School lessons went on as normal like as though nothing had happened. I was a relief to me that I had finished recording the video and sending it to the English Teacher. Honestly, I kind of forgot about it and did not expect any results until...
27 April 2021, Tuesday
"Yay, finally we can go to the science lab...woooo!" Science lesson went on as usual and since we were doing a light experiment, the lights were turned off and we were allowed to turn on our phone torches. Near to the end of the lab lesson, my friend, Rose, told me that the English teacher had messaged her to tell her that she had gotten into the PESA Semi-Finals and asked me to check if I did too. I received a message from my English teacher too and I clicked on it.
Congratulations Kai Bo, you got into PESA Semi-Finals!!!
*Note that this was not the exact message
I was clearly shocked. I immediately turned it off and told Kilian, my very best friend in secondary school, who was technically celebrating for me already. "Oh well, I was lucky enough..." I murmured. I was happy, yet nervous. After Science was lunch and I took my time to spread the good news and to read the instructions for the Semi-Finals. "The Semi-Finals is two days later!" "What the..." Yes, I did not have much time to prepare. Luckily, it was just reciting the Preliminary Round and a short impromptu.
I still stayed up late at night to try memorising the speech, I needed to be clear and had to make sure that I wouldn't mess up on the day itself.
29 April 2021, Thursday
That was the day. After school ended, there was still like about 3 hours before the Semi-Finals and since Rose and I were bored, after we found the Tutorial room (where we were going to say our speech), we just decided to go back to class and memorise the speech. Then there was this guy called Joseph I think. He was from 1F and he was also going to the Semi-Finals. So we technically just like talked to each other and like tried reciting the speech to one another.
Honestly, I'm not surprised to see that a lot of people who got into the PESA Semi-Finals are from Debate, but yes, that was still kind of unexpected. Well, we also started writing everyone's names on the board in Index number order to see how many names in our class we could remember to destress (It was really destressing, trust me). Soon, it was nearly time so Rose and I just went to the Tutorial Room. While Rose entered the room immediately, I stayed outside and waited nervously.
My hands were cold and clammy and my heart was beating at lightning speed. I took out my phone and relooked at the encouragement my friends had given me on WhatsApp, then I turned it off. I was going to do it. It was either me or Rose, we were going to show the school what 1G is like. After Rose exited the room, she signaled for me to go in. She said a quick "Good luck!" and I entered.
To be honest, at first it felt like entering a locked gas chamber (Auschwitz reference). However, after a while, it felt better as the judges were smiling then one of them started laughing in the middle of the speech (idk if that's good or not lol). I messed up in the middle of my memorised speech but I quickly recovered and continued on confidently. I guess I did do well for the impromptu because you know why.
After the speech, Jayden was still with me yay, but then some stuff happened before but that's a story for another time (rolls eyes...).
The End...
Or is it...
Catch the next Part of RV PESA...if there even is one...
Thanks to everyone who offered support, really appreciated!!!
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