Permission to come aboard again, etc.

New Plebes have come aboard? Seems as if. There were two of them last night, asking questions like, “What is the point of all this?” Their appearance follows an activity fair at the school, and the interesting issue will be folding them into things in our so-called middle. At least we’ve only begun talking about Nov-Dec, so they haven’t missed anything there. Meanwhile, the PC will try to explain it all to them today after school. If this works out, he’ll explain it all to me.

I know that I should be obsessing over Bump, but there’s not much to obsess about until we get nearer to registration close. At the moment we almost have as many unhoused as housed, and there’s nothing I can do about that, plus there’s waitlists, some of them fairly deep, in every division. Once it dawns on a few folks that the housing really isn’t going to happen, things might open up a bit. In any case, I’ve got plenty of alums coming to judge and eat at India House. Fortunately CLG can’t make it; the last time she and I had Indian food the restaurant burned down the next day.

This weekend is the first NYCFL debate event of the season. I’ve got one novice, four judges and those two plebes (I think). Not quite the normal distribution, but at least it’s plenty of people to carry the equipment.

Once again, as I alluded, last night we had at Nov-Dec again. I have trouble with this one. The neg is squishy at best, trying to have it every which way thanks to the “not” wording (where is “forced to choose” or “in conflict” when we need them?). The aff is stuck with the inherent double negative of “abuse” of “illegal”—both those prefixes indicate an opposite, and the two opposites together add up to total confusion. My assumption is that we go quickly to decriminalization on the aff, but trying to make that stick through the round is tough. At least it’s not US-based, so people can look to countries where drug use is decriminalized. Let’s hope there’s light at the end of the tunnel in Jan-Feb. This one is going to be painful.