Day 3

The past couple days have been a bit sad. We shipped ourselves off to the state speech and debate tournament on Thursday evening and woke up to do our preliminary rounds yesterday. It's the last year for about nine or ten of us on the team, and we were hoping to make it one to remember. Jonathan and I were already bitter about being unjustly knocked out of the running in the district tournament (as it turns out, we have beaten both the 1st and 2nd place teams in public debate this year, as well as most of the teams that quarterfinaled). With the exception of the sacrificial cross-examination debaters that competed, most people garnered a place in the semifinal round. Kibe didn't make it in expository though--a great travesty, considering that he was the champion last year. As semifinals and finals passed, the hopes of glory faded: even after giving one of my better speeches I was knocked out in semifinals in extemporaneous, Beth and Jamie fell out of the running, and our debaters were knocked out in quarterfinals. Even more excruciating was the variance in the judges' rankings. In perhaps a third of my rounds one judge ranked me 1st in the room, while another ranked me 5th or 6th out of 6 or 7. Having such a variance does not inspire confidence in the justice of the rankings. In the end, Hannah won humorous, I placed 2nd in radio commentary, and few others finaled and placed, but nothing like what we had hoped for. In the final radio round in which I placed 2nd, I was ranked 1st, 3rd, and 6th out of six by the three judges. You can tell that I really feel good about that one...

Today ended with a somewhat lackluster 4th place finish to an interesting four years of speech and debate. It's 4th place out of 25 or 30 teams, though, to put it in perspective. Yet, I think we placed our expectations too high. Speech is at least as much about luck as it is skill, and last year we were very lucky with our success that nearly allowed us to win the state tournament. This year, the luck was bad when the time came. I'm still happy though: 4th place is still better than most, and I placed in an event. Westview won the day, with their cross-examination and policy debaters, that really are only opposed by a few people at Barlow and Ashland--the only schools that seriously do those events. It was a fine end, but not a great one. I don't think I shall ever debate again.

Now I must go work like I have never done before. I really don't want to.