Another Deboot Tournament

Hello Everyone!!!

This is my first time using a blog and I'm not so sure that I like it, but I guess it will be fun. I'm realizing that only 2 or 3 people read this, but that's okay, I guess you two or three are the most important people EVER! For those of you that are wondering, deboot is my word for debate, and we had another debate tournament this weekend in Caldwell, Idaho. Britt and I have recently realized that college debate isn't quite what we expected, but it still has it's fun times and highlights. The college debate circuit is a very different place than the high school debate circuit. To begin with, you actually get paid to debate in college, while high school debate is a self-sacrificing activity where you have to pay your way. I say that because the people college debate draws is very different for that reason, it's almost a buisness instead of an activity. It makes an interesting dynamic.

Anyways, I want to apolgize upfront because we didn't take any pictures (we forgot our camera), and after reading Heather's blog for the last week or so I've realized that pictures and videos make a blog worth following...I guess you'll just have to live without pictures for now (we'll try to get some later to make up for it). But let's get to what happened this weekend (it was very exciting).

Britt and her partner Aly Shanklin and Jordan Park and I debated in Senior Parlimentary debate (the highest level of debate on the college level). Britt, Aly, and I are new to parli debate so this usually doesn't happen, but coaches from other squads wanted us debating in Senior, so it works. Britt and I also did Informative Speaking as a speech event (it's a ten minute speech informing people about a certain topic, both of our speeches are on INL technologies). So here were the results, Britt did amazingly well, and I did pretty well for myself. Britt took 2nd place in her speech event, and she got 2nd speaker in Senior Parlimentary Debate (Jordan Park got 1st speaker and he's been doing Parli debate for 3 years now, so she was phenomenal, especially for only her second time doing Parli) So I was very pround of her, I knew she was amazing, although sometimes she feels like she isn't that good. This tournament reminded her about how talented she is and showed everyone else on the team how good she is. I also did pretty well. I got a finalist award in my speech event, meaning I probably got 4th or 5th, and Jordan and I ended up winning Senior Parlimentary debate. The debate rounds went until about 8:30 last night, so I'm pretty exhausted, but it was lots of fun. Out of the 4 teams that broke into the semifinal rounds it was Jordan and I, and three Utah State teams! If it weren't for us, Utah State would have taken home 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, but we debated them all and beat each of their teams which meant we sent them home with everything except for 1st place.

So Britt and I were rather successful, we only have one more debate tournment for this semester, it is a Linfield College in the Portland area the weekend before Thanksgiving break, so we've got a good break for now to rest and regain our strength. (and catch up once again on our homework!!)