Coaches

One evening, after a debate meeting, I asked my LD coach if he read my blog. He said, "I didn't even know you had a blog." I replied, "Oh good, I can keep writing mean things about you. Bye!" And then I left before he could respond.

At this point in the story, you, dear and faithful reader, should be thinking, "waaaiiit a minute. She's never said anything mean about her LD coach. She's only mentioned him once or twice. And she doesn't say anything mean about anyone! All that is capable of coming out of her sweet kind and mouth and fingers is pure hilarity."

Oh, stop it. You're too kind.
But you're at least a little bit right. I don't really say mean things about people, especially someone like my LD coach when a) it would be really easy to figure out who I'm taking about in real life, b) if I was him, I would read my blog just in case I did say something mean, and c) even if I'm writing about people who never will read this blog and no one knew who they were, I still don't want to say mean things about people. And certainly not about one of my coaches, because I love those guys!

Coaches are marvelous inventions, aren't they? Think how uncoached the Christian Homeschool Speech and Debate community would be without them. There are, conveniently, three kinds of coaches who deserve our immense gratitude.

1. Parent Coaches
2. Alumni (and other student) Coaches
3. Other Coaches

Contention 1) Parent Coaches
I remember when I found out that my speech coach had kids that were younger than me, and I thought, yes! He'll be around to coach forever! That's something pretty neat about coaches who are parents. If they ever get tired of coaching, they sure don't let on. My club has this neat thing, and I honestly have no idea if this is what every club does or maybe just us because we're a ginormous club, but what happens is all of the parents disperse into the many rooms of the church where we meet, and then us kids go and hand them notebooks so they can write down things while we speak at them. It's quite commendable of all those people to do that. And they have great insight because they're the type of people who will be judging us. Parent coaches are certainly meritorious.

Observation 2) Alumni/Student Coaches
I plan on being one of those alumni one day. Fortunately, it is inevitable at this point as I currently do compete in speech and debate, and someday, this will not be the case. I've talked about alumni coaching us before, and all that I said about them having been there and done that is still true. They know how it's done, people, and they're sure to advise you to do a bunch of crazy things they wish some alumnus had told them to do back in their day. 

Application 3) Other Coaches
Once upon a time, I learned that my club's main debate coach, who's been around for a several years longer than I have, decided one day that he wanted to coach homeschool speech and debate and then he found us and he was only planning on staying for a year, but he's been around for, like, seven years or something and we all lived happily ever after. He totally doesn't have to help us. He doesn't have kids or younger siblings in the club that he has to help, he just shows up because he likes us and we give him food. I think that's pretty snazzy.

So to my happy speech coach, my great LD coachie, and my hilarious TP coach (from when I did that thing), thank you. You're the best. Coaches are so nice and useful. 

You're homeschooled, and so I know you appreciate them too.

A Debater's Christmas Wishlist

It's late December, and Christmas is almost here, and if you're not listening to Christmas music, then I'm not sure we can be friends anymore. I love all kinds Christmas music, even the kinds homeschoolers aren't supposed to listen to, like Last Christmas, All I Want For Christmas is You and Baby, It's Cold Outside, and all those other Christmas love songs I know I'm horrible it's okay please don't judge me I love Jesus songs too. Wait, I'm judging you first for not listening to Christmas music at all, so ha. Unless you're listening the The Hobbit soundtrack, which is supposed to be good. I haven't seen the film yet. Or listened to the music. Don't judge me for that either.

Oh gosh, what was I talking about? Clearly I've had too much hot chocolate. Hold on, I know the title of the post is around here somewhere... oh yea! "A Debater's Christmas Wishlist." To be honest, I thought of the name for this post well before I thought of anything a debater might want for Christmas, but that's okay. It shouldn't be too hard.

If you're a debater, you're probably asking for one or all of these things for Christmas:

• A case
• Two cases if you're an LDer
• Another flowpad because you're out of canvases for your impeccable argumentation
• Pens that write really tiny so you can flow faster and write in more responses
• Lessons in ambidexterity so you can write in even more responses
• Half a zillion Post-It notes
• Ink and paper. For the printer.
• A rolly debate bag or giant box for the evidences. Especially if your partner broke his box, like my partner did, but now I don't have to worry about that because in LD you can carry everything you need in two folders with cupcakes on them like I do.
• Folders with cupcakes on them so we can match.
• Fake glasses if you don't wear them already to make you look smart
• A solvency advocate for your wacky plan ideas
• A definition of privacy that actually sounds like privacy
• A sweater with reindeers all over it. Because reindeers are cool.
• A guide to exactly what every single judge in Stoa and/or the NCFCA is looking for
• A guide to the pronunciation of weird names because people who write evidence usually have weird names
• Membership to a magical website that spews out beyond-brilliant applications that none of your fellow competitors know about or have even heard of
• The top slot on speechranks
• A caselist with every case that everyone ever is planning on running this year organized by tournament so that you know what they're running before they do and you can be prepared

Bonus! All the cool kids in speech are asking for:

• Scripts
• Instant-memorization potion
• The best impromptu examples ever
• An extemp box that's bigger on the inside and fills itself
• C.S. Lewis to write your Apologetics cards
• The ability to have everyone always pronounce your name correctly at breaks
• Expos boards that never break or collapse mid-round

You can feel free to get me all of those things for Christmas. I try to make it easy for people. It's because I care about you. You're welcome.

What do YOU, as a speecher, debater, whatever, want for Christmas?

You're homeschooled, and I wish you the best!

Slapping Morals on Interps

The thing about interps is that when it comes to events considered the most helpful in real life, the interps tend to take the bottom of the list. I don't know why. The judges' thought process is something like this:

Debate (all kinds): Very helpful. It's great to be able to see both sides of an issue, learn from history, find credible sources of information, and know the ins and outs of things the general public knows hardly anything about, and then be able to explain why you believe what you believe in an extremely structured and formal manner!
Apologetics: Most important speech event ever, which is why we always do it last of all the IEs at awards ceremonies, at least in CA. Defend the faith, man. Good stuff.
Extemp: Totally useful in real life. It's so good to see these young people knowing more about what's going on in the world than I do.
Persuasive: Stand up for something you believe in, just so long as it's not an overdone topic.
Impromptu: This absolutely comes in handy if you're ever asked to speak two minutes from now on a topic for, oh, five minutes or so. Which will clearly happen all the time when you're an adult. Also, it's helpful for debate.
Expository: Essential because everyone uses poster boards on stands in the workplace these days.
Original Oratory: It's good because you wrote it and writing is good. But I don't necessarily want to judge you unless you're super creative.
Duo: Duo is my favorite event to watch, and is therefore the most applicable to other areas of life of all the interps.
Humorous: See above.
Open Interp: You know, you, like, read and stuff.
Dramatic Interp: ... I'll get back to you on that.

Just so you know, I happen to think interps are wonderful and I love, well, ALL the events and think they all teach valuable skills but even if they didn't, I don't care because they're so fun. However, judges, for whatever reason, don't always automatically think interps are inherently good. Nope. You gotta show 'em you learned somethin'. That's why people put morals in their interps.

"Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it," says the Duchess from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol. In one particular section of the book, Alice warns the duchess that her flamingo with which she is playing croquet is prone to biting. The scene continues:

'Very true,' said the Duchess: 'flamingoes and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is — "Birds of a feather flock together." 

''Only mustard isn't a bird,' Alice remarked. 

'Right, as usual,' said the Duchess: 'what a clear way you have of putting things!' 

'It's a mineral, I think,' said Alice. 

'Of course it is,' said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said; 'there's a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is — "The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours."' 

'Oh, I know!' exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last remark, 'it's a vegetable. It doesn't look like one, but it is.' 

'I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; 'and the moral of that is — "Be what you would seem to be" — or if you'd like it put more simply — "Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."'

Then Alice politely confesses that she has no idea what the heck the Duchess is talking about. In any case, this is what I think of when I hear people bringing up the life lessons to be learned from an interpretive piece. And when I do it myself so as to not get marked down. One time I did a duo that combined a bunch of Shakespeare plays and that really didn't have any moral to it, so we put in at least seven of them (most of them goofy and/or containing Tebow shoutouts) and the judges loved it. Especially after we performed a rap version of Othello and said that the moral is that two white homeschooled kids shouldn't rap. They laughed and sometimes applauded for several seconds because, in our case at least, it's so true. That's the important thing about a moral. The judge has to hear it and think, yes! You're right! I'm so glad both of our lives have thus been enriched!

I learned this when I did my very first OI back in the day, and everyone told me they loved the moral even though I didn't even know it had one. And then I did my very second OI back in the day and only one judge told me she liked the moral, and another said she wasn't so sure about it with a smiley face. The lesson was basically that money can buy love and happiness. I was okay with that.

So, go and learn something. Tell me what the moral of your story is. It's got one, apparently. Even if you have to make it up. Or make seven of them up. Or do an impact turn of a moral that's really probably not that great. After all (pardon me while I go and fetch my glasses and Apologetics box so as to look really intelligent), all good stories reflect morality in some way, and all good heroes have attributes of Christ, so really, you should have a moral.

*nods*

*goes to cut an HI that really doesn't have any moral. At all. Except maybe "don't believe your family because they're probably lying to you."*

You're homeschooled, and the moral of that is, "people who write blogs are cool."

The Best Value Ever

I'm an LDer, as of previously, and I recently debated in my first real live LD tournament. I learned that I've got a lot to learn. One such area in which I've got some learnin' to do is values.

Values are an important part of Lincoln-Douglas VALUE debate. Obviously. And there are several kinds of values a person can run. At the last tournament, I had one on the negative, like the vast majority of LDers do, but I think I'll tweak it before the next tournament. Just a tad. See, it seemed kind of of narrow. No hope of subsuming Aff's value, which is what all the cool kids are doing these days. Next time, I want something bigger, better, and with which I can say,
"Haha Aff! My value's bigger than yours! It just ate yours up like this: omnomnomnomnomnom."

(that is, when I'm not too busy pirating, which with any luck, and I have usually have approximately zero ounces of luck, will be all the time)

But I couldn't think of what value to run. I mean, I could go with Human Dignity or Human Rights or Individual Rights or National Security or the protection of those things or all those other values that mean basically the same thing but everyone's running those so they seemed way too mainstream for this blogger. I knew, of course, that there was only one possible solution: I must invent a value of my own.

Now, don't think I'm too crazy. Yet. It won't be totally new. I mean, you can't really invent a value from scratch. If no one's ever valued it before, where on earth would you find applications? The Google and Wikipedia would not be that helpful. But don't worry. I will have no trouble with a lack of apps under my new value.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you what is. But you can't tell anyone. Pinky swear? Cool.
Judge, the value that I will championing in this round is

The Protection of Natural Individual Just Secure Free Human Dignity and Rights Including the Right to Life, Liberty, Property, The Pursuit of Happiness, Chocolate, Forensics and Homeschooling

With a criterion of The Moral Natural Social Contract Law(s) including the 4th Amendment, of course.

I know, I know. It's perfect. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.

And then I realized something. Wait a second, self, I said to myself. This value is exactly what everyone else is running. But with a longer title.

So now I refuse to change the title because it's the only thing satisfying the hipster in me and even if my clubmates and peers may raise strong objections, I don't care. And I don't know why they would because it's the best value ever, of course.

But isn't it funny how everyone likes to run the same values with different names and pretend like they're different? Natural Rights, Human Rights, Human Dignity... unless you're running Nat Sec in the truest, Communistest sense of the word or something else that's totally bizarre, your value is probably a variation of these. I think it's funny. I'm terribly amused, but then, that's non-unique.

What, then, truly is the best value ever? I'd certainly urge a ballot in favor of TPNIJSFHDRIRLLPTPHCF&H, but just in case you find that difficult to flow, I suggest that the best value ever is the one that you love because if you love it, maybe other people will too. Awww. Values are so adorable sometimes.

I could talk about anti-values, valuing a word used in the resolution or going with a direct-refutation approach and having no value at all, but I won't. Maybe later. I'm too busy thinking about the chocolate from Halloween that I've hidden from my parents in a secret place. I value that chocolate.

WAIT A SECOND. I thought I was done with this post, but as I was proof-reading it, something I tend to be bad at, I realized that I finally found a link between privacy (freedom from unauthorized intrusion) and chocolate in the aforementioned stash! Best case idea ever.

You're homeschooled. I value you also.

Getting the Judge You Want- Katarina Amerding

(I can so relate, and I'm sure you can too. Enjoy the latest guest post from Katarina! Want to write a guest post? Click here.)

We all know we love speech tournaments, speech tournaments mean ballots
and ballots mean killing the battery in the car on the way home reading them, which
mean exclamations of “So and So judged me!” followed quickly by, “OOhh, what did
he/she say?”

Now, for any of who do not debate, a debate ballot looks like this:

No pluses, checks or minuses here! Just good ol’ hard numbers to tell you
what you did well and what you need to (REALLY) work on. Trust me, it used to
look more intimidating than this. I was told back in the stone age it was a scale of
eight dots. Who uses dots nowadays? Ahem…I digress, under the Affirmative and
Negative bar will be an empty space (cue spacey music) to fill out an RFD which you
I.E people are already familiar with. The focus here is the judge!
We all know there are several types of judges.

Debate Moms- You try to smile while you kill your opponent in front of them.
They want you to be nice and usually write very constructive comments.

Debate Dads- Prefer a little more aggression. They want to know why
military occupation of Slovenia matters or why they should worry about angry birds
harvesting their data, IMPACT people IMPACT!

Alumni- these unique individuals toe the line between college debate
superiority and aching nostalgia. Expect to see constructive feedback, lectures or
simple one sentence RFDs for technical reasons on your ballot.

Community Judges- These wonderful people are thrown into our world,
where we try to teach and crush our opponent at the same time. Expect comments
lauding homeschool awesomeness or votes toward clarity people clarity!

But, really, we all love the judge who is rumored to be retired district
attorney for that debate club that wins everything. Or that-dad-who-writes-the-
most-epic-ballots! Or that-mom-of –of-the-best-debater-in-the-league. You can
arrive in a room checking out your opponent and then….you see him (or her) and
say “YESSS! So-and-so is my judge! (in your head of course). This is gonna be a great
round! You know they will write constructive comments, make you a better debater,
and plus, you can learn from what they wrote to your opponent. You do not even
have to worry about the round, you are simply embodied by the promise of a good
ballot on the way. Ballots like those are so helpful, you frame them, say thank you as
you read them, and say proudly to your parent or coach “So-and- so said this about
my 1AR, or he/she really liked it when I brought up F-16 Fighter Jets.” Comments
like these are the best, they tell you what you can work on, nothing like an unhelpful
ballot (cue sad doggy).

Yes, we love getting the judge we want because it means “EPIC BALLOT ON
THE WAY!” So go ahead and kill the car battery for those (or not).

You’re homeschooled, you got the judge you wanted…kachow.

Debating In Your Head

I flow with commentary.
Yea, it's weird.

Back when I first started watching debate, I didn't actually understand the art of flowing, (p.s. still working on that shorthand... kinda) but then it clicked. Like one of those clicky pens, which I then used two of in rounds, like most people. Except for those debaters who use one pen, which is silly and confusing, or the hipsters with pencils. But now, I use three whenever I watch rounds, so I can add my own thoughts in another color. Neat, huh? Typically, Aff is red, Neg is blue, and I'm in black. As I'm scribbling the rough draft of this post on a bright pink Post-It note, I'm watching and commentating on a round which began with a 1AC, as is tradition, but this one desperately screamed to be turned on its head. And, rather than flowing the round all that carefully, I'm writing my own turns in the free space on the flow. It's much more fun.

I'm an in-head debater. I debate in my head. It's a thing.

I always have been, ever since watching my first ever LD round back in the day and silently urging my favorite debater to say ______, and when he didn't, I was a little bitter, even though I knew it was my first time watching and he was like, really good, so I was probably wrong and he probably wasn't. But then, after he lost the round, I thought, see?? Should've listened to me.

The curse of an in-head debater.

...no but seriously, this round is bizarre. And I'm not sure why the negative stil isn't saying what I want her to.

Oh yea, she can't hear me. Because I'm talking to myself again. Riiight.

The fun thing about debating in your head is that you always have the last word. I mean, seriously, every single argument you brought up was dropped. Also, you get to feel like you won because you thought of things none of the other debaters ever thought of before. And, you can even argue from both sides of the resolution. Can't do that when you're an actual competitor, can you?

The sad thing is they never actually respond to your arguments. And that makes me feel terribly disregarded and lugubrious.

Just the other day, at a debate tournament (yea, we already had our first one), I went up against one of my favorite debaters, that one that I'm terrified of so/because I watch him debate all the time, and I'm telling you, it was a seriously odd feeling to have him actually answer the arguments I brought up. Usually he ignores me because I'm not usually saying them out loud usually. And then, because he's awesome, I almost wished there was another debater up there to give the rebuttals but turns out that was my job. Great.

We already talk to ourselves and the wall at tournaments. I suppose it makes sense that we'd debate in our heads. Just don't do it out loud if you're not actually debating or you'll get yelled at by the judge probably. I'm just saying.

You're homeschooled, so I doubt you ever stop debating.