A late start

There are people around the country who have already gone back to school. Our first day of classes is September 9. Have I ever mentioned that the northeast marches to a different drummer?

The good news is that, even with the late start, which of course means a comparable late start for debate, I don’t think it will affect the newbies much. They’ll have well over a month before the first-timers’ event, and a few weeks before the workshop, so there’s no reason for them not to be on track in a reasonable fashion. This isn’t true every year. October and November this year have about 30 weekends between them, and everything fits beautifully (unlike January, where nothing fits). It all works out one way or the other, but I do like novices to have a suitable enough amount of time before they embark on the Sea of Forensicality. If the first year is a combination of learning the basics and getting confidence, the more time you have to build these both up before you actually step in front of a judge, the better off you are, assuming that your opponent is in the same boat.

The same boat? Every year I have to explain, yet again, how a novice is someone in their first year of debate. Web 11 says “beginner”—or a nun newly entered into the convent, but forensics isn’t a convent and none of my novices are ever nuns, so why is the question asked every year, multiple times, without fail? The same thing will happen when we run the First-Timers’ event. We will be asked how we define first time, and as always, I will say, well, the meaning is very hidden, and what it really means is that they’re debating for the first time. Well, bust my britches, will be the reply to that one. Who knew?

This is why I did not pursue a career dealing with the public.

If you’re wondering about the new tabbing software, CP is now on vacation, jaunting about in various places where they natively speak a sort of English but you can’t understand a word they’re saying, plus London, which is like New York in that you never hear a word of English spoken except in restaurants, and then only heavily accented. (I know there are such things as English restaurants in England, where the Queen's English is spoken, but having eaten in one once a few decades ago, I learned early on to avoid them.) In other words, CP is in no position to sit around programming his little fingers off. What I want to explore next is some practice PF and, most important of all, LD with MJP. I could create some test data myself, but it would take a lot of time of mindless data entry, whereas CP can just clone existing data or have the program generate test data (which is what I’ve been working on so far). So, there won’t be much news on that front for a while. There’s no way I’m using it at the Pups, in any case, if you’re wondering. I might have mentioned that I’m thinking of a test with Kaz at Monticello. It’s not so much seeing if it works as being comfortable with how it works. One does not want the teeming millions breathing down the neck while one struggles with unfamiliar software, even if the software is perfectly good. We’ll get there, eventually. But not just yet, St. Augustine.