Friday, March 31, 2006

Preparation for life

Or, where are they now?

One wonders, occasionally, whatever happened to everyone? People pass through your life, debaters that is, and you wonder, well, so-and-so must have graduated by now. What are they doing?

The Jolly Tars are a great example of how debate prepares you for life. We have two--count 'em 2--people working for literary agencies. Go figure. We've got one funeral director; I can imagine her giving the eulogy for the dearly departed really really really fast, enabling her to bury at least a dozen a day. You-know-who, of course, dabbled in pornography before hiding out in an insurance company while planning to go to law school; easy to see how debate helped him. Lots of CLG's generation is legal: K2 and Rubin and the Olive are all looking to become professional shakedown artists (i.e., lawyers), although C has devoted herself to proving that Larry Summers was wrong and that aside from science it's really all about the food and being French. Wedro was down south looking to break into baseball. The Mite is raising the Nostrumette and coaching at Tennessee Williams. Dave, of course, was a Speecho-American and not a debater, but he's teaching and coaching, of all people, the Tars of today. I'm not quite sure what Marc does, he of Dave's generation, but he claims it's IT-ish although the software he stole for me didn't work and it takes him a long time to answer email, but at least he put the idea of being in the army out of his mind (although his general conception of the military was being in a state of permanent AWOL). Martin didn't end up in Iceland translating from the original lava lumps, but he did get married, which puts him in Dan F's category (i.e., not in Iceland and married). Malpractice? Well, he hasn't assassinated any presidents yet, so that's a step in the right direction.

As you can see, there's nothing like forensics to set you up for the future. Can you imagine what any of these people would be doing if they hadn't forensed?

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