yatta!
\yah-TA\, exclamation: plain past tense of the verb 'yaru' - to do. colloq. lit. I did it!
well, at least i can say that i fought off the urge to turn around and go back home after i had driven down to balboa park early this morning. i don't know how i ended up doing in the speech contest; i didn't get 1st-3rd, so i got the consolation t-shirt, certificate, and rousing "try again next year!" from the contest organizers. i also got cornered (literally) by a really short, really scary (she had this HUGE nose and no forehead and about 4 inches thick of makeup) japanese lady in the bathroom who had grabbed my arm, wheeled me into the paper towels, and the only part of her enthusiastic jabbering i understood was "joozu!! JOOZU!!" (meaning: you are good.) My japanese sensei had shown up (unfortunately) and i guess i had surprised her by being there, especially since i hadn't asked her for help like everyone else. Almost everyone i had talked to had their speech edited by a teacher or native speaker; i don't know... in my mind, that's cheating. Especially since the girl who won had her friends write (or "heavily edit" as she put it) her speech. Like a very wise 14-year-old recently observed, "I know, you just want to know if it's something you can do on your own." Yes, for the most part that's true. but i just realized something that may be blatantly obvious to everyone else: it's a total pride thing. if i do well, then look at that! cool! if i don't do well, well then that's my fault (especially since i am the type of person to put in as little work as possible). but if i enlist the help of someone else, then i am a) needing someone else, and thus b) responsible to that person for my outcome, and c) opening myself up to the criticism that hey, you didn't do it right the first time, and obviously you don't know it all.

i've got issues. i'm working through them. and today was a little bit of therapy.