Tournament Orphans

I'm an orphan. But only about once a month for a few days. And not really ever during the Summer. I'm only an orphan at debate tournaments.

Whenever my dad actually goes to tournaments (and he doesn't go to a lot) he works in tab. You never see those who dwell within the walls of the tabulation room. They stay in that room. Sometimes, you pass by this room, which is usually a tiny office in which are crammed several people. exceeded the suggested room capacity. Tab sometimes gets food leftover from the student lunches and the judges room. It is all they have to survive off of, since they cannot escape the prison like room known as tabulation... You get the point. I hardly ever see my dad at tournaments. Sometimes he emerges from tab to watch my speeches, but this is a rare and precious occasion.

I have never been to a tournament without my mom. But alas, I hardly ever see her, for she works tirelessly within the walls of the judges room, rendered off limits too all those who are competing. But this is not because she is always judging. She almost always works toward making sure all the rooms of competition have a suitable number of judges in ballot push. I see my mother even less than I see my father.

It is a strange sight for me to see other students with their parents. I can't help but wonder, 'shouldn't they be working? Or judging? Or, I don't know, eating judges' food?' But some kids are not rendered orphans at tournaments. But we tourney orphans manage to survive off our friends' company- and their snacks.

Maybe one day I won't be a tourney orphan. But that is unlikely. Vote affirmative, out of pity for this poor little orphan.

When Will My Round Begin

(To the tune of "When Will My Life Begin" from Disney's Tangled)

7:00am, the usual touney line-up

Start on my speech and practice and polish up

Duo, extemp, impromptu, mars hill, apol

Speech again and by then it's like, 7:15?

So I'll watch a speech, or maybe two or three

I'll add a few new cards into my 2AC

I'll play guitar and time and eat and basically

Just wonder when will my round begin?

Then after lunch it's parli and juniors round two

A break for tab room and Apples to Apples too

Practicing, chatting, texting and announcements

Then I'll stretch, maybe sketch, take a nap, write a script

And I'll re-write my speech, if I have time to spare

I'll fix my 1AC, I'm sure there's room somewhere

And then I'll time and time and time and time extemp

Stuck in the same room I've always been

And I'll keep wondering, and wondering, and wondering, and wondering

When will my round begin?

And tomorrow night, awards will appear

Just like they do on the third day each year

What is it like, up where they glow?

Now that I've practiced, tab room might let me go.

Vote affirmative... as soon as my round starts, that is.

Refract Light Like A Diamond - A Tournament Re-cap

No. I will not get up at seven. I glared at my glowing blue alarm clock then turned and buried my face in my pillow. You're supposed to sleep a lot before a debate tournament, because you won't get a chance for the next three to four days. But no. Me and my stupid Pre Tournament Sleep Disorder. I managed to stay in bed for another hour and finally got up at eight, supposedly two hours before we were going to leave.

I finished packing like, two hours before we actually left. so I sat around and cleaned and whatever until we left an hour after the intended departure time. Then I sat in a car for five hours. We (my family and I) listened to Adventures in Odyssey because, guh doy, we're homeschoolers, and then we sat and they (my family) listened to music in their own little introvert worlds until we reached our intended destination. We went to eat with some of our club. We went back to our hotel where tournament check in was, and I saw my fantastical TP partner who lives in AR and don't even ask how that works because it's not important. So then we hung out and talked about bananas and debate and cookies and stuff.

After going to bed, which took way too long considering the fact that we had to be there at 6:30 the next morning, I woke up and got dressed and was ready long before the rest of the people in the room which was my whole family minus my oldest brother. I didn't go downstairs because I thought that breakfast wasn't served down there until 6:30, which is when we had to be at the tournament.We eventually were ready and went to the tournament for a very, very long day.

I said hi to my TP partner again, and to other friends. Some I hadn't seen since April or even March. Some I had seen on Tuesday. But it didn't matter. I was reunited with my friends. And then we had a debate round. My fantabulous partner and I debated groggily, since it was 7:30 and I am not at high functioning capacity at that time of day.

Soon after that debate round, Speech round 1, pattern A started. I had three events so I bounced from round to round giving speeches and panicking. I can't even remember what my impromptu topic was. (But apparently it was a good speech because I got a first that round.) Then we had lunch, which I was very grateful for, considering the fact that I hadn't eaten all day. So I ate food, then went to judge juniors.

When we received the list, I thought that maybe that was a list of all the junior platformers. Nay nay. It was all the juniors in the room. There were nine. Nine cute little kids giving expos speeches. They were adorable. They were quite talented. There were also a lot of them. Nine kids in one room. There were ten in the room my partner was judging in. I decided not to judge any more juniors the rest of the tournament for fear of being late to my TP round, or worse, delaying the whole tournament which is what ended up happening that first round.

I practically ran to my TP round when postings went up. I honestly have no recollection of what team we hit that round, but it was a lot of fun and, like in all of my aff rounds, I got to quote the Lion King. Then it was Speech round B, in which my duo was in. I hoped I wouldn't end up killing my duo partner for being late, but he managed to be there on time and we gave our duo and he lives to this day.

Then we had juniors and parli round two, and I wasn't going to judge juniors for fear of getting stuck  judging ten kids in the room, so I sat around bored, until I decided to watch my friends debate. I sat in the room, waiting for the round to start, and when it did I started texting my friend Hannah, who couldn't make it to the tournament, live updates about the round. I came up with a team name for the team I was watching, (Marjamin) and did so for the rest of the tournament. I sat outside my DI room for round two, texting Hannah about the odd conversation I was having until it was my turn to go, then I waited forever until we actually left the building and returned to the hotel.

My partner and I debated my ex-debate partner the next morning. It was totally weird and almost awkward. But then my former debate partner is always weird and awkward so it wasn't any different than usual. My duo partner and I got like a million people to come watch our duo, because last time no one came to watch us. So my duo partner kept getting chairs for people to sit in because there were a lot of people and they all watched and it was great.

Then after lunch was parli and juniors round three. I watched another parli round, again giving Hannah live commentary about the team with the awesomest team name ever: Australia. Then there was a debate round and a speech round where I bounced from room to room because I had three events in one pattern because I am an insane person. I remember when I used to look at people who did five events like they were crazy. But now I know that they are not crazy. Just... mentally unstable.

Another debate round and then we would end the day with a speech round. No one was showing up for the duo room my partner and I were in, including my partner. So I had one of my friends track him down to apol and drag him back up to the room where I threatened to kill him but everything was okay and our duo went really well and I got to sing.

After duo, my friends and I started coming up with a song parody to Love is an Open Door. Then later I came up with one to When Will My Life Begin and also one to Do You Want To Build A Snowman? And I slept and I woke up and I flipped out because breaks were that morning. I got ready and actually ate breakfast and we went to the tournament and I broke in impromptu and then there was a parli round to kill time for tab and so I wrote down the live commentary because Hannah was not responding to my texts. Apparently normal people sleep in on Saturdays or something crazy like that. And one of the debaters who is usually very serious said 'funzies' within the round. I died. Not really. I'm still alive. Clearly.

So then I waited outside of impromptu finals, which was right next door to apol finals. Which means I got to listen in on a very long conversation from the apol finalists. Amendment: a very long theological debate from the apol finalists. Then I finally went in to impromptu finals and there were a ton of people in there which was weird because what kind of crazy person watches impromptu finals when duo is down the hall? But my speech went well and the judges apparently liked it.

Then there was another debate round because having a debate round after speech finals makes a lot of sense. (Read: having Debate round 6 after finals does not make sense.) So we exhaustedly debated and I changed clothes and sat around and "watched" parli finals and "watched" TP finals and ate amazing pasta like seriously the best ever (for a tournament) and then I wrote more song parodies before awards. Then I flipped out because my friends are amazing. Then I got a shiny, beautiful, blingy, second place trophy. And then we went to the ballot party which was pretty good, but not as good as last year's AR Diamond ballot party, but that was like, the best ballot party ever and will be pretty hard to beat.

And so now I have tournament hangover. Vote affirmative, because I have nothing else to say. Please excuse me while I go refresh Speechranks until they post scores.

Happy tournamenting!

The Strange Things Speech and Debate Kids Do

Let's be honest: speech and debate kids are weird. Maybe not individually, but in general. We do some pretty weird things, things that almost no other group of people do. Since it would take hours to list all the strange things, I'm just going to list five of them for your amusement. Of course, if you are a Christian homeschooled speech and debate kid, then this will just be reassurance that you're not alone.

5. Speech Ranks Stalking

We all do it. I'm pretty sure that Speechranks is a legit thing to fast from. I don't know how, but we manage to spend hours on speechranks. There are two forms of speechrank stalking: Number one is where you stalk yourself, and the people you've competed against. You go to a specific tournament and look at how far away you were from getting a checkmark. Number two is boredom stalking. It's a progression, see: first, you look at your own ranks. Then you look at your TP partner's ranks. Then you look at their duo partner's. And then the duo partner's parli partner's ranks. And it goes on. And on. And on, until you're looking at impromptu champion from NITOC two years ago's TP partner's persuasives scores.

4. Speeches on Youtube

I don't mean speeches about youtube, because I have yet to see a speech about youtube. I have, however, seen just about every speech that has been videotaped and uploaded to youtube. I can spend a significantly long amount of time watching said speeches. I know I'm not the only one doing it, because some of these have a few hundred views and I haven't watched them that many times. Although I think I could watch Chandler Lasch's speeches that many times.

3. Green Checkmarks

How even..?

Now, in and of themselves, green checkmarks are pretty normal. But when you're a CHSADK, you have a pretty abnormal desire to have those things. Some people are green with envy for money or big houses, but CHSADK's are green with envy for green checkmarks. (Well, not 'with envy,' but you know what I mean.) Getting one checkmark is great. It gives you hope. Hope for another green checkmark. And when you get the second checkmark, you have an internal party. At checkmark number three you think, "wow, where am I gonna put all these imaginary checkmarks?" I don't really know what happens after number three, because that's the most I've ever had. If you have had more, then please, let me know what it was like.

2. Wall Interps

Clarification, I'm not talking about walls giving interps, because, not gonna lie, that would be ridiculous. I'm talking about those interp kids (myself included) who practice their interps in front of walls before their rounds. I have done this... twice. Maybe three times? See, I've only done an individual interp at one tournament. I anticipate much wall interping in my future.

1. Public Speaking

Honestly. Some people would rather die than speak in public. But here we have hundreds of teenagers standing in front of strangers giving speeches on a regular basis and loving it. We are an insane group of kids. We're almost as insane as the Sherlock fandom! (But, of course, no one is as insane as the Sherlock fandom.) We face judgement on a regular basis- and we love it. Sure, we don't like it when we get eighths on our ballots when eighths don't actually exist, but it makes for great stories! We are a crazy group of kids- and I wouldn't want it any other way.

*~*~*~*

In other news, it's 2014, and I just came up with a great New Years resolution that doesn't involve going to the gym daily or eating healthy food 24/7... You can vote affirmative! *Shameless plug*