Following the conclusion of a very solid final round at a speech competition, a judge reflects on her experience. She talks about how she used to compete many years ago and now she spends her time on the weekends judging for her old coach because that's how much she loves the activity. Throughout the story we begin to realize that she is struggling to fill out her ballot, trying to figure out who should be ranked what. Her struggle is wrapped up in the idea that the stories aren't what they used to be, they're not being told in a passionate way and things seem very unauthentic. The idea that there was a level of work that students were willing to do in order to be successful when she competed but now it seems like students forgot that the goal of an interpretation is to be able to maneuver yourself into someone else's shoes and tell an honest story, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. By the end of her realization, we see that one of the performances she just watched was an exact replica from beginning to end and everything in between of the performance that she did on the final stage her junior year. How can this be the way in which we tell authentic stories if the stories that we are telling we have stolen from someone else? A realization piece that addresses the idea that sometimes the things that we loved and dedicated our lives to as children evolve into something that we don’t recognize when we become adults. 
*Performer may be of any gender and has permission to change pronouns as needed within text.