Better than Expected, but Still Worse than Desired

The results from the Pacific University Speech Tournament came in today. They were better than they were earlier in the year, but still not up to par. Carolyn Bacon obliterated the field in Dramatic Interp, obtaining the absolute, highest possible score. Her characterizations were truly stunning and unnerving. The freshmen debaters Marcus Robinson and James Ranney made it to quarterfinals in junior public debate, where they narrowly lost 2-1 with a bad topic. The Kadish-Anderson dynamo was a little disappointed to also only make it to quarterfinals, and also lose 2-1 on the same lame topic, in senior public debate. On the brighter side, I was ranked the 2nd best speaker out of something like 88 competitors in the senior public debate division. Jonathan was a just a few points behind, ranked 9th. Overall, we took 3rd as a school in our division. It's not as good as I think we can do, or should expect to do, but it's certainly a fine first step on the road to reclaim our glory.

In other news, I beat Ted in two showdown matches for the last spot on the single Science Bowl team. It is going to be really fun. The team is: Ari "Das Führer" Allen-Feuer, Carlin Kersch, Erik Werstler, Colin Corbett, and myself. This team is probably stronger than last year's B-team, which won an event at the national tournament in Washington DC.

Mock Trial is going really well so far, too. Not only are the people--other than me--on the A team some of the best people overall in Mock Trial, but they're some of the most fun too. As long as Beth doesn't bring up "Sex and the City" or "Desperate Housewives" too often, I'm quite happy. That's the only serious disadvantage of the skewed, 5:2 female to male gender raio. And who knows? We may even have a shot at going to the national tournament, if all the random factors fall our way.