Clarification: I mean best experience of my life so far. I’m only 19, I’m sure I’ll have a lot more best experiences.
I’ve debated on my community college’s speech team for 5 semesters now. I’m the veteran of the team since our two other most experienced debaters only have 1 semester behind them. So, yeah, I’m the old person of the team.
I’ve even been on the team longer than our current coach. For my first 3 semesters, we had Miss A as our ever-enthusiastic coach. She now coaches at the school my boyfriend goes to, so she is my boyfriend’s coach. Damn coach thief. Although, she got replaced with an equally enthusiastic counterpart, so it’s okay.
Debate, a battle of words (as my current coach Darren likes to call it) is grueling, political and subjective; as well as emotionally, physically and intellectually exhausting. It is also the best thing I ever signed up for.
However, this post is not to praise debate and encourage everyone to sign up for it (I do that enough when the teachers ask me to recruit in their classes.) In fact, I’m going to talk about how I am so done with the best experience ever.
Parliamentary debate proved to be even more challenging than when my mom put uncoordinated, scrawny me soccer as a little kid. Parli debate allows you 20 minutes to prepare a case for or against a usually political resolution. 20 minutes. You get the topic, have 20 minutes to prep (or less, depending on how big of a trek the tournament’s campus is), and then spend the next 40 minutes listening to your opponent, crafting arguments and basically tearing shit up.
Resolutions that I’ve encountered before:
The United States Federal Government should approve the Keystone Pipeline.
The United Nations should provide aid to Syrian rebels.
Iran should agree to immediate peace negotiations.
The United States should repel the Affordable Healthcare Act.
Edward Snowden is a threat to national security.
You get the gist. Note also that you don’t get to chose which side you want. As much as I, personally, want universal healthcare, for that hour of my life, I’m all for taking it down.
And it’s so technical because every single argument you make must have very specific reasons, examples and impacts behind them. The structure is detail-oriented but you also have to consider and include a lot of “big picture” arguments as well.
Through debate, I learned so much about how our government works, how other governments work, how people work, how systems work… now, give me 20 minutes and I can talk like an expert about anything. Also, it taught me how to control my panic reflex.
I didn’t start getting good at debate until a year after I began. After attending about 5 or so tournaments, at my 6th one, with a brand new partner I’d only debated with a few times, we got to the semi-finals (putting us tied for 3rd place in the tournament.) At this last tournament my partner and I took home 2nd place, outlasting the preliminaries and making it all the way to the finals by beating a team from San Jose State, which is a four-year school that used to always beat my old partner and me. Also, out of however many other debaters there were, I got 3rd place as a novice speaker.
I’m glad I’m ending my debate career on a high. But whenever I tell people that I’m not pursuing any form of speech and debate when I get to Iowa, they’re shocked. And the truth is: I’m so fucking sick of debate. Literally.
In the last year, my anxiety levels concerning debate rounds have risen dramatically. It’s usual to get nervous before a tournament but I was throwing up every morning before a tournament. Around my 2nd semester, I started feeling nausea before tournaments but I’d usually be fine once there.
But it got exponentially worse in the last few semesters.
I couldn’t eat at all during tournaments. My coaches got worried, so I would nibble on whatever they gave me but the only reason why I wouldn’t pass out was that I would get all my nourishment from sipping lemonade.
I also used to be able to gorge myself once all the rounds were done for the day. At this last tournament I ate a few fries, half a chicken strip, maybe 3 bites of whatever I got at Applebee’s and a mozzarella stick. And quite a few bottles of lemonade. That was all I was able to get down for 3 days. My coach wanted to force-feed me a sandwich, I know.
The anxiety issue got to a point where I was hoping that my partner and I wouldn’t break into the out-rounds (where you place and get awards) because I was feeling so sick, exhausted and run-down. I was dreading doing well.
But we did break. After finding out, we went to the hotel. Once my partner left to hang out with everyone else on the team, I cried. I was so done and cold and just wanted to be home. I called my boyfriend who managed to calm me to a state where I could sleep. I threw up that morning, got dressed in my business casual wear and didn’t put any makeup on at all.
I considered purposefully losing the quarter-final but I figured that wouldn’t be fair to my partner who works so hard.
We got to 2nd place, losing only to a partnership on my boyfriend and Miss A’s team. (It’s weird that two community colleges made it all the way to the finals because usually the 4-years can crush us.) It was oddly satisfying to make it all the way to the last round for once but the satisfaction only came after the round was over.
We were supposed to have the California State tournament after but our school didn’t let the team go because of funding (even when we are one of the closest colleges to where the tournament was being held.) Which was good for me because I didn’t have to talk to my coach and drop out of it myself. Even though I feel bad for my teammates who wanted to go.
But I could not do another tournament after the last one.
I learned so much from debate but after all this time, I’m burned out and I’m excited to move on. I plan to submerge myself in literary circles once I get to Iowa and leave the practice of debate behind me. I’ll continue to have the debater habits and analyze problems like a debater but no more rounds for me.
Sometimes we do things with so much energy and vigor that we are bound to burn out. And right now, I’m burning out of debate.
I’m forever grateful to Miss A for recruiting me because debate gave me confidence and precision. And I’m also grateful to Darren and the other speech coaches for making me stick with competing because I really need to finish what I start sometimes. And they let me finish on a high.
So now I’m finished.
Hayley with 2 Y's 