T2B100, T2B101, T2B102

I came back from provincials debate yesterday and I'm sooooo tired.






We didn't get any awards. :( I'm really disappointed, not because I expected to get an award, but because I;d hoped either Margo or I would place top 10. Although I guess that's not realistic, since she placed 13 and I placed 18 in Regionals. These people were soooo good though--Chloe Chen, Crofton, she placed 10th in Provincials and her partner Lucy didn't even place! But they were, like, 2nd team! (I forget their individual scores in Regionals) 1st junior speaker was Adam Miller from WPGA and they also placed first in team, Adam and Eric Lyall, who happens to be the brother of the famous Lloyd Lyall, who, along with Samantha Starkey, debates nationally. (That was a really long run-on sentence.)


Anyways, Sam and Lloyd (Proposition) debated against Antonio Balogh and Adam Cicek (Opposition) from Vancouver College. (Sam and Lloyd won.) It was this actually a pretty intense debate, and it was preeetty tough.


The resolution was: THW offer dictators amnesty in exchange for leaving power.


That's... a pretty hard resolution. If you listen to the two teams debate, it makes perfect sense what they're saying. You are so ready to believe them. But it's so hard to think about it if you had to come up with it yourself. It's kind of like math. When you watch someone do a math problem, it's like, Oh yeah, I know how to do that. And then you try to recreate it and it is so. Freaking. Hard. (That's kinda why I screwed up so badly on my Trig test... :'()


Anyways, I thought they were both really good. Quinn and Lewis told us once before, the reason Sam and Lloyd are so good is because they lay everything out super clearly for you. I finally got to see this in action yesteryday! :D They explained all the steps that they would take, but in a really reasonable way. Antonio and Adam were also really good, refuting Prop's arguments by also advancing their own at the same time. The one thing about Opp, that I think may have lost them the debate, is that their refutation was based on only 1 thing, which Prop admittedly didn't take down too well, but then again, Prop refuted Opp's points really well. There weren't a lot of contentions introduced, but one thing that I think Prop did well was they explained the trickle-effects of this resolution, which was really clear. Prop (Sam and Lloyd) won the debate, but the round was so close that it was a 3-2 win. (No speaker scores, win-loss from 5 judges.)


Anyways, about Margo's and my personal experience.


We were kinda nervous going into the tournament, but Mr. Hauck told us something that I think really stuck with us. He said not to think of this as "THE PROVINCIALS" but just another debate. We were also nervous about people better than regionals (and thus being so good we'd die) but he said, the better the opposing team is, the better the debate. And that was totally true! The 5 rounds we had this time were actual fun debates, where we didn't know if we'd won or lost, but we'd tried our hardest and argued our case fairly.


Awards aren't everything. I know Margo and I both felt a little disappointed, but really, it's the experience that counts. We still have years, we'll get really good at this. It's only our first year, after all. I think just the experience of debating and the skills you get is worth it! Debate is one of the things I truly love. It's helped me so much and I think that the practice, and the learning experience is just so amazing. The more tournaments we go to, the more we improve.


I'm just happy to have made it to Provincials :) and I'm SOOOO excited for next year!