Power song 2010 - 2011

Yes, I know, another video? However, this song is my power song for the upcoming debate season. In the past I've usually chosen mellow songs like Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear, or Chicago by Sufjan Stevens, but this year?

Cake's Short Skirt/Long Jacket is just the thing to get me pumped and motivated to write my cases. Between all my other homework I have absolutely no time to write them during the week, so any free time on the weekends is spent working all night trying to write something that will WIN.

I feel terribly unprepared this year since I'm not in the debate class, and virtually competing as a maverick, but I plan on kicking some major butt despite my lack of preparation.

"I want a girl who gets up early

I want a girl who stays up late

I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity

Who uses a machete to cut through red tape

With fingernails that shine like justice

And a voice that is dark like tinted glass

She is fast and thorough

And sharp as a tack

She's touring the facility

And picking up slack

I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnnng.... lonnng jacket"

Mandatory Pep Rallies.

Yes, they used to be optional, but now they're mandatory.

I do have to admit, since my friend Caleb is the mascot, it is pretty interesting. And I really enjoy the drum line, so it's not as bad as I make it out to be.

My devastatingly ugly Debate Coach was there, and I tried not to act like he was the ugliest person on the face of the planet. It was quite hard.

That's what she said.

Anyways, even though I have two posters to do, and loads of other reading/writing homework, I'm looking forward to the three day weekend. No school Monday! I can't wait to sleep in!

.... I just remembered that I have to write debate cases. Oh well, I'll just procrastinate on that.

Physics: for once, something I can be artistic in!

Ok, so I've only been to two classes, and I have been assigned 36 extensive homework problems in Physics, but I really love the class.

Now, once the math starts I'm sure I'll hate it, but for now I'm really diggin it. Our notes are demanded to be as creative as possible, and patterns and doodling are encouraged! My Physics teacher who I've dubbed Special K is by far the best EVER. For now.

Speaking of people who are the best ever (for now) the new new debate coach is pretty rad. And my friends are doing they're best to convince me that he's just SO cute, but I refuse to admit that. Doing so would just be.... morally wrong. He's my somewhat coach. Wrong. Here's the picture that my school's website has up.

Dear Higher Power,

Please help me focus on dominating the competition via my words. Also, help me not be distracted by my coach's disastrously...... horrendous appearance. Oh yeah, and please please please send a nice respectable single boy that is my age to my area as soon as possible if you could please.

Did I say please yet? No? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. I would even date a guido at this point.

Losing something can be good.

My school fails at scheduling. They released our schedules for the 2010-11 school year at the beginning of this summer in the attempt to satisfy many anxious high school students and ended up failing and getting everyone's classes wrong.

My schedule alone was pretty bad. They stuck me in the wrong math class, and put me in Human Growth and Development instead of debate.

Right now, I don't even know if there's going to be a debate class, and the chances are there won't be unless they can find a coach by the end of the summer. I've checked around with the other kids who were taking debate and they too have had the class replaced with something else. While losing debate is horrible, I can't help but think about how possibly losing this could open up a way for me to do other things.

For one, my weekends would be clear, meaning that getting a job would actually become a reality. During the school year debate takes up at least half of my weekends, and I do case work on the weekends that I don't have tournaments. With my weekends free I'm less hesitant to get a job because I'll actually have more time to work.

Secondly, my school is rumored to have started a culinary arts program, and I'm all in if there's no debate. I've always wanted to do cooking classes and I was planning to take some for college, but if my school starts doing the classes then I might as well take them.

If anything, I could also take AP Chemistry, that way I can get the AP testing out of the way my junior year.

But all of the above is speculative. Call it my back-up plan, I'm just trying to prepare myself for an unwanted reality. Debate is a big part of my life. It's fun, it's exhilarating, it makes me more aware, but if it indeed was deemed an "unnecessary" program by my school I have to come to terms with their decision and move on.

Do I think it's a mistake to remove the speech & debate program?

Of course, but I'm not a school official, and I can't imagine how hard it is to find someone willing to coach a team of argumentative, moody teenagers. So instead of getting angry I prepared myself for the worst and tried to look at the bright side. I still have Art and AcaDec :)

Winning plan

So for some reason I qualified for regional debate competition (!) and I think it was due to my master preparation skills.

The night before competition my parents let me have the house to myself. I was able to compose myself my doing numerous speaking drills while watching C-SPAN.

Oh those sexy democrats!

My original plan was to alternate between different speaking drills and work on word economy, but after about 30 minutes of practice I was done. I realized that I was psyching myself out and setting myself up for failure if I continued to read anything else debate related, so you know what I did?

I had myself a little Boondock Saints marathon in which I watched the first and second movies until I passed out from sheer exhaustion.

The guns, the violence, the lovely irish accents! In all I think I got about 3-4 hours of sleep before I had to head out to competition.

3rd place! I feel like the Johnny Weir of debate! Not really! I don't want to end up placing 6th at regionals like he did at the Olympics.

Anyways, regional competition is the 24th and I plan on doing the exact same thing I did for district. For some reason everyone thinks that I'm stressing out about having to compete, but if only they knew the way I got ready.....

Practice does not make me perfect, it just stresses me out.

I spy

I spy with my little eye someone who hasn't blogged in a while!

Due to the stress from my crappy Chemistry grade (it's a classwide epidemic for anyone who has this teacher) and Julius Caesar, the Grapes of Wrath, and many other things I've just been unable to write.

I'll log onto facebook, pull out homework to start working and forget that I'm online. People think I'm ignoring them when I'm not. Ok, I'm ignoring most of them, but ssshhh don't tell them.

Also debate district competition is coming up and right now I feel like the Johnny Weir of debate. I caught on fast, but due to lack of competition and practice (gee thanks coach!) I haven't debated in about a month so I'm not exactly an underdog, but I am at a disadvantage.

My rivals are well practiced and have a feel of all the different arguments and strategies that are going to be used, whereas I'm just going in blind hoping that what I have prepared will be good enough to get me by. Right now I'll just do what I can to prepare.

aaaaand I just checked facebook and lost my train of thought.

Oh well I'll get back to it later.

Rand, Money, boy in the green hoodie, all cont.

Recently I've bought a few Ayn Rand books because I thought she'd help me with my recent Debate topic. I only own three of her books though.... I didn't want to buy all of them only to return them or re-sell them because I didn't like them.

I discovered her last year, but only read two of her novels Atlas Shrugged, and The Fountainhead.

And by read, I mean skimmed, and watched the old black and white movies while I skimmed. Blasphemy, I know, but at least I didn't cliff note them. As a wise ginger once said: "The kind of person who reads cliff notes instead of the book is the kind of person who would rather listen to sex than have it."

Anyways, I'm currently re-reading The Fountainhead, not skimming, and so far I really like it. Howard Roark at times can be very difficult for me to understand because he never gives in to anything, which can be viewed as an admirable quality, but if I were to come across a man like Roark I would do everything in my power to make him cave.... which is why I would make a great villain in a novel. But her message in her book still stand true, even if Roark is impossible.

A lot of my friends are getting jobs, or at least applying for them. Even though I'm finally old enough to get a job, I'm going to wait till either April or May until I apply for anything.

I've been observing my friends, and most of them have had their grades drop considerably since getting a job. My friend put it best, "....it's either make money for gas and fun, or do my homework and be broke...." Skewed priorities much? I'm not saying this is an all around thing, or that kids can't hold down a job and still go to school, but I know that if I were to get a job I'd probably end up being one of those kids who couldn't handle both. Also, in most of the places that employ 15- 18 year olds it's mainly teens supervising teens, which means professionalism isn't every one's top priority and getting fired over petty things would be normal.

Waiting till summer just seems more pragmatic. Also, it opens up different opportunities for me to work in an environment of my choosing via. family connections. Till then I'm just going to focus all of my efforts on school and extracurriculars.

School has been mediocre lately. I finally understand Chemistry to the point of making A's, and that kid in the green sweater that I mentioned a while back who was really nice made a random appearance at my lunch table.

At first I thought that micro random conversation we had walking to class was just coincidental, but he's always popping up randomly. Our conversations are literally 30 sound bites, sometimes it's not even that long.

I tried to find out his name by looking in the year book, but nothing. Turns out he looks like 5 other guys at my school, all in different grades. Oh well.

Ooooh, before I forget, at my last debate meet I placed 1st in persuasive speaking, and 5th in LD debate.

I was really surprised that I did so well considering all the schools that were there, also it was pretty ironic that I placed higher in the event that I'm not too fond of.

Spicy Day

Today was pretty surreal.

First I had this weird dream.... I was at a debate tournament, and I guess we were done for the day and we were leaving the building. I remember being pretty bummed because T's school wasn't able to make it for some odd reason.

Also, the building was weird. Instead of a school, it was this church decorated in deep rich colors like maroon and gold with wood paneling and the lights were iridescent, soft and very yellow.

As we were walking down this kind of narrow hallway to leave I see T walking in a line of people, and surprised, I say "Hey!" and kind of stray from the group telling them that I would catch up soon. I hear a threat from my new coach telling me that if I'm the last one in the bus, or if they're kept waiting for me that they're going to leave without me.

I take this into consideration, but brush it off and go see T. We smile, say hi, hug and I walk back with him to this giant auditorium. I don't really remember why he came there, I just remembered that he had to perform or something like that, and his parents were there. We talked, and hugged for a very long time. Like, A VERY LONG TIME. And then I realized that I had to run to the bus before my new coach left me here without a ride, so we reluctantly stopped hugging, and I run to the bus only to find out that they weren't going to leave me because they were still waiting for Mr. G, the theatre teacher who had to pee really bad.

And then I woke up. The weirdest thing though is the fact that when I woke up it didn't feel like a dream, but a memory. I remember details, faces, the whole bit. Weird.

Then later on at school during lunch this random girl with a nose ring comes to our table and asks my friend George for his number. This is usually normal because pretty much 70% of the girls at school have a thing for him, however his girlfriend happened to be sitting across from him. Nose ring girl starts rambling and then is like, "Well, you don't have to if you can't, I mean if you have a girlfriend or something---"

George's girlfriend Karina, in shock just sits there, and I look at nose ring girl and just point across the table at Karina as she says this, and she stops mid sentence and goes "Oh! Oops! My bad!" and runs away to her table, acting weird and embarrassed.

I'm probably going to get bad karma for laughing about her with my friends, but at the same time, I gotta give her made props for actually having the guts to just blatantly ask for his number. I know I could never just bluntly ask for a guy's number... heck I usually just wait for them to ask for mine.

Oh yeah, I know you guys probably hate the show Grey's Anatomy, but have you seen Dr.McSexyEyes?? He is gorgeous.Oh those eyes.

Something something something

Oh man.

Oh man.

I'm up in activities for a while. Hopefully Metcalf, my one true ginger friend will bring me my wondrous trophy tomorrow so I can add it to my collection of great awesomeness.

I'm letting him bring it during debate so he can rub it in my coach's face. Mwhahahahahaa...!

And this picture was a portion of the decoration we had on our debate wall. Oh the good times. Look, you can see my hand!

WORK.WORK.x10

Between all the piles of AcaDec work I have, and the other mountains of work and projects I have to do for classes I have managed to wade through and find my way to my blog.

Since my dad has gotten his new office space we've been moving stuff around the house, trying to make things less cramped. There are TONS of houses on the market in my city, however not so many in my school district.

Plus, since my school district is so "great" the housing prices are super jacked up.

Anyways, my life is a big ball of BUSY marked with a giant B. Not to mention all the stress of having to put up with JGraves and his quasi BS. I just found out moments ago that he straight up lied to me when I asked him if there was a tournament or not this weekend.

He told me it was canceled, but guess what? I have friends on the inside who told me that there is indeed a tournament this weekend, however since no one told me previously, it might be too late for me to sign up.

GREAT. My coach is so great /end sarcasm.

Why can't you just be proud?

So the conversation started nice, light, and in the attempt of trying to make someone important to me proud, I end up feeling inadequate because 1) I didn't place first, and 2) I will never be able to fulfill the high standards of Jacob Root.

Me: you should be proud. I placed second, and I made JGraves upset.

Jacob: who did you hit?
and who was there?

These two questions have to be answered before any pride swells.

and how did you piss him off.

Me: (names, school names, boring stuff that you guys wouldn't care about)....

Me(again): Also, I had one of the most unique cases going up there because pretty much everyone was using Safety or Security/Social Contract... With the exception to Marley and Avery. No one knew how to correctly refute my v/c*(debate jargon for value/criterion).

Apparently JGraves got embarrassed in front of the other coaches and blamed it on me, then got upset because my parents had to pick me up before the awards ceremony, so he threw a big fit and made everyone leave without getting my trophy.

Jacob: I find it hard to believe that that is the correct order of competition. <-(he's talking about the boring kids and schools I listed)

And, I still need to see this miraculous V/C. That I don't think are actually a v/c. So, sooner or later some one else is going to figure it out.

Me: You'd be surprised. Apparently a lot of the freshmen/sophomores from those schools went to some form of debate camp. Whitehouse has a few good kids that transferred in, Beth went to something and studied under the Cook brothers. Also I haven't had the chance to run up against the obvious competition Racy has built, but I have a feeling that they'll be my main competition. They got a new asst. coach from Mahaya who is supposedly good. I'm hoping to run up against Haley Wheat at the next tournament to see if she's really all that good as everyone says she is.

Also, I already showed you my v/c pair. For both my cases. Well, except my philosophical case. But I've only used that once. I've been helping pretty much everyone else so I haven't had much time to perfect my case, but it works for now.

And just for clarification Jacob, my v/c pairs are by no means miraculous, they just work. And the judges like my voice.

Jacob: Lizzi,
You're a sophomore. You need to stop concerning yourself with the other cases in the classroom, and sit down and work on your own. You are your own priority. So, take a step back understand what I'm saying when I say I don't think they even are a v/c. That means that if your v/c is something along the lines of common sense and some other b.s. in no way could those ever be value or criterion. Sooner or later someone will figure it out, and if not you shouldn't be ok with it. You should be upset that you are performing for judges who just want to hear you speak well. All that means is that all the work you do is in vain. Don't talk to your coach or about your coach at a tournament, ignore them. Your priority is to concentrate on your rounds. Pre-flow, scout, time constructives, rebuttal redos to a wall. These are things you should be doing. After a tournament or in the classroom scream back in forth at your coach it doesn't matter then.

Me: Ok, to be clear, Common sense is no where near a value in my case. I just like to yell that at people when I'm upset. I didn't think YOU of all people or anyone for that matter would take me seriously when I posted that random phrase on here, it was an in class joke. AGAIN I would never put that in MY cases. Also, believe it or not, I have been doing speaking drills, preflowing, etc. Other than those two times JGraves confronted me, I was pretty much focused on winning each and every one of my rounds, which, I did. I just need to work on getting perfect speaks.

And how am I supposed to watch and let Miranda, pretty much my oldest and most loyal companion in debate struggle and flounder around trying to figure a case out. If she needs help, and if I can, for some reason that is beyond me, give her decent help, then I will. I see no point in not caring for the rest of the team. Sure, if I would have spent more time on my case instead of trying to help everyone else I probably could have placed higher, but then that would leave Miranda mad at me for acting "selfish" and Colby with the unfortunate short end of the stick.

I feel confident in the current v/c that I have, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop working and progressing towards a better case then what I have now. And to be honest, no matter what v/c I have, I'm pretty sure you'll find something wrong with them no matter what, however until I start losing with the cases I write, I'm not going to worry about it, because I know I can defend my v/c adequately in a round. I'm doing the best I can, I'm pretty much working this whole thing out on my own, and so far, I haven't failed myself.

Jacob: Well, I love that you have a sense of duty. Immanuel Kant's genius saw the distinct connection between duty and morality. However, your concerns with helping are the result of not helping. It should be that you are truly inspired by your duty to your fellow teammates that you help them.

Secondly, I wouldn't have something bad to say about a every v/c. I went against cases all the time that had perfect v/c's... I argued against them, but I saw them as just fine for a case.

Thirdly, Wisdom does not come from age. It comes from the life lived. You should have learned that from the true cutlass.... Read More

Fourthly, I really would like to see a philosophical case if it is written. Not for any reason other than the enjoyment of good philosophy really, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't critique it.

Fifthly, I love you.

All of you guys. Big party over winter break. It's going down.

"the treatment" doesn't work on me.

It feels good to be back in the game, hanging with people, dominating, and just overall being in my element.

Saturday was my first Debate tourney of the season, and I have to say I think it went pretty well. My first opponent was cool Travis, a friend of mine from Atlanta HS. It was funny because the first time I debated him he beat me, but this time around I won. So now we're even I guess. I spent most of the tournament hanging out with him and Marley, walking around a lot, and discussing random crackpot theories.


I don't know how well I did because my parents had to pick me up early, much to my new coach's displeasure. Oh well. Apparently he's super pissed at me now, and I'm sorry, but based off of a priori knowledge from previous competitions most teachers let parents pick their kids up. He never told us his rules, he never tells us much of anything to be honest. When in comes to competition I feel left in the dark, and if any one KNOWS me they know that stuff like that doesn't fly with me.

I like KNOWING. If I don't know what's going on, I'm going to assume things that shouldn't be assumed. Also, what kind of grown man tries to emulate LBJ by using "the treatment" on a teenage girl. Yeah, real manly. I hope his ego has grown, because getting in my face and scolding me out in public really intimidates me /end sarcasm. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt after our first tiff, but he in all honestly isn't being much of a coach. And just so it's clear, I'm not backing down.

I'm going to be stubborn, and as much as I wanted to respect him, and try to move past our personality clashes, this last event where he blew up at me for something so little as wanting to have my parents pick me up at the end of the tourney is THE END of my part in trying to respect him. I will be cordial, but I will not be muted. If he blows up at me like this ever again, I'm going to drop the debate class and compete on my own.

Dealing with him is not worth it. And what's sad is the fact that it's just not me who's fed up with him. He gets so mad and loses his temper over the tiniest things. Maybe he's on hormone pills, or something. He didn't even acknowledge the fact that my parents were going out of town and that if I would have ridden with everyone else back to our school I wouldn't have a ride home, and even if I did my house would be empty. My parents had to pick me up because we had to go somewhere, and it was the only solution that would work.

However he still felt the need to scold, and even partially yell. Well, whatever. If he wants me off the team, then guess what? Most of the varsity will probably leave with me. If he screws me over, then I'll repeat that tenfold.

You don't mess with a hormonal teenage girl.

"I can't write it for you"

I'm not a good teacher. I'll be the first to admit it. I get frustrated easily, and if something isn't done right I get impatient.

Having to teach someone LD Debate is.... not easy. It's one thing to tell someone the time increments, teach them the format and whatnot, but can you teach critical thinking?

I don't know. All I know is I have no idea how to teach someone how to think critically.

We had a kid in my grade transfer into LD Debate, and he's not a BAD speaker, but he's definitely no Jacob Root. He's always stuck on ideas and unable to expand on the ideas I give him. At this point I'm at a loss. I can't write his cases for him, and I have no idea how to get him to think on his own with out having to be coaxed EVERY step of the way. I mean, I don't mind helping but....

Ack. Bless all the teachers who can do their job well. It's hard.

Forming ideas

I hate that so many people now a days think that they can get away with not thinking critically.

When coming up for attacks for my cases in Debate or whatnot I like to bounce ideas off of people. Now, bouncing ideas is a critical skill that is needed in most competitive networks and it's so sad that so many kids my age can't even do a simple rebuttal.

When I say something, I expect someone to find a flaw in my arguments instead of telling me, "I don't know," or "That sounds good."

GOOD?! Hello, good isn't going to get me past regional competition, and most definitely not to state.

It sucks for me because it's basically only me and Miranda who can bounce ideas and come up with stuff, and after a while it gets to the point where even we get tired and run out of ideas. We need fresh minds!

I don't know. I'm going to need to start recruting for debate. Or at least find smarter more argumentative students.

$75 richer.

Ah, for once I'm not going to talk about the woman I've been recently unofficially estranged from!

See, I'm making jokes already. Great progress.

Friday/Saturday has been so jam packed. Yesterday was my friend Hannah's 16th birthday party, and as her gift my friend Rebekka and I bought her two fan tailed goldfishes :)

She really liked them, and I think by far it's the best gift I've ever had the honor to give someone. MRoS and I bought them together, and who knew how hard it was to find a goldfish. It's like, no one sells any all american goldfishes anymore.

I didn't get home till 10pm, which wasn't good because I was im-promptly called to go to a tourney at 8:15 in the morning to help out in rounds.

The only reason why I went was because I was promised $75, and right now that money is greatly needed!!

It was weird though, because I showed up and the lady is charge was just like,

"Can you judge extemp speaking and LD? Yes? Good. You're going to do that."

So I judged debates. And let me tell you, I wanted to shoot half of those kids.

The whole time I was just thinking, "Man, I couldn't have been this bad as a novice."

They didn't know anything! No format, no anything! A lot of them couldn't even read their cases. And afterwards they were so unprofessional! You're not supposed to say, "Man, I really think I won this round, my opponent sucked." in front of a judge.

The only thing that kept me sane through the seven hours I judged was the fact that I was getting a little over $10 an hour.

Hopefully I'll get my check soon. I hope. Oh man, I really want/need that money.

-----Like two seconds ago I thought about ranting about things, but I don't want to ruin the mood I'm in right now. I'll save my rant for later.

Utility monster, or "I really need to crash"

OMIGAWD. The University of North Texas is the most bug infested place in the state of Texas. In a certain slant of sunlight you could see invisible little flying bugs in the air. They made the air thick, and your skin itchy. Not to mention a plethora of black ugly crickets everywhere. I hate bugs. And I hate UNT.

Why was I at UNT? Well, originally I thought I was going to go to a nearby Junior College to attend Super Conference, however JGraves being the wonderful (not) man that he is forgot to inform us that instead of a maybe 2 hour drive, it would be a 4 hour drive to Denton, Texas.

Apparently everyone but the debate kids knew where we were going. In hindsight I should have looked up online about where it was going to be, but oh well. Super Conference wasn't all bad, although we were a good 20 minutes late.

First I attended a philosophy lecture, and I was a bit miffed I was 20 minutes late, but oh well. I still got a lot out of the lecture, and the woman speaking was so great! I loved the way she simplified things, while making them more complex.... if that makes any sense.

Afterwards I ran into some of my debate friends from other schools. We couldn't chat much due to the fact that we only had five minutes to hang out before we had to head over to the Topic Analysis area. We had the same guy from last year, who again, was the BOMB. I was so hungry throughout the whole thing though, and the only thing that tided me over was Wint-O-Greens and water.

Still hungry, I headed over to some other lecture which was POINTLESS. And non topical. The only good thing was the fact that I got to sit next to Travis (the cool one, not lame one) who entertained both of us by peeling off his laptop stickers and putting them on my arm.

5:45am - 1:45pm Without food. It is an unholy thing. UNHOLY I TELL YOU. Also, the last lecture was so boring that in the middle of it, Travis's computer went into hibernation mode. It was that bad.

I really wanted to make this post a long rant about how much I hate people, and JGraves's flip flop nature, but I don't know. My brain is too tired, I have more bags under my eyes, and my life is most likely over. Ok, now I'm just being melodramatic.

But my sister's birthday was today, she's 6 now. She got a crapload of presents, which got me thinking about my birthday, and stuff I wanted, and then I saw this. I NEED THIS.

Ok, maybe I don't. But I'm sleepy. My mind is hazy, and I'm prone to yelling and convincing myself and others that I need coloring books. Sleep, here I come!

John Mashpotatoes.

So I volunteered at my local homeless shelter serving dinner, and I have to say it was quite fulfilling. Although I was doing it for Z-Club for points, I still think it was pretty fun.

Remember the kid who smiles like Lee Pace? Yeah his name is John, and his last name reminds me of MashPotatoes..... I don't think he appreciates me calling him John MashPotatoes, but whatever :P

Yesterday in advisory we played Heads Up 7up, and today we played Charades. A bunch of high schoolers. Playing kiddie games. This is great.

JGraves the debate coach is being rated right now by all of the Debate and Theatre kids. Consensus says he's a 4.5 due to his major a--holeness.

I don't know what this is. To the loo I go!

They loved me! (they really do!)

Ah. A long time ago I would have found public speaking a complete and utter horror. Even if it was only a crowd of 10 people I would find it so nauseating and horrible. However after a year of Debate and public speaking and an ample dosage of Bill Maher and Anderson Cooper I seem to have found a liking for public speaking.

My school, in the vain attempt of reducing gang violence between at risk teens decided to bring back the Advisory, or homeroom period. Officially they brought it back "in order to build long lasting bonds between teens."

Yeah. We all know the real reason.

Anyways, everyday they set up all these little activities for us to do, and they're all interpersonal so no matter what we do we end up "sharing." It's not too horrible because I happened to get lucky and didn't get a mixed grade class. I know, or know of everyone in my advisory.

Today we had to share about what we did over the weekend and we could do so by either giving a speech or writing it out on paper. Needless to say I did a speech. I didn't intend on sounding so witty and sarcastic, and all my faces and anecdotes were pretty sincere, but it turned out everyone thought my rendition of my weekend was pretty humorous. I was told by the whole class that I should consider a career in comedy. Wow.

I like it when people laugh at what I say. In a good way. Yeah.

I'm a lot funnier in person.

Affirmative case excerpt

Ok, so I'm a pretty bad blogger for not updating, leaving my blog dry as my mom's thanksgiving turkey, so to tide you guys over I'm just going to cheat and post an excerpt of my Affirmative case for the upcoming debate season.

The topic is resolved: Standards of professional behavior ought to be valued over freedom of expression on social networking sites.

b. social networking profiles are relevant to the representation of an employee and job.

New York Times August 2009: “According to a new study conducted by Harris Interactive for CareerBuilder.com, 45 percent of employers... are using social networks to screen job candidates — more than double from a year earlier... The study, which questioned 2,667 managers and human resource workers, found that 35 percent of employers decided not to offer a job to a candidate based on the content uncovered on a social networking site. (The survey has no margin of sampling error because it was not drawn from a representative nationwide sample but rather from volunteer participants.) The report showed that Facebook was the most popular online destination for employers to do their online sleuthing, followed by LinkedIn and MySpace. In addition, 7 percent followed job candidates on Twitter. More than half of the employers who participated in the survey said that provocative photos were the biggest factor contributing to a decision not to hire a potential employee, while 44 percent of employers pinpointed references to drinking and drug use as red flags. Other warning signs included bad-mouthing of previous employers and colleagues and poor online communication skills.”
With employers checking in on future employees it only emphasizes further the fact that we as a society need to acknowledge what is acceptable and what is not lest we face unwanted consequences.

In a way the childhood quote “If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all,” must be applied to the situation. In no way are we harming our freedom of speech, it's just a common everyday courtesy that seems to get lost with many other childhood lessons.

Anyways, cheers to you guys!

PV=nRT and some more bullets

- My AP Chemistry teacher is hilarious. She's this sweet little old lady with a doctorate in who knows what, and she makes words out of things like PV=nRT. Pervnert. Yes. Pervnert. Not to mention her philosophy on explosions in the classroom: If we all explode, then oh well. We won't be alive to feel any pain. Isn't she great?

- There is this boy at my school who smiles like Lee Pace (aka Ned from Pushing Daisies) I see him in the hall and yell, "Hey!" and he returns greeting and smiles. I often have to refrain from calling him Ned.

- JGraves is probably the biggest ahole I have ever met. He's egotistical, narcissistic, loud mouthed, and yet oddly enough I enjoy his presence. What can I say? He has a good taste in music. Not to mention, he's pretty smart. Let's hope he's a good coach and can take me to State in debate.

- My witticisms and sarcasm has increased by tenfold since the year has started. I don't know if this is good or bad. I just hope I don't scare any of my friends off.

- AcaDec is proving to be a very fun, yet awkward class. This kid Connor, who knocked his girlfriend up has this weird vibe.... I don't know. It's hard to explain. It's like, we could be friends, but the fact that he has a baby mama is totally scaring me off. I know many expectant mothers, but he by far is the only expectant father I converse with and have classes with on a regular basis.

- Also it turns out Philip Hayes isn't going to Princeton, but SMU in Dallas. Thank Buddah. I can still consider Princeton for college. Maybe. I'll have to weigh it against Penn State.