Megan's: No Experience, No Case, No Problem

This weekend went exactly as the title suggests.

I went to my first Speech and Debate tournament this weekend (just a little bit late) and was flipping out. My partner, Hannah, and I had unintentionally signed up for (and surprisingly got into) Wooster, an apparently hard tournament. Of course, this entire fiasco (that we're thankful for now) happened over a simple communicational error.

Miscommunication

GOOGLE HANGOUTS:
Hannah: do u want to do wooster? i mean its a pretty difficult tournament and its in 10 days and we dont have much...
Megan: yeah... we need to work though.

Turns out that I meant to say "yeah" to "'it's a pretty difficult tournament" and not to the actual question: "Wanna do Wooster?".

Thank you for the same joke!

Of course, everything is now over and I'm glad for that tournament. It was my first tournament, first time debating, first time doing Public Forum, and first time working with Hannah. It was our first tournament together since I dropped from Lincoln-Douglas (sucks) and Hannah dropped from Duo Interpretation.

Hannah for the umpteenth time: clearly I have dependency issues
(She made that joke like 14 times)

And we went 2-2. Won two rounds, lost two rounds, and extremely surprised. After all these un-credentials and this tournament being the first for me ever, we managed to actually win two rounds and place 28th out of 48th?

When we saw that, we screamed, stomped down the halls, and continued screaming. We thought that we had placed dead last, and with some fortune, possibly second-to-last.

Talk about luck, hard work, and 4 hours of sleep.

It was exhilarating nonetheless. Such a competitive environment with people who cared about Russian sanctions just as much as you did. I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

And that's why I am. Fremont Ross, here we come! (If we make the roster)

Just for kicks, here are some of the funniest argument I heard all day and a kick from the ballots we got:

Resolved: On balance, economic sanctions are reducing the threat that Russia poses to Western interests.
Con argument from Round 4: Russia will behave like an animal when it is cornered: retaliate.

Unfortunately, Russia is not an animal and, therefore, will not react like one.

Same team's argument: The poor Russian people are hurt by sanctions!!
Same team: The citizens of Russia will get mad at Russia (about the sanctions) and join the army.
Same: Russia takes money from its citizens and gives it to the military.
Sa: Russia is a communistic country.
S: Communistic countries don't care about their citizens.
BALLOTS about the same team: Taylor, why are you putting on socks while your opponent is speaking?