If you’re looking for the beginning, it’s right here. ;}

And here’s the part where my brain drops right out of my head, because I honestly don’t believe that this really happened.

Guys, I put my all into this thing, but I don’t know that I actually expected them to send me to Wales again. I thought about how nice it would be, but I don’t know that I really even considered the possibility—beyond pure speculation—that I would actually win the thing again, that they WOULD hand me another check and a few weeks later I would be making travel plans. What!? No. What?!

“We marked this very closely,” Gwyndaf told us, “It was a very close one. And the one thing that will matter in Wales—is you’ll only be singing in the Eisteddfod in the Welsh language.” He said later, “It purely was on the Welsh”—and oh, you could feel the expectation in the room, because I’m sure many of them were largely unable to identify the exact accuracy of our Welsh diction, the same as me. And then Gwyndaf presented second place to Sabrina, and, audibly, the whole room let out a breath.

And my mouth fell open, again, because it always does, I can’t help it, it’s the same big dumb gaping face I made when I won in Orlando. I am not suave. In fact, I am so far from suave, when this happens, I am the anti-suave. I am completely shocked, just because I really didn’t think this would happen—especially after seeing just how polished her performance was.

But then he gave first place to me. And I walked up in a daze, and they handed me certificates and a trophy—the same trophy I won in 2005, a tiny bit worse for wear but the exact same one—and shook my hands, and we all exchanged hugs, and I was just so flabbergasted I could barely speak.

I had been catapulted into an alternate universe and I simply didn’t know what to say.

In fact, even now, I don’t know what to say. So I’ll show you my competition video, instead, with Alan Thomas playing the wonderful accompaniment. My gracious and enterprising mother shot it for me from the back row.

Thanks, Mom.