Let's Talk

This weekend, Bill Magnuson and I took advantage of the entertaining, ludicrous, and slightly depressing world of college debate.  The format is simple; two people debate a topic against two other people, each showing how the other side is clearly wrong.  This is fun with inexperienced people because they don’t take it seriously enough to care about the outcome of the match.  I soon discovered this large underground contingent of debaters on the “national debate circuit” who have been doing this for most of their life and generally take the fun out of the whole debate procedure.  They share secret phrases and handshakes, talk about “running steno vs. anti-fem,” and do a pretty good job of pretending they are better than you.  That’s not everyone, otherwise I wouldn’t even be interested in debating, but I can see a few who fit that mold.  It’s also a little scary to be able to debate either side of a case, even if you know it’s wrong, with such enthusiasm.  I’ll file that somewhere under “life skills.”

I was thoroughly shocked and amazed to see Dorna at the BU tournament, representing UPenn.  Sadly Ashu did not make the trip.

I’ll probably continue this debate and see where it takes me.  Well, I know where it’s physically taking me; a free trip to Stanford and NYU.  Until then, I’ll suffice with a nice conversation between friends and fireworks on the roof.