September 17, 2006

Colds + Debate = voice shutdown....

Imagine having a really bad cold, you know, the stuffed up nose, the clogged up throat, the talking as if you are holding your nose...all that stuff. Now, imagine you are going to a 2 day debate conference where you , and argue and speak in front of lots of people. If you were ever crazy enough to do it...you would feel like me right now...I mean after enough your voice just decides to shut down...
Actually it was a really good time. The Debate conference was 2 days in Indy and we had a combination of lectures and debating and overall was a really fun time. But having to take care of junk disposing every 5 minutes in the bathroom didn't make things very pleasant, but that's life.
There's a lot I could say but one really interesting or stressing thing occurred. It happened on Friday. At this conference there were 2 different kinds of debaters. Beginners and intermediate. However there were only 12 intermediate debaters and a TON of beginners. So only a couple of us brought an actual case. Therefore when some of us were asked to debate in the auditorium that night, there was a high chance of me getting picked. And of course...I was. I wasn't terrified...It's early in the season and the other kids didn't know any more than I did about the resolution. The only thing was that I didn't know until about 10 minutes before the debate that it was going to be in front of everybody AND we were going to be "critiqued"...for the beginners. we just looked at ourselves like, what does that mean?! But we soon found out. The first speaker got up and got ripped apart about everything by the "critiquer". Keeping hands out of your pockets and speaking this way and keeping yourself organized and he was stopped about every 30 seconds!! So now, imagine being next! yeah, it was a little nerve racking...so I get up and before I even get through my intro I get stopped! I'm like "what now, I haven't even started!" But I got through it and after it was over I think it was one of the best critiquing sessions ever for all of us and I think we will all remember what we were told!! Though it was kinda like a "trial by fire" almost! We all took it well, and I decided to make a joke out of half of it and get the audience laughing to loose the tension. I mean imagine being the audience thinking, "I am sooo glad I'm not that person!!" Anyway, besides that, and having a really bad cold while being ripped apart, it was fun doing mock debates, yelling during parliamentary debate, cracking codes, and just hanging out. I think it was worth it...

13 comments:

Tamara Rose said...

hah! Nice post. Grose but you got your point acrose. lol nah its good!

I so could not do that! It was hard enough doing a normal debate in frout of 20 people. And it didn't even really matter if we lost. But we won of cose! Can you even argue that Australia even comes close in comparison to the U.S.A.? I don't think so! We shut them down! lol or something like. :)

I just left you a lovely comment on your post below. It was very nice of me to do so. lol! I think i'm delareous Andrew so i'm going to end this comment. :-) ttyl
Have fun doing all your crazy things this week.

~ the Ossie girl.

Charity said...

woah I guess you're probably pretty voiceless at this time. ;-) You are a crazy kid, you know that?? hehe but I'm glad you had fun! hope you get over your cold soon. oh we had our debate on Friday. "That the U.S.A. is better than Australia." It was us three girls against 3 ozzie boys (duh :-p). Guess who won? Despite the Ozzie judicators, ozzie audience, AND ozzie teacher, WE AMERICANS WON! Yess! And a lot of people (even the parents of the opposing team) said we had some really good points....though they didn't agree with all we said, of course. ;-) It helped that the boys were like 12, 13, and 14..though 2 of them had taken the debate class before. Anyway, I think I'll go update my own blog now! See yas,

~Char

Christina said...

YOU GO GIRLS!!!!! There's nothing that makes me feel better than kicking guy butt at their own game. Okay, I know that sounds weird, but w/e. I couldn't do speech. I'm not that kinda person. But I can do plays and musicals (atleast church ones). But with your speech ability, maybe you should be a polotician or a pastor or somethin' like that.

~You Should Be Dancing...yeah

Christina said...

that last sentence was to Andrew, i dont' think girls should be pastors no matter how good they are.

Maria JoAnn said...

Well, Charity and Tamara already told you this, but we had to debate on friday that the US is better ten Australia. We didn't prepair as much as we shold have, but we did end up wining. So that was nice. I was a bit scared because I was just getting over a cold, and my ears were all clogged up all day, so I couldn't actually hear myself, but I am told I did an ok job. I hope you are feeling better now. have a great day Andrew

Anonymous said...

HA!i finally posted!
man, i could never do that debating stuff,for one thing, it's hard to talk about things i have no knowledge about...i prefer math and science over all other subjects...esp. public speaking.=0+

Graham said...

Ike. There were three things that I think I would have enjoyed: the yelling, the cracking codes (did you use that crazy math one, the beyond hex thing? the base 64 one?) and the hanging out. I must agree with Ali. Math is the way to go. (unless you are doing differentiation to determine the slope of a straight line. thats just dumb. guess what I was doing last night.)

erudil said...

I'm just confused: what is the connexion of cryptography with debate?

Andrew said...

Let's just say the people running the conference are real creative...

Anonymous said...

By the way, creative means nutso-kabanso.
May I take this oppertunity to say you are all very creative.

The Phantom of the Kitchen.

Christina said...

*blushing* Awe, thanks!!

Anonymous said...

2 days is a long time....

Graham said...

I have taken jibes at my sanity as compliments for years. I have no marbles, and am proud of it.