Novice Nats in Atlanta...!

I am in Atlanta, Georgia, right now coming out of the Novice Nationals for debate. It didn't turn out as we hoped, and for very illegit reasons...

We had 2 rounds the first day, and were 2-0. The next day, we finished 4-2. We hoped to qualify for the octa-finals, but they took the top 16 teams. Guess who was #17??? What was even more infuriating, though, was the pitiful judging. Three of our rounds were judged by incompetent varsity debaters who didn't understand what was going on. The first one didn't like our arguments based on her own personal bias, but because the other team was infernal, she still voted for us. The other two were the next day, and both of them were in the dark about debate in general. We really should have ended up 5-1, (losing one because our politics evidence was really bad--we actually won that one because of a really little theory argument that the other team didn't talk about at all, thus conceding it.)

It turns out that the really bad judges were all from the school where the debate was held, and after finding that out mid-tournament, it was really a bad feeling. It was even worse when we found out that if we had 1 point higher on our speak records, we would have qualified. After we found that out, I found this book, 14,000 Things to Be Happy About, which we voted was one of the lamest books ever. We improved it by editing out the worst "happy things" and adding our own, such as:

+ "Chuck Norris is the reason Waldo is hiding." (quote from debate coach)
+ believing that coin flips are the best way to make any decision
+ making up a policy called "Nukes For Friends" that is comparable to "Toys For Tots"

It is now 14,017 Things to Be Happy About.

The tournament really was a downer, because I knew we could have won. It sounds so egotistical, but if we'd had the chance, we could have done so well.
Oh, well...we had a fun time putting gangster slang into our speeches and watching the judge laugh. Word.