Every Tournament - The Third Year Chronicles #15

This past weekend I attended my seventeenth tournament. This was one of the... most interesting tournaments I've been to. It was one of the few tournaments I've been to without my club being a huge presence. There were only about 11 of us, aside from the juniors. The order of rounds was divergent from the average. It rained. It was foggy and cloudy. But regardless of this, there were some things that were the same as at every tournament.

Over the last couple of years, I've noticed these things are unchanging at nearly every tournament.

1. Mispronounced Names

During breaks and awards, the tournament director, no matter who he or she may be, mispronounces at least one name. Every. Single. Time. Often, the whole tournament has to shout the correct pronunciation at the director. (i.e. Wasilewski). Even if this person wins everything, the name still gets said wrong. Every tournament director does it, and we get over it.

2. Postings Stampede

Postings go up. Everyone charges the wall and surrounds the postings person. Feet are stepped on. Debate boxes are tripped over. Most debate related injuries occur here.

3. Fake Postings Stampede

Someone yells POSTINGS over the noise of the student area, and sometimes they get a group to go with them to to postings wall. But, in reality, it's just postings from the last round. People are deceived. People are angered. Those responsible for the fake rush are frequently sent to the Debate Dungeon.

4. New Embarrassing Tournament Stories

For instance, during prep before the first parli round, I was chewing gum. The judge arrived before the other team, and while we were waiting for said team, I figured I should spit out my gum. I stood up and walked behind the judge to the trash can. I bent over and, before I spit the gum out, hit my head against the whiteboard. I dropped my braided hair and it fell back over my shoulder and I spit my gum out and it landed in my hair. I tried madly to get it out, but, as you may know, gum and hair is not the greatest combination. So I had gum in my hair and on my hands and it was gross.

5. Ballot Party Insanity

The ballot party on Saturday was small, and ballots weren't discussed much. Rather, we talked about the atrocity of the Hobbit movies and even more insane tournaments and other stuff I don't remember because I was exhausted. As always, we got a little loud (mostly Katie. She was loud.) and we got shushed by a member of the hotel staff, and we discussed how cliche such an act was.

(From Thirty Seconds Used)

Also, I asked people to vote affirmative. But that doesn't actually happen every tournament. It does, however, happen every blog post.

So yeah... You should do that.

(This post is part of a series called The Third Year Chronicles. Click here for TTYC #14)