So....we’re all super excited about this year right? Well, I’m here cause I wanted to talk -- honestly and openly -- about the struggles of well, being a first year debater.
It all started before Concordia Debate Camp this summer, while I was frantically trying to complete my assignment (not to mention my brother’s assignment too -- he was out of town and wasn’t coming back till the day before we left). You see my brother is a second year debater, so even though I’m a noob, I got to debate in the Open track....and, you guessed it, do the Open homework -- for both of us! Woohoo. I was totally lost. After calling a debate friend (at 11:00 PM ::cringe::), I got my act together and finished up in time -- barely.
Anyway, that’s how my season started. I was definitely not a debater, and didn’t want to become a debater. FYI, my interpretation of the word “debater,” was based on my experience from last year: those weird people I pass in the hallway on the way to my IE events, talking at 100 MPH about...well whatever revenue generation policy it was they just hit, and the nineteen disadvantages they used to absolutely destroyed the poor AFF team, and it seemed like their sentences just wouldn’t stop because they’d never ever pause to take a breath because they really just needed to....yeah.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to step on anyone’s toes there. That’s just how I saw it all. I was a speecher, not a debater.
But fast forward a few months -- it’s February, and I’ve officially competed in a whopping four debate tournaments.
Huge confession: I loved them. I did. I definitely wasn’t one of those “weird debaters,” but I had fun.
So now I’m in the groove, right? Research....foreign policy...it’s all good. At club this week, I was told to write a general negative brief on cyber-war. Awesome! I started researching, going through the motions -- then there was that one piece of evidence that I really, really wanted. And I found it! Haha! I chucked an evil chuckle, looked at my sister and said, “Ha! I just found the perfect piece of solvency evidence for me general neg on cyber-warfare.”
Then it hit me. Oh. No. I was a debater. I’d finally become one of those people I used to pass in the hallways. I had just completely violated Annabelle 3:16, “For Annabelle so loved speech, that she dare not become a geeky debater.”
I immediately consulted an experienced debater-friend, who replied, confirming my diagnosis. I am not longer a normal person. I am a nerdy, debate researcher.
How did it come to this? Is this how it happened to all the STOA debate legends? Probably. Oh well. But it’s fine, cause as much as I hate to admit it, it’s totally awesome.
You’re homeschool, and you know what I mean.
Annabelle, that is totally the sign you have become a nerdy debate researcher. :)
ReplyDeleteI still remember researching back in India year and the first brief I was ever assigned was US-India military cooperation. I wrote a 31 pager because I was so hooked about writing a brief that I thought would shred the case. :) I spent an entire Saturday afternoon on it and afterwards, I realized: Yep, this is what being a debate researcher geek feels like. :)