I wish I’d turned my teacher-sense off that day because at the end of class my teacher sidled up to me and said she wanted to see me for a minute about something tres exciting. It turned out there was a French public-speaking competition taking place that month for all the students in my school district. And that, my buttheads, is when I truly let my ego get the best of me. I don’t how, I don’t know why... I said yes. She’d cleverly roped me in to representing my school in the competition at the end of the month.
Our “team” that was supposed to represent our entire high-school (of 1300 students) was composed of 3 people: a 9th grade French boy who could speak English, and an 8th grade French boy-wannabe, and me: the Arab girl who loved French but couldn’t speak it to save her keester. We practiced our butts off, rehearsing our speeches weekly until the night of the competition. Fat lot of good that did me. I walked into the presentation room (students from every grade had to present in front of other representatives from the same grades but from different schools) and felt myself starting to lose faith.
You see, Sparkle-heineys, I’d forgotten there were these places of dark sorcery called French-emirgin schools. With kids in there that could read a whole book in French by the time I finished a page. I was so screwed.
My teacher tried to make me feel better by saying that I should relax because my whole family was there to watch me and I was the only one in my category and would be winning by default. Thank you, Mrs. I-am-so-confident-in-my-student’s-French-skills.
I was the second to last presenter so I got to hear everyone’s perfect French “r”s and I dreaded the moment when I would present because I knew the judges would ask me two questions about my topic. Finally they called me up to the front of the room. I stood there, hiked my confidence pants up, and stared at the judges. My teacher started filming me (curse you, French 12 teacher) and my parents started wiggling their eyebrows, thinking I would understand what the first word of my speech was that way.
All was quiet. I think people could hear old Mr. Sweat-Gland telling the whole team to increase sweat production by 190%. I really don’t know what happened after that, sparklers. The memory is a blur of my parents whispering the first word of my speech to me, the clicks of my teacher’s camera, and my parents repeating more and more of my speech as my face got redder and redder and redder. The phrase I could remember from my speech was “excuse-moi”. I think I said that every time my parents had to read a line or word from my speech to me. Which was a lot. Thank goodness one of the judges looked like McGonagall because I swear it was her who revived me with a new spell from the wizarding world when she said the magic words “Thank you, you may go back to your seat.”
And that, my Sparkle-derriéres, is how I died and came back to life. Needless to say, I brushed up on my French skills and I took 3rd year French as a first year university student.
And for those who were wondering: I won ...by default. Vive Bookweirm!
Tags: school, contest, speaking competition, inflated ego, French, en francais, like a boss, grade 12
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