1.When you explain that you do forensics, and people ask, "Oh, like on CSI?"
2.Telling people that you're in the NFL, and having everyone assume that you mean this:
3.But you really mean this:
4.While everyone is spending their summer at real camp, you know the REAL fun is at speech camp.
5.You spend your whole life dreaming about standing on that stage at nationals.
6.Having to cut your interp piece within an inch of its life, and it's STILL not within time limits.
7.Completely obsessing about your hand gestures.
8.Being excited to wake up at 6 AM on Saturday mornings for tournaments.
9.Frantically trying to memorize your pieces on the bus ride to the tournament.
10.Struttin' into the competition in your lucky power suit.
11.Hallways lined with people talking to walls seems totally normal to you.
12.Seeing the looks of terror on your competitors' faces when you walk by.
13.Wanting to high five the world when all the extempers on your team draw questions for which there is plenty of research in your tubs.
14.Knowing your duet partner's lines so well, you unknowingly start silently mouthing them along with her.
15.When you discover that someone in your round is doing a really overdone piece, and it feels like Christmas.
16.Until about two minutes into their performance, when the boredom starts to make your brain hurt.
17.Wanting to throttle the timekeeper when they mess up your time signals.
18.Getting so into your Humerous Interp that you accidentally pop into the wrong character.
19.That feeling when you realize that your judge might be an idiot.
20.The seemingly endless wait for breaks to be posted in the cafeteria.
21.That terrifying moment between when breaks are posted, and you brain figures out whether or not your name is listed.
22.Seeing your name up on the breaks postings, and feeling like a celebrity.
23.Realizing that you haven't broken in anything, and trying to not look heartbroken in front of 200 people.
24.Spending months of your life working on an event, and then not breaking out of prelims.
25.Being utterly baffled when you break into finals in the event you picked up, like, a week ago.
26.The moment when you know that you've nailed your final round performance.
27.The unparalled joy of performing in a finals round, and then getting to say to your judges, "I'm sorry, but I'm actually double entered, may I be excused?"
28.Knowing that when you finally wrap your hands around this bad boy, you have basically achieved God status.
