Debating Against Your Friends

I like my friends. Obviously. That's why I'm friends with them.
Also I like debate. Put the two together and it's like, whoah! awesome! Debating with friends is fun. Last  Monday, I, in an extreme lapse of sanity, agreed to debate my good friend in LD despite the fact that I had never before done LD. But you know what? It was fun. I'm glad I did it. Everything's more fun with friends.

Recently I found my first flowpad from back in the ancient days when I had only been doing TP for like a week. It's amazing comparing it to the flowpad I use now. So much has changed since then. The pens I used then are out of ink (though I still keep forgetting the green one is), I can actually do a 1AR that's five minutes, I know the meaning of fancy terms like "affirmative," "harms," "timer" and "running permutation on non-mutually exclusive counter-plans." But you know what hasn't changed in the numerous months since my uber-novice days? On both my first flowpad and the one I'm using now, admittedly my... second, one consistent theme is that I often debate my friends.

Sometimes they kill me. I mean, not literally, and they're nice about it and all, but I'm pretty dead by the end of it. I guess that's what happens when you have 3 teams in your club who are some of the top teams in the nation and your coach makes you debate two of them the summer before you officially even start in Policy and then the other team very shortly after because you'll apparently learn something. We had fun, but man. I had no idea what the heck was going on. Cross-Ex was a nightmare. But then my friends would always hug me afterwards and sometimes tell me all about the flaws in their arguments so I could attempt to, I don't know, metaphorically poke them next time while they ruthlessly claw at my responses and then unrepentantly destroy them until they no one even remembers they exist. And then hug me.

The great thing about debating friends, though, is that they're fun about it afterwards. Sometimes you debate acquaintances, and you're not sure how you're supposed to feel about them afterwards, so you're nice, of course, but it can get a bit awkward. Sometimes you debate people you've never met or even seen before, and you're not sure if you're all of a sudden supposed to be friends or if you should keep pretending like you've never met, because, if you want to get super technical, you probably haven't. But when you're with friends, even if you don't like them very much during the course of the round, you know you can act like everything's great afterwards.

I love debating friends who, immediately after the round, pretend like it didn't happen. Let's pretend we weren't just arguing. Let's pretend I wasn't attempting to rip your arguments to shreds or attack your credibility with various evidence indicts. Let's pretend I didn't take a careful flow of the 1AC so I can tell everyone in my club about it later. Let's just be friends again. That would be awesome.

So you are. And you laugh and joke and at the next tournament, someone will say, "That was such a fun round, but I still don't know how we won."
"Wait, seriously? You guys so deserved that!"
"No way! You two are great! And-"

And life goes on.

You're homeschooled. No dispute there.

When Your Friends are Community Judges and Love It

You should've seen my church on the Sunday before last. It's not a very big church. It would probably not be an exaggeration to say that 75% of the adults at my church were judges at our recent-est, local-est tournament. Which was awesome.

They were all discussing their experiences before and after the sermon. One judge told me about his Apologetics adventures. He thought the first speaker had a pretty good idea of giving three points within his speech. It didn't take him long to realize that that was what everyone does. Suddenly it was a lot less impressive. He also was annoyed by long introductions and wished that kids would just state their topics right away so he could cross it off the secret judge topic list. But I had to explain that most judges like flowery intros.


He had fun judging LD too. Yet he was startled, because he had been told in orientation that he shouldn't say anything during the round. And then, right before it started, someone asked him if he had any judging philosophy or anything he would like to see or not see during the round. He wasn't sure if he should answer, but he told them that this was his first time and he wanted them to make things simple for him. Then he noticed that both kids were reading their cases they had already written, and figured they weren't bothering to change anything. He was determined to give them something sneaky and nefarious next year to see if they would do it, like "I want you to end all of your speeches by explaining why your opponent should win." I told him that probably wouldn't fly.


It was definitely interesting hearing what everyone thought and who they judged. A lot of them had a lot of big-name speakers and debaters, who they were happy to hear ended up in finals or out rounds. It was also fun hearing one man explain Parli to another and two guys trying to express to someone else the awkwardness of Cross-Ex ("They would look at me, and then talk to the other person. So they're making eye contact with me, but they're not talking to me. It was so weird!"). I talked to my aunt about OOs she saw, and was happy to hear that she ranked my friends pretty high. All-in-all, Sunday was fun. They finally got to see what I partake in all the time and maybe understand why I'm so addicted.


Finding community judges is hard. How many people have a few spare hours lying around on a weekday, or feel like spending Saturday at some school or church somewhere with a bunch of teenagers? Only the awesome people. We love those guys. And really, we're doing them a favor. They always love it, right? They always want to come back. Your job is just that much easier next time around.


You're homeschooled. Thank you for judging.

Taking Forever To Fully Recover From a Tournament

I didn't debate last year. I just speech-ed. That meant a significantly less amount of early mornings and late nights than I have experienced this year. My mom attempted to talk me out of debating so that those early mornings and late nights would be less likely to occur, but it was to no avail. Yes sir, now I have experienced my fair share of early mornings and late nights at tournaments. It's not that we stay up and party at tournaments. No, we stay up and argue with each other. It's way less cool.

You know that moment at a tournament where it just hits you how tired you are? Maybe it's when you look over at your partner before the 2NR when there's 1:40 left on the prep time clock and ask what his responses are and he stares at you like you're crazy and says, "This is your speech." Maybe it's at 11:30 PM when you're crawling into bed wondering if you remembered to give all of your speeches in Pattern B or if you forgot one or two so you stay awake thinking about it for another 45 minutes or so. Maybe it's when the tournament was running a bit behind or something, and for whatever reason they decided to post when you haven't even given all your IEs from the last pattern yet, so you hurry up and do those and then run over to your room only to find out that SURPRISE! there's a class going on in there and they have to relocate you, so you wait outside for 15 minutes for your partner and the judge and the tournament people and then you carry all of your stuff down several flights of stairs and way over to the big, smelly gym where you set up shop and get ready to go Neg against what proves to be Abolish the Death Tax for the twelveteenth time and just as you finish the Disads you had virtually memorized in the 2NC, you sit down and then the other team yells at you and you're like, "What? Oh yea, Cross-Ex. I forgot about that." Not that that happened to me the 4th round of the last tournament. (Was it 4th? It might have been 6th. I don't remember. I don't even think I knew at the time.)

But then, that sneaky tournament is almost over. And you're like, Whoa. It's Saturday? Where did that come from? And then it's the awards ceremony and you half-heartedly clap for ten-hundred people. Then it's over. You vaguely remember your friend winning... something. And you glance at your hands to discover that you somehow came out with a trophy and then notice several medals around your neck and you're not sure how either of those shiny things got there. Your mom asks you what place you got in ____ and you have no idea and tell her to check speechranks in a couple days.

Then comes the good part. You go home and sleeep and sleeeep and sleepandsleepandsleep. For days. Weeks even. You take like nine days off from thinking about speech and debate (except for a few hours Monday night) and try to get caught up on your homework. Because, seriously. The next tournament is in, what? Two weeks? You've got all the time in the world to recover from the last one.

hahaha. Yea right.

You're homeschooled and takin' it easy.

How to Explain Debate To Outsiders

I enjoy talking to my non-speech and debate friends about speech and debate, and I appreciate that they are willing to listen and feign interest. They get interps because they've seen me do a bunch of them. They get impromptu because it's a fairly simple concept, even if they don't know why anyone would ever do it ever. They get platforms because everyone knows what a platform speech is even if they don't know the technical terms. I rarely try to explain Apologetics or Extemp. But this year I started debate, and that, sir, is a whole different ballgame. I have attempted to explain debate to people many times. Sometimes they are smart and realize that they should just pretend like they understand so I stop trying to explain it. Sometimes, they actually get it.

My explanations of Team Policy debate back when I was a non-debater went something like this:

First off, there's this thing called the Resolution. It tells you what they're debating about. So like, if the Resolution said, hypothetically, that we should reform our revenue generation policies, than the Affirmative team would come up with a Plan that reforms a revenue generation policy or two and then roll with that. But then, the other team, called the Negative, gets up and says "No, no, no, no! Stick with the stuff you know! It is better by far to keep things as they are. Don't mess with the flow, no, no! Stick to the Status Quo!" And then the Affirmative has to talk again about why their plan is good. It's not as hard as it sounds. Well, it sort of is. But you get the idea.

Except they usually didn't get the idea. So I try something less ramble-y and more professional now that I actually debate:

Ok, let's try something less ramble-y and more professional. Basically, we have a, um, topic that they give us that we need to debate about. So the affirmative first team stands up and gives arguments and a plan that the government should do, and then the second team argues against them and they go back and forth for 8 speeches. It's fun.

They can usually understand all of that except the last sentence.
But just in case it doesn't click, try this:

Ok, so, there's one team that argues something and then the other team disagrees with everything they say.

Debate in a nutshell, people. Let's pretend that Counter-Plans don't exist, and that no one cares if they're Topical or not. It's best to avoid any mentions of theory, speaker points, timers, flowpads, breaks, records, stock issues, and judges that fall asleep mid-round when trying to portray our little sport to those who have no clue what you mean as it is.

LD is a little easier.
One person argues with another person against what they should like better.

Boom. You're welcome.

You're homeschooled. I hope that makes sense.

Setting Ridiculous(ly Awesome) Goals for Tournaments

We're ambitious. We're competitive and adventurous. We're also ridiculous. We like setting goals. The goals of a CHSADK need not be particularly reasonable, or even all that original. There are the obvious goals we'd all like to achieve, such as, of course, taking first place in all of your IEs and debate and therefore sweepstakes at every tournament you attend for the rest of your life. Who hasn't wanted that?

Or maybe you prefer to start small. Smaller, I mean. Sure, you know you won't win all of your events every time. But you could win some of them. Like, wouldn't it be cool to be one of those legendary interpers who wins DI and HI at the same tournament? Winning any event is a good goal, so two must be twice as good. Especially those two, because they seem so different, though they might not be as contrasting as we may think. Ok, so maybe you're not an interper. But how would you like to go undefeated for a tournament or two? How cool would a record ending in "0" look next to your name? That's a good goal.

Or maybe you start a bit smaller than those. Win one event. A novice event. That no one will remember later except you but you'll have the trophy to prove it and an extra 10 pounds of confidence. That is an excellent goal.

Or maybe you start even smaller. Qualify in an event. Break in an event. Get a shiny medal to hang in your room. Make your timer laugh. Don't pass out right before the 1AR. Or after. Survive multiple rounds in one day. Make a new friend. High-five somebody you didn't know. Achieve as many nametag decorations as there are clubs giving them out. Ridiculous goals? No, probably not. Awesome? For sure.

My own goal is to be one of those people who is famous in speech and/or debate but doesn't know it so she's still friends with everyone and super nice. Of course, I'll never be able to determine if I arrive there or not. So one of you ought to point it out to me when you think I've achieved it, and then if I don't stubbornly deny it, yell and scream at me or something.

Whatever your goal, whether it's ridiculous, awesome, or both, I hope you get there, and have oodles and oodles of fun on the way.

You're homeschooled. Eyes on the prize.

New-clear Wahr- Michael Sheetz

(Michael is attempting to impede the literary genius that is me by nefariously sending me humorously-written guest posts so that I have no choice but to post his rather than indulge in my own creativity. But he's cool, so it's ok.) 

Most people who are passionate about something they do will have a few key words and phrases that light them up like a Christmas tree. And boy do they know it. For example, if you say "New Material" to a public teacher, they'll groan and rant about how the state administration is crazy. Or "Aluminum-alloy suspension forks" to a mountain biker, they'll start comparing brands and costs. Or "Commute" to someone who lives in Orange County but works in LA, you'll get a face full of complaints about traffic and pollution. (I've always wanted to walk up to a Congressman and say "Debt", but I'd expect they'd just shuffle their feet over to the nearest over-stuffed arm chair, muttering about the last administration). But I digress. 

There are 4 basic reactions in the speech and debate community to the words "n-u-c-l-e-a-r w-a-r", or "It that shall not be named". 

For TP'ers, you get the reaction of "YES! IT THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED IS THE BEST THING EVER! Those Disadvantages are the best!?!? Have you heard my it that shall not be named counter-plan? If we use it that shall not be named to destroy everyone on the world, then we save billions of lives in the future! It's brilliant!" (fill the next 30 minutes listening to lots of ridiculous numbers and how it that shall not be named can be linked to malaria killing children in Africa)

For LD'ers, you get "That's an incredible desensitizing issue that the TP'ers are always linking to everything. No one can possible value it that shall not be named." (fill the next 30 minutes talking about how much more important to society LD is)

For Speechers (that aren't in interps), you get, "I'd rather just use Hitler as an impromptu example than it that shall not be named, but it that shall not be named is SOOOO MUCH FUN for Extemp. Haven't figured out how to tie into Apologetics yet, but I know I can."

For Speechers (that are in interps), you get this:

Basically, if you ask any speech and debater, you will get a very passionate answer. And you will lose the next 30 minutes of your life. (Unless you actually like hearing about it that shall not be named, in which case we have the Debate Dungeon ready for you)

But if you are SAD person (it's kind of like MAD, but different) like me, then you know just how awesome it that shall not be named is.

You're homeschooled, and how Bush pronounces it that shall not be named always annoys you.