In which we wonder at the shape of things to come

There does seem to be unrest among the natives.

Usually each school year goes on just like the previous school year. Debate tournaments appear when they’re supposed to appear, and everyone who is supposed to go goes, and everyone who works them works them again. For better or worse, not much changes.

2016-17 looks to be different, at least from my perspective. It will start off like last year with plucky little Byram Hills, but then I’ll go into hibernation for a while (or more like estivation, or even more specifically, like Indian estivation), given that I won’t be a part of the Pups anymore. While I think I’ve already commented that I’m perfectly happy to get most of September back into my private sphere, it’s still an adjustment. If nothing else, it’s the only time I ever eat at Shake Shack. And there is something about working a huge mother of a tournament at the beginning of the year, to shake the cobwebs out. And culling the Pups waitlist has always been a fun summer hobby. Oh, well. I mean, let’s face it. Realistically, once you no longer have a team, you are sort of a third wheel. And your perspective changes. I like the unattached perspective, but I would imagine that eventually all the schools I work will wonder why there’s this ancient mariner sitting in the tab room aiming his crossbow at the albatrosses circling the building.

Whatever.

Then Vassar reared its Poughkeepsian little head and said it wants to run a tournament. We agreed that the first weekend in November was about the best chance, but when I disabused them of the idea that there was a boiling cauldron of local high school parli teams just looking for rounds, they sort of receded whence they came. Whatever. I was trying to make the point to them that early notification was of the utmost importance. Their ut and my ut are obviously different mosts. We’ll see what happens there.

Of course, the biggest cauldron of turming oil is Penn, with its change to the weekend before Prez. They seem to want to make all sorts of other changes as well. They really don’t seem to realize that the high school debating mindset is made of granite, and that any attempt to mold it is almost inevitably doomed to grueling frustration. I gather from hither and yon that there may, in fact, be a competing tournament pulling up their slack. This would be ruinous. I don’t think anyone the Ben Fs work with supported the change of weekend, but I have to admit that I said I’d work with them either way. I mean, what’s it to me, all shriveled and shooting at albatrosses? Now I'm starting to get the feeling that I’ll be the only one in the tab room, unless I go down to Camden and shanghai a few sailors. I hope they like ukulele music.

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