Debatable, My Dear Watson

Good day, unreasonably attractive audience,

I come to you from my cozy dorm where I am blasting Neutral Milk Hotel and eating dried apple rings. My day today has improved greatly, which isn’t saying much because a day can only get better after you have an 8 am Chemistry test that you are quite sure you have completely failed. Every day I am more and more convinced I should be an English Major. Not because I realize I’m an excellent writer (The readers of this blog can attest that my writing style is, at best, average.), but because I’m realizing I am a terrible scientist.  Onwards? Onwards!

I’m going to skip to Saturday morning, as the weekend was actually quite eventful due to the fact that the Bates debate team hosted a novice tournament. This is where all the new-comer debaters debate against each other in a friendly but competitive setting. There were ten teams, including me and Alex (my debate partner for the tournament).

For our first round, Alex and I were “Opposition” (meaning that the other team comes up with what we’ll be debating about). The case was about the Large Hadron Collider and luckily I knew quite a bit about the pros of The LHC as well as the Higgs Boson particle and other things. Also, Alex is quite good at giving speeches (better than me, which isn’t saying much). So we won that round.

The second round, we got to choose what the debate was about.  We ran a case about farmers markets and food stamps. We won that round too.

The third round was when we ran my Harry Potter case about how students should be sorted by the sorting house in their fourth year. The opposing team (who are super good) counter-cased (which is hard to explain, but it makes it tougher on us to run our case) and we ended up losing the round. But it was a close call and I plan on running the case again.

The fourth round, we were opposition again and the case that the other team ran was opp-choice (which means we get to decide which side we argue about). The case was this “A man walks up to you and asks ‘Pirates or Robots?’. Which do you choose?”). This is a silly case, and it’s frowned upon for a case to be this vague, but we chose Robots and won because we’re awesome. This meant that we made it onto semi-final rounds.

In semi finals, we went up against Taylor Blackburn (award winning novice and all around bad ass)  and Matt Summers (award winning debater). They are probably my closest friends at Bates College, and yet it was not awkward at all debating against them. I think it was because we both knew there was no way Alex and I could win. They ran a case about schools for LBTGQ kids and, unsurprisingly, we lost. People kept on saying how well Alex and I spoke in that round, but I think they were just being nice. Anyways, I was excited I got into semi-finals, as I was thinking about just not entering into the tournament at all. I’m quite glad I did.

Taylor and Matt went on to debate against Jarron and Ben (excellent debaters as well). Jarron and Ben ran a carbon tax case, which no one enjoyed, and Taylor and Matt won 5-0 (as in all five judges voted in their favor).

Later that night, there was a debate soiree, where people got drunk and talked to me too much, people got drunk and danced in odd and eccentric ways, people got drunk and started clinging onto people and telling them how adorable they are, and people got drunk and made out with other debate members. After the fun of that, Colin, Taylor and I went back to Colin’s dorm, where he read Hemmingway to us until Taylor fell asleep. Then Taylor and I went back to our dorms.

On Sunday morning I did not get up until 2 am. Oops. That was supposed to be my work day. However, I got the things I needed to do done, studied for chemistry and went to sleep at 9:45.

On Monday, I had Chemistry at 8 am, had a Chemistry Lab from 1-4 pm, and then went to a Chemistry study session from 8-10 pm. I then went home and studied Chemistry.

On Tuesday, I studied Chemistry and Chinese, did Chemistry problems, ate food, went to my classes, and then went to my Chinese Literature night class after putting my laundry in the dryer. I then came back to my laundry room to find all of my clothing thrown around the room, still quite damp. I had to put it back in the dryer for another hour, in which I did Chemistry.  By this point in time, I was stressing about my Chem Exam which was in 8 hours (it was midnight), and about how all of my clothing was damp, wrinkled, smelled bad and how I didn’t have enough hangers for my clothing. I was also quite distraught over a few missing pairs of socks. DAMN IT, YOU GUYS, IT WASN’T AN OVER-REACTION! COLD WEATHER SOCKS ARE EXPENSIVE. I was on the brink of tears and quite close to a mental breakdown, so I started to sing to myself. I finally got to sleep, woke up, took my Chemistry test, and then the day got better from there.

Today I worked on the crossword with Taylor, watched a documentary on Andy Goldsworthy (Which was really good), explored the library for about a half an hour (The Periodicals section of the library is so boss), and then had cookies and milk in Commons while editing Matt Summer’s (my friend!) short story. Oh man, my day was quite good at that point. Cookies and milk, you guys. Then Matt and I went to a debate meeting and actually partnered together for the first time. We opp’d (we were opposition) a case on a theoretical oppressive dictatorship and revolution. It was fun and we (read: Matt) won the round. When we got feedback, I was told that one of my main strengths in debate was being sarcastic and humorous while also getting a point across. So hoorah.

Alright, I’m going to go read some feminist literature or do something scholarly.

Try not to cry about my absence in your life, it’s embarrassing,

Nicole