Monday, February 27, 2006

Saturday of fun

My friend Shellie is VERY involved in the local high school Speech and Debate club, which is good for the students because the teacher in charge doesn't really know what he is doing.

What this means is, Shellie eats, sleeps and breaths Speech and Debate.
She cuts scripts for students coaches them on how to make a stronger impression on the judges as well as recruits more students.

As well as judges.

Saturday was the second time I've judged for a tournament and each time has been very fun. This week was the first time I judged Public Forum which is the event that most people associate with speech and Debate.

I know more than I thought possible about Wal-mart.

The first team I judged started with their opening argument and the opposing team was shooting me these weird looks throughout. It turned out that the opening team had been given the wrong problem by their coach and wasn't prepared AT ALL for the actually problem. It's hard to make Israeli issues apply to Big Box (not Bucks) Retailers. On top of that they couldn't find their coach, and ended up forfeiting the round.

The Second round went much better and I got in my note taking-judging groove.

The third round was horrendous because some icky judge ran over by at least 30 minutes, was in my assigned room and had the other team. It made everything else really rushed and it was hard to remember what the teams of that round had said in order to judge them accurately.

Thank goodness I went back into the apt and got a pad of paper to take notes with.

Fourth round was much better although I ended up judging three of the same teams which isn't really allowed but the tournament had run out of judges and we didn't have a choice.
The kids were really well prepared and it was interesting to see them argue the opposing side of earlier rounds. A lot of the studies and statistics were the same through out the event but it was interesting to see how the different teams used the information to further their argument.

Shellie got one of her students to perform his Humorous Improve for Laurie and I and it was HILARIOUS! It had me laughing out loud, which set Shellie off as well. It was a play titled "Open to Interpretation" and it was different ways the story Hansel and Gretel could be told: Soap Opera, British Comedy, Shakespeare, Musical...He took 1st place of course.

The not fun portion of the evening was getting lost on the way home (no I wasn't in charge of directions) We were out in the Boon Docks of Indian trail, where all the roads are named the same except for some small difference, it was raining and dark- Not fun. But not to worry we adjusted our written directions (we threw them out the window, but not really because I don't condone littering) and got home with no problem.

We were all completely beat by the time we got back- it was a long day: left at 7:45am and didn't get back until 9:00pm.
Next week is States but I won't be judging because I "volunteered" to help out Sis. Heilpern and judge Odyssey of the Mind on Saturday.

3 comments:

Matthew said...

Sounds like lots of fun to me.

Josh said...

i wish we could pick a friend to judge us in a band competition. then maybe we'd get a trophy.

Terra said...

I'm sure you would. Unfortunatly I dont' judge any of Shellie's kids- Judging kids from your own school is a no-no.