Every once in awhile, usually when the mind is allowed to wander unhindered, I find myself thinking about experiences that seemed unimportant and/or mundane at the time that, upon reflection, end up being relatively important, much more important than I could have possibly imagined. Normally, I just forget about these experiences and watch another episode of Law and Order (or one of the many spin-off shows or mirror image shows put out by other networks), flip on the XBox 360 and play a round of Tiger Woods, or just do nothing and fully enjoy the leisure of the life of a teacher in the summer. Today, I choose to share one of these with my friends...
let's preface this with a couple of caveats. first of all, this is when I was in college, and in college, I had a period of time where I experimented with drugs. That being said, there will be some references to some drugs in this. If this bothers you, I'll just tell you to turn the page now and save yourself from the gang-raping of your virgin ears. Also, this happened before September 11, 2001, so there is no way this story could happen today. Thanks, Osama Bin Laden. Third, any references that might appear to be about Miley Cirus is just an illusion, and you should get your mind out of the gutter...everyone knows she's being turned out by the Jonas Brothers...
...I've done a fair amount of transferring between some of the highest academic, accredited institutions in the USA. I had just transferred from Gonzaga University, a mistake I rank up there among the three dumbest things I'd ever done, and ended up at the Sonoma State of the Wasatch, Weber State University. I was going to school and debating for Weber State and was having a decent semester, not insofar as travel, but in the little traveling I was doing, I had been relatively successful. Apparently, the Heart of America debate tournament, in Lawrence, KS was going to be really small in NDT debate, so Nick and Steve chose not to go and decided to stay home and get ready for districts instead. But since tickets had already been bought, the director tells me that I will be attending the tournament, in CEDA debate. To give a little history, I had debated at the Heart in CEDA the year before when I debated at Chico, and we took a hellified ass-beating, winning a lone debate. Out of eight, which looks a lot like 1-7. It was the worst tournament I'd had since my first debate (another story I imagine I will tell at another time), and we spent weeks getting ready for the tournament. The director tells me (i will repeat, tells me, doesn't ask, just tells) I will be going with two days to prepare. This was a guaranteed beat down, and i wasn't really feeling it. He then told me I'd be going with one of my friends, DL. Now I will also note that DL is my friend, but a good debater, he wasn't. So his going doesn't change the inevitable, it just makes it more entertaining...so the tournament is advancing, and we're doing a lot of things, but winning debates was not one of those things. We're going into debate 7 with a stellar record of 1-5, and we're debating a team from the University of Wyoming, a team we'd been beating like red-headed stepchildren for the entire year. The Heart was experimenting with new, crazy formats, from a total block of time consisting of cross-examination and prep time, and you can use it at your leisure, to giving each team 20 minutes of prep time, which was the wrinkle during this debate. During 2AC prep time, my debate partner says he's going outside for a smoke. I assumed he was going to smoke a cigarette. I was incorrect...
...background: we brought a lot of mushrooms to the tournament. I'm not exactly sure how much, because I had spent the greater part of the semester eating the quarter pound I initially purchased (gave money, didn't know how much I was going to get, was pleasantly stunned, and, with no connections and no desire to spend years in the clink, so selling was out of the question), all I know is I was carrying an extra large ziplock bag with a ton of dry, crushed mushrooms. My debate partner had gotten the habit of smoking the mushrooms, which when you're at home, I really had no complaints....Time is elapsing, and the critic asks me if I know where my partner is, and I tell him I don't know, but we should have some time. Turns out he's been gone 18 minutes, so I go out to find him- he's outside, in some doorway, smoking mushrooms (we didn't have a pipe, but we traveled with a water pipe called the USS Enterprise, a two person, three chambered piece with two tubes where people (theoretically) can compete against each other, and when one person pulls off, the other gets the smoke from all three chambers). DL is sitting in the doorway, alone, smoking out of both tubes of this bong, when I remind him about the debate that he needs to give a speech in about 45 seconds. It worked out like you could imagine, a boot in the junk. We were clubbed like baby seals in this debate, to an inferior team (before your time, Stannard), so much so that this debate was forfeited in the 2NR. DL wanted to go smoke, and I needed to be alone, so we went our separate ways. I'm at the Heart, for the second year in a row, with a 1-6 debate ahead of me. This couldn't have been a more dire time. I was considering quitting, when I decided to go smoke a little pot, hopefully, to make this whole experience a little better. So I walk around the building, look for a couple of places where I could be alone. I know nothing about Kansas except that I couldn't have bought a bottle of alcohol, to drown my misery in something distilled (I would do this later in the hotel bar at the Heart, a bar you'd have to experience to truly believe). Besides, I still had one debate left to deal with (but at that time, I had already decided going 2-6 was not any better than going 1-7, so this debate was a wash- how could I think anything different, we fucking forfeited a round earlier)...
...so i go downstairs outside this massive building the Heart is being held in. Down one flight. Down two flights. Down three flights. Yes, this is the place, debaters would be far too lazy to come way the hell over here to do their business, and I definitely need the alone time. I need to figure out if i should even do this. This is supposed to be the hardest tournament in CEDA debate, and if the best is serving me up like this, maybe I should re-evaluate this. So I find my space, a little ledge, overlooking a side of the campus. I pulled out a pipe (I'm resourceful if nothing else, and borrowed a piece from my friends from the University of Oregon, who rolled tough to tournaments), packed it up and took a hit...probably a hit too big for my britches, and found myself coughing hysterically. Afraid I'd be caught, i went down one more floor, just to be safe. As i was about to take a hit, i hear, in the distance, the spastic, frantric cough that's familiar to anyone that's enjoyed the fine herb. I take a small hit as to not expose myself, and i hear the cough again. For some reason, and relatively out of character, I decide to call out to my unseen smokers, by telling them to join me, as "we're all doing the same thing." Turns out to be three people, two people from the southeast, an NDT team debating CEDA for the weekend (let's call them Jack and Jill) and a stellar NDT debater from some school I can't remember (let's call him Akbar). We didn't know each other, but got to know each other, casually, over a couple of bowls, some from the southeast, and some from Oregon (as I said, the Oregon kids came strapped- but once again, this is way before September 11). We chatted, talked about our homes, a lot of debate and, if I remember, a fair amount of literature...and sometime during that conversation, my desire to quit this activity seems to have disipated...in fact, i went in to the next debate, and lose. But in the debate, I made a critic listen to an entire debate about Hasty-G, something I knew he would hate, but something i wanted to do, just to see how people would answer it if the entire debate was focused on it (something Jill reminded me, debate's for debaters, something I try to remind myself of every day). I'm still friends with Jill, and I consider Jack one of my good friends...so out of the "American Me" raping of my confidence as a debater, or so I would have thought, came the reminder of why I do this, and found a good friend. Better day than i would have expected....
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