Friday, January 27, 2006

• jIghIDhgDJAIDhg;IGDFJeif'

  Currently Listening Lifesong By Casting Crowns "While You Were Sleeping" see related

  Well, Masters is over. It was quite a tournament. We got to defend our case against a 33% non-mutually-exclusive topical counter plan. That was just awesome. Plus we got to see a lot of people we don't see but once every blue moon (Get it? Moon? The Moon family? hahahahahahaa... yes, I'm suffering from post-Masters-lame-joke-trauma). We also ended up winning policy, so that's a plus. :P

  And to those who guessed the song on the last entree (and no, I did not necessarily say that you had to get the guess right ): eprops coming soon!

  Deep thought of the day: We went to a Dairy Queen on the way to this hotel, and they had this old Dr. Pepper sign. Soo I wanted Dr. Pepper. But they didn't serve it. This world is full of clever people, but whoever put the sign there was about as sharp as a pound of molasses. Wait... that wasn't deep. Deep thought of the day: I'm going to be in a deep sleep tonight recovering from Masters! Get it???? DEEP sleep? hahahahahaaahahahaaaa!!!!

  Oh! A joke I made up today: Did you hear the one about the dog with a broken leg? *waits for audience to say "no"* Oh, don't worry, it was lame.

   

  

   

  EDIT (we made it home! and... I had a *little* sleep!):

  I wrote this about the tournament on the way home… I had the laptop but, obviously, no internet.

   

  I just KNEW he would be good!

   

  Paul Sellers is AWESOME! I got to meet Paul for the first time this week… I “knew” of him from the [top-secret-certain-forum-that-only-the-people-who-get-what-this-means-knows-of]. He WON LD!! And he also got SECOND in speaks!! AND, get this, this tournament was his FIRST time to ever do full round debates. I talked to one of his judges, and he said that Paul was simply amazing… he was so smooth and sharp, yet humble and full of grace.

   

  Parly Pro

   

  Parliamentary debates are the greatest thing since Davey Crockett. We got to debate things at Masters like, “This house stands resolved that it is best to fight fire with fire.” The debate is different from TP and LD Value debate as you do not have to limit your position to a policy change/reform or a specific value… though you have both of those options. There are two teams: the Government and the Opposition. The Government is to defend and support the resolution, while the Opposition is to, well… oppose it. It’s beautiful.

   

  For the said resolution, I was the Leader of the Opposition, meaning I spoke first and last for the Opposition during the round. The Government ran a case that said (still can’t totally get the link) that we should blow up the UN. I don’t exactly see how fighting fire with fire means blowing up the UN… but… So they ran a policy case. We ran an LD case without a criterion… :-p Our value was “peace” (defined conveniently as “absence of conflict”), and we defined “fire” as “conflict” and argued that if you wish to resolve conflict to achieve peace, then you can’t use more conflict… that would just result in, well, a lot more conflict. Our applications where found in friendships (if your friend hurts your feelings, and you want peace again, do you hurt his feelings also? No, you try to resolve the conflict, not engage in more of it), and in the President (would it be best if Bush responded to media criticism with a bunch of ad hominem attacks? Uh… no). As the round progressed, the affirmative pretty much declared their value as freedom… so we brought up the application of Martin Luther King Jr. If he had used violence against the government, then freedom would not have come, but instead more tyranny and oppression.

   

  *happy sigh*

   

  Parliamentary debate is just all that and a bag of Doritos.

   

  Theory Jibberish

   

  That said, the counterplan that was run against us was probably my favorite round, as it was the first time we had been attacked with a counterplan. It was complicated. We have three reforms in our plan, one of them being instating caps on non-economic damages in malpractice jury awards. The CP simply ABOLISHED non-economic damage awards. It basically went the next step from caps. The problem was that it didn’t take into account our other reforms, so we argued that our case had net benefits with the other reforms.

   

  It was the poor ladies first time to judge… of all the times to hit a 33% non-mutually exclusive and topical case ) We argued that since it was topical, there were basically two affirmative teams, and that to solve for this terrible problem, the judge needed to just check “aff” twice.

   

  Freedom Liberty and Stuff

   

  I also went to Joseph Rose and Jonathan Wolfson’s constitution class. They believe in a living constitution, while I … don’t. They told us before hand to basically debate them, so we did a little.

   

  I heard this one joke that was so lame that...  it hurt my leg!

   

  I’m not exactly sure how it started, but at one point about 7-8 of guys sat in a circle, and we swapped lame jokes. The winning joke:

   

  So there was these two penguins just sitting in this bath tub. And so one looks at the other, and he’s like, “Hey Mac, pass me the soap!” His friend retorted, “well what do you think I am, a TYPEWRITER? Hahahahaah….

   

  No, it isn’t supposed to make sense. It’s one of those that makes you laugh only when you’ve been thinking about non-economic damages and joint and several liability all week with about five hours of sleep per night.

   

  Something God taught me during Masters, in His own way:

   

  Without love we are nothing a clanging cymbal.

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