I am so, so, SO proud of her!

My daughter had been preparing for a debate contest at school the whole of last week. The topic of the debate was "The excitement of Television is more than the adventures of a book". She came back from school (the day the debate contest was announced) saying that it was not really a choice. For her, it was obvious... Reading was way better than TV. And I know this for a fact as she spends more time reading on an average in a day than she spends watching TV.

Question was: what was she going to say and how was she going to say it convincingly. So we (the entire family) worked on helping her with what she wanted to say. She tweaked the content to suit herself and then made sure she could say it as she wanted it.

The day of the preliminaries, she came back glowing (so my wife tells me...I was travelling). She had been shortlisted as one of eight students who had made it to the final rounds. That night when I spoke to her on the phone, she was bubbling away with facts on how the rounds went and I could feel her amazement at the fact that most of the students had picked Television over books. To her, it did not make sense. She kept saying that using her imagination while reading a book was the most fun part of reading, something that she could not do while watching TV.

So the day of the final contest arrived. This morning, 18 students (8 from the third grade and 10 from the second grade) gathered to present their views in front of more than a hundred and fifty students, more than 50 parents and scores of teachers. The confidence these little ones showed while standing on stage, holding their microphones proudly and saying what they believed in (and had rehearsed) was outstanding. That day, they were all winners. The outcome was only a formality. Most of the students did not think so, though.

My daughter was one of them. 

She was in the contest to win! I can still remember the expression on her face while the marks were being announced. The contest had been fought so closely that the difference in the 3rd place and 2nd place was just a couple of marks. So was the case between the 2nd place and 1st place.

And when they announced her name as the winner of the debate, her face was radiant as she stepped forward to accept the applause. She had made the effort, she had performed flawlessly and she deserved to win. And that desire showed.

I am so proud of my little baby. She has shown that she can achieve whatever she wants if she just puts her mind to it. She has the instincts of a winner and I hope she keeps it up. I was grinning from ear to ear the whole day!!!