Dipped toes and cannonballs: Debate edition

Excited. Nervous. Filled with trepidation.

All accurate descriptions of what my emotional state was before the parliamentary debate tournament on Saturday.  Although I did this sort of debate in high school, the comparison between the two is comparable to the difference between an original Ford Model T and a 2010 Lamborghini.  The fundamentals are the same, but so many things are changed in translation.

Like country of origin and doors.

In high school, sophisticated debate is when both teams manage to fill their times, stay on topic, and refrain from name-calling during round.  Solvency, inherency, topicality, kritik, plans, debate theory, or even what sort of debate the topic dealt with (policy, value, fact) has very little play into a typical high school round.  For one, many competitiors haven't reached that level of maturity/logic.  For another, the judging pool tends to be made of parents, bus drivers, and people off the street - a group that, while they may understand logical and rational argumentation, generally is unfamiliar with competitive vernacular, especially if students are spreading (speaking waaay faster than normal speeds).

In college, this all changes. 

Judging pools tend to be full of debate coaches and former competitiors.  Students tend to be more mature and are held to a higher standard (and get Internet during their preparations).  This all adds up to making parli, to use a collequialism, "OMG-super-freaking-holy-crud-on a stick-difficult-hard".

So nervous-ness?  To be expected - especially since I had a partner even more green than me and only 2 half-practice sessions to refresh me/gain an idea of what my partner's and my strengths and weakness were. 

First round: Our disjointed-ness showed.  I was PM (the prime minister or head speaker) and sucked quite badly at both of my speeches.  I was uncertain and gave up control of the round almost instantaneously.  My partner, the MP did quite well in defending ground in her speech, but that was exactly it.  We defended, not attacked.  We lost.

Second round: The topic was heavily skewed negative - the side that we had.  I acted as the LO (Leader of the Oppisition or the other side's head speaker), but dominated the speech.  This may have had to do with my confidence on the resolve, the general lack of confidence of the other team, and my practice within the first debate.  I was  choppy, but looked - and felt- as if I knew what I was doing.  Due to our burden's press argument (arguing that the other team needed to prove that their argument was based on facts - which they couldn't), we won.

Third round: The other team flipped the resolution around so instead of arguing against "The Estate Tax is Unfair", we argued against "The Estate Tax is Unfair (because it is too low)".  We did a decent job of refuting their points - not brilliant, but for not being mentally prepped for such a turn, we did alright.  One of the most interesting things about this round was that our judge was a 3rd year law student going into tax law.  We were careful not to get into a factual debate, but just hit values (it was "unfair" to those that created their wills to take the money from those that they intended to give it to and hand it over to the government).  Due to our defeat of their points - and a fumbled last speech by the PM - we won.

Fourth round: This was a fun round, but ultimately was lost due to a confused definition.  I also did a bad job allocating time in my last speech as PM.  Essentially, we won all of the arguments except for the one that the judge decided on.

I feel much better about college parli now - especially since my partner and I are both ambitious and want to do better.  In addition, most of the stuff that we lost at was due to the unfamiliarity of different terms and speech roles.  My partner needs to work on organization, while I need to work on trusting my partner - in high school, I never had a partner long enough to where I could relax and start to trust their competency - especially when I had newbies as partners.  I just hope that I can relax to the point where I can start to do that with her.  Y'all will know when that point is because my blog post will be entitled "We kicked ass".

Oy vey

I was planning on doing a blog post about my current living space, but then I recieved a call that I have to go pick up my dad.

So this is all that you get.

Th3 fl4w.

At my college, our winter break lasts from the middle of December to the middle of February so a 6 week Winter Session can happen.  For those skipping Winter, the two month vacation is pretty awesome.  However, for those enrolled, you only get the two weeks surrounding Christmas and New Years off.

Which stinks.

In order to boost my total number of credits, and to pad my GPA, I decided to take two classes that should be a piece of some sort of confectionary delight. Theoretically, I should need to just show up to class, endure the lectures, and collect my A's.

Simple, right?

The problem is that this session is 1/3 the size of a regular session.  So a class that would normally be 1.5 hours two times a week is 2.25 hours FOUR times a week.  Needless to say, this is a problem, especially in classes that aren't all that interesting. 

I am in class for 3 hours on Monday and 7 hours on Tuesday - Thursday (ending at 10pm) for classes I don't need and aren't interested in. 

I'm a great planner, I am.

On the move?

My mother asked me a few days ago if I would move in with my grandparents - they are getting too old to live in their house without serious help.  My grandfather cannot walk and has to get help to move from his wheelchair and his bed (which are the only two places he really goes.)  My grandmother cannot lift her arms above her shoulders - and she's 5'1''.   Both fall on a semi-regular basis.  They should probably move into an apartment designed for seniors, but, due to some unwise decisions and a reverse mortgage, they cannot afford to move out.  Both my mother and my uncle go over and spend time helping them get their house decent - my mom did 2+ hours worth of dishes last Sunday - but I am not sure if that is enough. At the same time, I am not sure if I want to live there.  As I'd be a free boarder, I'd be expected to go and help out - a lot.  I'm not sure if I will have the time, what with the 2-3 honors classes I'm planning on taking and (hopefully) a job come spring.  The other issue is that I would need to adjust my standards for both food and hygiene.  I've never had to cope with moldy bread or rotten vegetables to any great extent.  These are the norm at my grandparent's house.

Conclusion: They definitely need help, but I'm not sure if I'm the one that can give it.