Hey guys! How are you guys? I hope you all had a great Christmas break! Sorry it's a little late, but here are the printable schedules for the Learn Luke Challenge in January!
Today I'd like to touch on a subject that I think is fairly important to have a right perspective on, in order to have a fulfilling quizzing experience.
There are a lot of different ways that quizzers motivate themselves to do well, but one I think is prominent, is considering (whether consciously or subconsciously) what other quizzers will think, whether they're from their team or from another. I.e. if the quizzer has done well, and therefore feels pressure to perform as well, or even better, in the future. Or, alternatively, if a quizzer feels as though people expect them to perform well for any other reason (like if they have an older sibling who quizzes well, or if they're on a team of experienced quizzers, or if they're from a competitive district), there are obviously lots of possibilities. Everyone knows this isn't unique to quizzing - it's a driving source for many people in lots of different areas of their lives. Go ahead and take a moment to think of a time in which you felt peer pressure - either in quizzing or in something else - and recount how that affected you. It's argued that it's not always negative; that it's a good way to spur each other on to do better. But I think these are two different things, and here's why: Peer pressure...
Spurring each other on to do better...
And I think most of us would like to see the latter of these at work, rather than the first. So how do we take action on this? It's a good idea to start with ourselves, so that leads us to ask the question, how can we eliminate the effect peer pressure has on us? And how can we stop participating in it? Well we can go about this in a few different ways, but the best one would probably be to purposely begin doing three things: encouraging and complimenting others, encouraging yourself, and caring only about who God says you are, and what He thinks of you. Once we can start our journey towards seeing ourselves how our Father sees us (and seeing how deeply He's in love with each of us), the two previous things on the list become natural, and can come almost effortlessly. Why? Because whatever visual, heart-level picture we have of God, is what we will mirror - whether it's an accurate or inaccurate picture. If we see Him as love - that He is love and love is Him - then we will begin to become and project love as well, if we're seeking Him. This is a very positive perspective on God and life, compared to what a lot of christians project, and I think this perspective on peer pressure is a positive one as well. But why should we care what God thinks, when people are all around us, and who tangibly (visually and audibly) express it? People always say, "don't worry about what everybody else says" but they rarely add a reason to that. Sometimes, if they're christians, they'll say something like, "because God's eternal and people aren't" but everyone's spirits are eternal, because they either go to Heaven or Hell, so this answer doesn't make much sense - unless they're talking about just life here on earth, in which case it still doesn't really help because earth is the only place we'll be dealing with the problem. So here's my reason; once we get a revelation from God about how much He loves us, and how He sees us as perfect and pure, forgiven, beautiful, and His children, we'll be overcome by the extent of how much more this means to us. That "feeling" might not last a long time, depending on how deeply rooted we are in our relationship with the Lord (maybe I'll give my whole testimony on this at some point, but I won't go into that right here), so the next step is just getting to know Him, and continuing to deepen that relationship. People and God - there really is no comparison :P at the end of the day, even if these people mean a lot to us and it can hurt, very badly at times, to feel like you're rejected because of something, you have to ask yourself whose opinion you're valuing (caring about) more. Our Father's? or our friends? I've been hurt some as a result of not doing or agreeing with everything my peers did or thought, and I've given into the pressure a lot (LOT) more times. Heck, I'm not even a two-year-old christian yet! (Yes, that means that I didn't start caring about or seeking the Lord until the end of my second year in Bible quizzing - so hear me when I say that I don't have this all figured out :P) And it's because of how that effected me, that it's one of the main reasons I feel a bit strongly on this subject, when it comes to my fellow teens (whom peer pressure usually hits the hardest) and my fellow quizzers. I'm going to close with a question for you - whose voice are you going to listen to today? Which relationship are you going to invest in, with your choices this week? Thanks for reading guys, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the Bethany invitational later this month! Happy quizzing! Keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory
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Hey! Today marks two years of my writing this blog! I'm quite embarrassed about some of my old posts (and should probably go fix some things about them...) but I'm glad that my writing has gotten slightly better since then :P Keeping this page, even though I tend to procrastinate posting occasionally, has really helped motivate me along my quizzing journey, and it's been a fun hobby. But most of all, if I've helped anyone even a little bit, then that makes everything more than worth it! When I started out, I really had no idea what the heck I was doing (and I'm still trying to figure it out :P), and it was hard to write to an audience I wasn't sure was there. Now, two years later, my traffic is still quite modest, but I learned the lesson of writing what I might need to hear, rather than trying to define what my audience might. So, all in all, I'm exceedingly glad that I woke up that day after our local qualifier for Top Ten, and decided to give it a go. It's been a great part of life to be able to share things I'm learning with you guys! Anyway, enough sappy stuff, lets get on to the exciting part! I apologize for this taking so long, but at long last I have the downloads for the Learn Luke events and memorizing schedule, and the calendar. Unfortunately, these only cover through this year, and end at January first, because of the unknown material to be covered at the Bethany Invitational at the end of that month. But in general, seven verses a day/five days a week or vice versa should be a good rule of thumb for memorizing outside of the schedule.
I hope you all have a fantastic break and thanksgiving next week, and wish you good luck at the Top Ten quiz in December!
Thank you all for reading, and keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory Hey y'all! Sorry about not posting for a minute, a lot of stuff has been going on in my life recently, and I'm super excited about it! So much so, I'm gonna point you over to my family's blog we just started (so there aren't many posts yet, but they're on the way :P), where we talk about what we're learning, and why we moved up here in the first place - the address is www.Leakeclan.Wordpress.com, check it out! So anyways, congratulations to how everyone did at the Olathe Invitational!! Since I'm quizzing with a new team up here in Colorado, and this is their first year, I quizzed with another team who were from North/South Dakota, and it was an awesome experience! Met some super cool, nice people who I wouldn't have otherwise, and I think that's one of the best parts of moving to another quiz district - meeting so many other people in the quizzing community. How did y'all do with the memorizing sprint? Obviously, I didn't have almost any of the material ready to do according to's for this tournament, but the sprint did help me to get into it pretty much everyday, and to spend time focusing on each section - especially the last few chapters. Even though I didn't meet all of my goals for the sprint, I did learn some things that I want to do differently next time. For instance, I found that reviewing was my weakest area in learning the material. And of course when you don't review, you lose what you've learned, so now I'll have to go back and re-learn several passages. But you know? That's okay. Everything in life is a journey, and you just gotta keep making progress, and keep learning how to do it better. Run your race, as Paul says :P So in the Learn Luke Challenge, (I'll have a printable calendar of the memorizing schedule and events coming up as soon as I can!) we should be a little past chapter 11, depending on if you used last week for memorizing or reviewing. For the St. Louis Top Ten tournament next month, they'll be going over chapters 1-13 to my knowledge, at that's about 94 verses to learn if my math is right :P Assuming that we all have memorized chapters 1-11 (to whatever extent of recall), and beginning this week rather than last, that should be about 47 verses a week for two weeks with one week of review, or about 32 verses a week for three weeks and no time set aside to focus on reviewing (so you'll have to do that on top of memorizing). Whichever of these outlines you think would work best for your schedule, and for your quizzing goals, divide the verses up among the days you'll be studying each week. A good idea, one that always helps me, is to write out your goals - general, weekly, and daily. Like I've said before, once you know exactly what you should do to work on quizzing everyday, it becomes a lot easier to just get to it. About this time of the season, people start to wind down, and lose their excitement about the material and even begin to give up on their goals simply because they haven't reached them yet. And I'm here to tell you to not give up on them! Listen to me when I say I have a lot of experience with failed goals, and the thing that the most of them have in common, is that I gave up too soon, you know? The season's not over, you can still do anything you want to, right now, with Luke. Turn your set back into a comeback! And yes, I read that on Pinterest :P But remember, my friends, as we're reigniting our sparks, that your worth doesn't come from how you place - and this is hard, both when you do well, and when you're disappointed with your performance, but it's something that is absolutely essential. And by the way, it took me over two and a half years to realize that, and I'm still learning how to think and respond that way. But leading a well-balanced life means trusting God to be your foundation, and finding your worth and importance in who He says you are; beautiful, redeemed, worth it, loved, and His. Don't forget! I know there's a lot of material to learn this year, but the harder the challenge, the more rewarding the victory! KEEP AT IT! With this year being my sophomore year in high school, and with the stricter laws for homeschooling in Colorado, I have a heavier load than usual, and I won't deny I've had some pretty rough days (not to mention missing old friends). But in it, it's made me need to trust God more, and to put my faith into practice; mainly in one way, based on Matthew 6:33. Here Jesus is talking about the cares and worries of this life, and about His provision of His people. "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you." And to me at least, this really hits home with the issue of being able to get everything done during the work week, and being happy while doing it. He also said to work at everything with your whole heart, and that He would bless the work of our hands, and multiply the fruits of our labor, and fill any empty vessel that we surrender to Him. All of these scriptures that came to my attention, I felt were God asking me to go ahead and just try; just to try my best, and to focus mainly on Him and His love, and trust Him with the results. And y'all, our God is faithful, and He'll always take care of us, especially when we're in obedience to what He asks us to do. So yeah, that's my little testimony from the past couple months in regard to quizzing and school and stuff :P And I would just encourage you to exercise trust these next couple weeks as we're getting ready for the St. Louis quiz, and to believe His promises, and to not be afraid that He can't help your personal situation - He's a personal God! Keep going you guys, keep on running and pressing forward towards your goals for this year! You've got this! You're capable! Thanks for reading! Keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory Hey guys! I hope all is well with your quizzing so far this season! As the first sprint for our Learn Luke Challenge, as mentioned in a previous post, I'm gonna walk you though the steps I used (just a week or so ago) to draw out my memorizing plan for the Olathe Invitational. Now, I know and am friends with a good number of people who really couldn't care less about planning ahead, but let me tell you that especially in quizzing, but in other areas as well, that a goal without a plan is just a wish - you have a much, much better chance of meeting (and maybe even exceeding your goals) if you write them down, organize them, and know what you need to do every single day. Here are a few things you can expect from this sprint;
With these things in mind, are yall ready to jump in? Lets do it! First thing's first; how many verses do you need to learn before Olathe? The tournament, to my knowledge, is going to be over chapters 1-11 (if you want you can go ahead and check out their website; olathe.nazquizzing.org). Hopefully, you've already got a good amount of the material memorized - whether it's just in essence, or if you've got them down backwards and forwards and ready for according tos. But however much you have, subtract that number from the total number of verses in the first 11 chapters, and count the number of days and weeks we have until the tournament on November 5th. Given, this is a slightly longer sprint than you might have been expecting when I first announced the kind of events we would be having, but think of it this way; the longer the sprint, the farther you'll go. If the sprint was only a week long, then you might be able to get like 100-150 verses memorized, tops. And in Luke, that's like two chapters, so in order for a sprint to really have a good impact on how you do at the tournament named, the sprint has to be a good sized one. Anyway, back to preparing; take away from the total number of days and weeks the number of days that you think you'll need to spend intensely reviewing the material. For example, in my schedule, I left out Sundays, and then the last week or so for JUST review. After you do this, divide the number of verses among the remaining weeks, and further divide into the number of days a week you want to, and think you'll be able to, memorize and review recently memorized material. I.e. I'm doing Monday-Saturday, and at the time of my personal preparation and planning, I had a little over seven weeks before the tournament. Next, decide if you want to have the same number of verses every day, or have heavier days and lighter days during the week (you can also take it a step further and have heavier and lighter weeks; I.e. heavier memorization the first few, and increasingly less to memorize every week to make room for the increasing number of verses to review every week). I decided to do more than double memorization Tuesdays-Thursdays, because I have other activities during the other days that take time away from school, so I don't have as much time. This also gives you a little wiggle room if you come a few verses short, so that it's not too big of a deal to add those on to light memorization days. Once you know how many verses, and for how many days, and what days you're taking off for review, write it down - make a calendar and put it somewhere you'll see it everyday. This might seem a little overwhelming, or it might be super motivating and exciting for you, but here's a couple things on how you can stick to your plan;
Well guys, are you pumped to really charge into this challenge, and to be your own boss, and to be more prepared for Olathe than you were last time? I know I am! I will try to write more about this sprint as we go through, but until then, continue to be the awesome, and capable you! Keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory Hello again! Today I'm announcing the Learn Luke Challenge! The Learn Luke Challenge is a motivational group effort to memorize all of the material for the next season (complete with hashtag: #LearnLuke16) with a schedule, group and individual goals, and events like progress check points, catchup days, memorizing sprints, review weekends, and breaks. All in accordance with the schedule of the tournaments this season to the best of our ability. Obviously the reason we're proposing it is to encourage everyone to memorize Luke, especially since it's a bit longer than GEPCP, and to help people know that it is totally achievable. Also, when it gets tough in the middle, or near the end, there'll be a whole support group of people who are experiencing the same thing. Right now, it looks like the schedule is going to be roughly 7 verses a day, five days a week, or five verses a day, 7 days a week, to memorize all the material in time for the big tournaments. I'll have the schedule for the events, posted soon. So what do you say? Are you ready to tackle this giant with with us? Lets go! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory |
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