I think the VCA understands that I do work for a living
outside of the debate universe, and that the Day Job takes up, well, my day. I
devote a lot of time to debate, but that is not DJ time, and there are only so
many hours in the day, one way or the other, so while I attend to business(es)
I don’t always keep up with the extras. In other words, I’m offering my excuse
for not blogging as regularly as I would like. Then again, you might like if I
blogged less, so what do I know? But if that is the case, why are you reading
this? We are about to head into what will presumably be the most horrifying
presidential experience in the history of the nation. You could easily spend
hours a day following along as everyone and their mother-in-law prognosticates on the
damage Herr Trump will do to the nation. Gospodin Trump? Whatever. You didn’t
come here to read about that, so I won’t darken your mind with it. You want to
hear about adventures in debateland.
I have gone over the Wee Sma Lex setup in tabroom. I didn’t
change much, except for some leftover items from last year that needed to be
set back to zero. I do have questions for Kaz when I arrive there tomorrow. We’ll
have time to sort them out while she’s handling the tiny bit of housing that
she’s offering some New Yorkers. Monticello has a little contingent going, for
instance. Mostly, of course, the tournament is for locals. But it was always
one of my favorites, even when the Hud was a rarity amongst those locals.
Running our own tournament the week before, for novices, meant that my novices
had fallen behind and needed some rounds. Plus my second-years could take
advantage of the open division, which is intrinsically of the Lite variety, and
get some good rewarding experience as well. Plus they could debate folks other
than the usual suspects. I use to pack a big bus in the olden days. Then I
would pack a little bus. Or the car, in the thinnest times. Now it’s just me. I’ll
listen to a book and entertain myself well enough, but it won’t match the joy
of watching students cringe with every song that comes out of my iPod. I never
once turned any of them into ukulele players. Go figure.
I’ve begun clearing the decks for Penn. It seems early, and
in fact it is early, but, well, the numbers won’t change terribly. We’ve got
the rooms, alternating the varsity and jv debate events, but it’s going to be a
long weekend. Well, all Ivies tend to be long weekends. We should all be used
to it by now.
Princeton is about done. I have a little juggling of judges
(judgling?) to do, but we’ve pretty much covered everyone. Now we can start
meditating on our commitment to e-ballots for LD. That’s going to be a
challenge, requiring great attention to room assignments to keep everything as
compact as possible to allow for oversight. My guess is that the simultaneous novice and varsity on
Friday night will be a nightmare, but that we’ll have things sorted out on Saturday.
Then Sunday everyone will take forever and we’ll have to read the riot act that
you don’t have half hour critiques, half hour prep and half hour setup time
once you get into the room. I want to get home that night!
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