The First Debate

Today was the day of my first debate competition. Yes, the one I was unsure about joining because it would mean giving up my Saturday and not sleeping in late. But, obviously, that is a lazy and lame argument, so I rejected that Ho and decided to sign up anyway.

With my new partner. The one that I basically told he was my partner and really didn't have any say in the matter. Yeah, that one.

I woke up at 5:00 am this morning and put on the pants I'd pilfered from my mother's closet. Later, I arrived at school, where other people were waiting, like my partner, who had purchased some obscure energy drink because he was dying or something. I dunno. The kid is sorta weird. Scratch that, he's a whole lot of weird.

Eventually, I ended up in a stinky van driven by Ressing/Roessing/however her name's spelled (it doesn't matter, she's totally coolbeans), Lindsey and Adrienne and my partner. We sang like three Disney songs and then I dunno what happened.

Somehow, probably by driving, we arrived at the highschool. IT LOOKED LIKE A JAIL. Steel gray, two-floored, with weird boxish looking architectural features that looked like guard towers, and ROTC kids in their army uniforms standing out front - it didn't look like we'd gone to debate, it'd look like we'd been tricked into going to juvenile hall. WHUT.

After some sidelong glances at the ENEMY, some weird warm-up exercises concocted by the Varsity debaters that were basically a take on Theatre I games, and the weirdness that is that entire freakish team, the first debate round was posted! OH NOES. WHUT. I'M PROP? I DON'T WANT TO DEFINE, JUST LET ME GO HOOOOOME.

Hahaha no. So we prepped for twenty minutes, went in against a boyfriend and girlfriend team from I forgot where, and we basically kicked their joint black-tinged, red velvet ass. But apparently, everyone that had to agree with the resolution given pretty much won.

WHATEVER, I WON FROM PURE SKILL. AND MY PARTNER DID STUFF TOO, I GUESS.

It continued in much the same fashion for the rest of the day, with some waiting, then some prepping, then the actual debate, then another break, etc. The second one we lost but I totally should have seen that coming. We lost against this really cool team of badass kids who looked like the dorkiest, nerdiest guys, like they'd just trip over themselves in losing, but they kicked our butts. HARDCORE. Don't even get me started. I respect them though - smarty smarts, AND they were actually super cool. Kept saying hi to them throughout the day.

PIZZA TIME. Yeah, we ate pizza. Watched the rest of the team members be, erm, unique.

Our third debate was OMG WHUT, against the boyfriend/girlfriend couple of earlier. We lost. I don't understand why, I do think it was just some personal belief the judge had, because my team was better. Scratch that. I was on par with the chick, my partner was better than their dude, and their dude sorta sucked. That means we were generally better than they were, but whatever. I felt so bad for the boyfriend because, on our way back to cafeteria area, he was lamenting the fact that when he's next to his girlfriend, he feels so shaky and stuttery and like he's the girl and she's the guy.

I totally saw what he meant. That chick needs to back off. Nice and all but... she needs to tone it down a bit.

4th debate. Something must be said here: by this time, my feet hurt like a father. I'm walking on heels because it's more professional and to make sure my pants don't drag on the ground and, after a few hours and a few times up and down those stairs, my toes are on fire. So my feet hurt, I'm tired, it's hot (not as hot as here, though), and I'm starting to think my partner is semi-retarded/too nice/a creeper/a fugitive from the law and fearing that I may not be able to reject that Ho as my partner because then he might punch me in the face.

Yes. By the 4th debate, I didn't even care if I won, I just wanted to go home, and I was sooooo grateful that I had the 20 minutes of prep time to just chill and watch my partner rub a stick of Vicks Vaporub around his nostrils. I'm telling ya, this kid is weird.

So I chill for 20 minutes and don't worry too much because I'd actually seen my competition before hand and I knew it couldn't be as bad as debate number two. They hadn't even bothered to wear business attire, for crissakes!

The 4th was actually my favorite.

The judge was sort of an optometrist? She develops lenses for eyeballs and whatnot and showed us an example of one that she uses to show surgeons how to do their job. Pretty cool lady. Said she was 47 but she looked to be about 33. Anyway, she was coolbeans and the resolution was: This house would bring the troops home. I was on the opposition side, meaning I opposed the statement.

The proposition defined it as such: The majority of Americans would bring the troops home.

LULZ. GOTCHA BITCH. I learned from debate number two and will NEVER EVER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE let something go undefined. Never. It's too bad you didn't catch me immediately after debate number 1, cause you might have had a chance, but not really.

To summarize: They did not specify which troops, so I took the liberty and said Mexican troops. Why? Half of the US population doesn't even know the US is sending military aid to Mexico, and I was pretty damn sure they didn't. Nobody watches Mexican news like I watch Mexican news.

They went on to say that we should bring the troops home from Iraq? That happened a while ago. Your point is moot, and made of fail.

Why are you talking about the counterculture of the 60's? What does that have to do with your resolution? NOTHING.

And my vaporub sniffing partner even came through for me, saying something about the troops in the state of Chihuahua. The opposing team (which had a dude named KASH, OMG FAVORITE NAME EVAR) was like, "CHIHUAWHAT?" It's good having someone from a Mexican state when we're talking about drug cartels and shit.

We won that shiz. But I didn't even care about winning against them, because it's obvious they knew nothing about what we were talking about. The win in that was the fact that we persuaded a woman who was a deep believer of "BRING THE TROOPS HOME," seeing as how her dad, brother, and grandpa had all served in various American wars and she saw no reason to keep them there.

But she sided with us cause we were more persuasive.

WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN.

Overall, I was happy with my performance. Quite the learning experience. And that's not even to mention all the random crap that debate people do. Like race on the freeway. And have weird dudes from other schools come and talk like they'd known us forever. And discovering that someone did, indeed, define troops as Girl Scout troops, just like I thought they would. And seeing two dudes chest bump in the middle of an empty parking lot. And listen to Carlos Santana OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. And listening to the Varsity members be like, "THAT WAS SHIT, THEY WERE WRONG, WE ARE RIGHT BECAUSE OF CHINA AND ECONOMY WOMFLASJDFALMQ."