Quote of the Week

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.""
-John Maynard Keynes

Friday 28 February 2014

Off to Victoria!

The Girl at the Pool series has not yet been fully published, so some of you may not be aware that after coming in 14th at the Lower Mainland West Regional competition in debate, I advanced on to Provincials. This is my first year to be able to do so, and I am very grateful for the opportunity, especially considering the fact that I had to overcome many obstacles to actually make it.
The first obstacle which stood in my way was all those private school kids, who always have the upper hand - I did that. Secondly, I had advanced onto Provincials with that partner I had talked about it my previous post incompetence. (I refered to her as the one who has a long way to go in debate.) Usually, that would be a great thing, because I really think that she was a good partner, who worked well with me. Here's the problem, two days before registration for the tournament is due, she dropped out on me. She had a bunch of excuses and sort of left me hanging, but I'm a big girl and I can fend for myself.
Scrambling, I emailed the tournament director and kindly asked if there was anyway for me to still attend the tourney. Amazingly, this fantastic tournament director found me a partner on a few days notice and I could still attend. Funnily, my new partner was also from a public school. What's more, is that my new partner was the girl who had won first place at the tournament where I had made a scene. I was pretty sure that she had hated me, but when I finally met her, she seemed as nice as possible.
We discussed our topic of prisoner voting, and came up with a few points. Then we went on to recount some debates we had been in, which we considered to be horrible. This girl has had considerable success in debate, considering that it's just her first year. We parted ways after a few hours and she set up a Google doc for us to share and add any other facts to.
I had succeeded in getting that sorted out and I was going to be able to compete in my tournament. It would really be a shame if I was unable to sort it out since I had already booked a hotel and called up my two best friends in the whole wide world to come and be my moral cheerleaders in Victoria. They agreed, and I was/am excited to be going with them!
Last night, I packed a change of clothes and a set of debate clothes, I packed my phone charger, my toothbrush, my hairbrush, and some snacks for the ferry trip. Despite having sent both my friends an itinerary, I called them to confirm some aspects of the trip. (They aren't the types that would actually take the time to read an itinerary, so I'd rather be safe than sorry. Despite having told myself that i would go to sleep early so that I could wake up refreshed for the debate, I went to bed around half past eleven.
When I first started debating, I would be unable to sleep the night before the debate due to nerves and excitement, after a few debates however, the feelings died down. Now it is 6:00am the day of my debate. I was supposed to wake up at 8:00am to catch a ferry. However, something isn't letting me sleep. Instead of sleeping, I am blogging.
It doesn't really matter, I guess. But despite my immense confidence, I have a few butteflies in my stomach. I tried to disspell these butterflies and cast them away by listening to Polyushko-Polye on repeat last night. I feel like Soviet Communist Party march songs are extremely inspiring, and listen to them whenever I am in need of a morale boost. 
In a few hours my friends will be here, they will assure me that I will do well in my debate because I am the best at what I do. We will get on the ferry, and probably be reported as nuisances for being so loud and obnoxious. It's going to be fun. In Victoria, they'll probably watch a few of my debates and go do some of their touristy activities. I'll go to my end banquet and have a good time. Honestly, I probably won't be able to sleep in Victoria either, in part due to nerves and in part due to the fact that one of my friends sleeps like a starfish, and if I end up sharing a bed with her it's going to get ugly.
When I get back, I will post all a out what happened, but for now, I am going to really try and go to back to sleep, or at least go to my living room so that I don't look like a blogging nerdy loser. (Right now, I am sitting on my bed typing out this post on my phone; my phone is getting really hot).
Whilst writing this post, I have seen the sunrise, and the sky change from a smokey navy blue, to a dim and pale sort of blue. I have watched as the thick clouds of dark blue have evaporated away from my window, to reveal the cloudless sky, which is still not a bright blue since the sun hasn't fully rose. I have heard my mom wake up, something which almost never happens. I have heard the pitter-patter of her steps on our wood floor, as they made their way to our bathroom, then to our kitchen, where I heard the tap begin it's irrevocable waterfall. She's washing dishes.
I know that when I do wake up, she will look at me with loving eyes, and beg me to go back to bed, or at least tell that I have nothing to worry about. 
As this day gets brighter and the sun climbs higher into each pore of the eternal sky, I am feeling strange. Some feeling of such utter beauty is overcoming me. Some feeling which is encouraging me to be an early riser. My eyes keep drifting from my phone to my window, and I cannot stop them. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful ride on the ferry.

Wednesday 26 February 2014

The Girl at the Pool - Part 6

So what did this terrible letter say? Well apart from all the stuff about how she was unhappy with how the night went down in general, she provided three main reasons:
A) My partner and I cheated her in order to be a hybrid team.
B) We delayed debates by taking extra time in the hallways to prepare.
C) I had an extremely embarrassing outburst at the awards ceremony.

Okay, I can't deny C, but I can say that I proudly stand by it. I voiced an opinion, as I was taught to do - both by parents and educators. My statement was justified, and required no apology to this woman organizer. The only person I may have need to apologize to -if they had requested it- was the girl who had won. I was being the change I wanted to see in the world.

Next is A, we cheated? Okay, let's look at that. She claimed that my partner had told her that we were permitted to participate as a team. Clearly, by the emails, anyone can see that we never said that. We said that there is a rule in the DSABC constitution that apparently allows hybrid teams, but that it is an unclear rule and that we are discussing it with the president of the DSABC. This unfit tournament director simply said that our registration has been accepted. She payed no mind whatsoever to the rules, and signed us up as a hybrid. Meanwhile, the DSABC president got back to us. She said "no". Why would she say such a thing when the rules clearly state that hybrid teams are allowed without restrictions as long as they are approved? Well because she is the coach of a private school, and god forbid that they don't come out on top. Officially however, she said that her "no" was because she didn't want to create "power teams". Anyway, since I knew that she was just lying, I replied to her and asked her for clarification, and why teams were allowed to compete before. She replied after a couple weeks, and avoided all the questions that she couldn't make up an answer to. Once again, the answer was "no". Fine, but we were already registered and could not change that. Because this tournament organizer hadn't bothered to check the rules, because it was too late, and because we really didn't want to not go together, we didn't say anything. Everything was rosy when we got there and she hadn't said anything about the rules. So a blatant lie from a blatantly bad person.

As for B and delaying debates. That also wasn't our fault. That was her fault, due to her terrible organization. She hadn't briefed the judges about why and how long the preparation time would be for the impromptu topic. The judges in our room looked at us and asked us if fifteen minutes would be adequate preparation time. Both my partner and I and the opposing team agreed, and we left the room to prepare in the hallway. Nice of us, eh? Anyway, this woman had now made another rampant lie without any evidence to back it up.

This whole email was obviously unacceptable and extremely unprofessional. Worst of all, it CC'd the president of the DSABC. I was deeply hurt and I immediately forwarded it to my parents. They too were appalled. Along with what I had seen, there was also a defending email in response from the Hamber coach, who I had previously mentioned has taught me everything I know about debate. Another response from my partner, who was being too nice, as usual. The woman was talking behind my back, and she was absolutely horrid. My parents asked me to formulate a reply, and I did, but I didn't send it.

Friday 21 February 2014

Stop - Part 1

I'm going to be honest: I started this post with the intention of making it short and sweet, but then I realized there was no way that that would happen. I'm going to publish this story in parts (hopefully only a few) so that no one is going to have to read more than a 1000 words at once. I hope you guys enjoy this series of posts!

Some people just don't know when to stop. That is the issue that I will be discussing today, as it has been pertaining indirectly to me these pass couple of weeks. It has to do with my best friend, and a guy that is madly in love (oops, I mean in like) with her. This boy, apparently, does not take hints. He is obsessed, and thus, he let's every small word act as a enormous, grossly-exaggerated glimmer of hope. He is blinded by his infatuation. He is oblivious to the signals that the people around him are giving. He is, or is being, stupid. Most importantly, he needs to stop. 

Before I get into the whole scenario, allow me to give some background: 
My best friend is an exchange student. She moved here from a cold, dark and desolate place in Eastern Europe 1.5 years ago. Her parents encouraged her to come here in order to improve her English, despite it already being very good. I guess her and her parents picked Vancouver because of the climate, because you'd be really dumb to pick it because of anything else. (A lot of aspects of Vancouver suck, but it's a nice place landscape-wise. It's really rare that you get to have the mountains and the beach on your doorstep.) Anyways, she came here in grade 9 and is going to stay here until the end of high school. She's really nice and funny, and she's a great friend who really cares, not to mention the fact that she is tall, skinny and pretty. 
***I guess that she's from Tennessee, because she's the only ten I see! 

Anyway, I didn't really know her in grade nine, but this year we have grown pretty close and now spend every lunch together eating ice cream, and thinking about what homework we have forgotten to complete. Luckily, we have a lot of classes together and we get to talk a lot. We also both live far away from our school, so we get to take the bus together after school. When I have extracurricular activities after school, even really long debate practices, she usually waits for me at my locker just so that we can take the bus together. Despite her hatred for debate, she still comes to some of my practices just to watch me, and encourage me. She sounds perfect, right? Well she is! So I understand that the boys are flocking to her. 

Now for some background on the boy that likes her (probably only sexually). He is from Vancouver, and he is a year older than my friend and I. He is from my old school, which I went to for one year in grade 8. Strangely enough, I never actually met the boy before this year. Apparently, he went to his parent's native country for that one year, so I could never meet him. The boy isn't gorgeous. He is fit, though. He is a debater, too. And he is friend's with my insecure debate partner, who I have discussed in previous posts. Honestly, I don't want to say too much about the boy, since I don't know him that well.

So how did my friend, who has zero interest for debate, meet this guy? They go to different schools, and they don't really have many mutual interests. It's me and my insecure partner's fault. 

The Girl at the Pool - Part 5

My parents gave me their take on things: from what I had told them, the judging sounded horribly biased, and I was right to raise awareness. My dad however, did suggest that I do it in a more civilized way next time. Thanks for standing by me guys! That was the end of that day and night. After having a late-night snack, to compensate for my sixth place shortcoming (as individual speaker) I was in a dream state. In many cases, I dream about debates, and really good speeches after I attend them. However, the debates of that day were so horrid, so bad, that I couldn't dream of anything.

This whole day had felt like one short film. The outburst, the lone child agreeing with me, the laying alone in a desolate school gymnasium, the tears, my friend calming me in the halls, the snazzy dude stopping me at the door, the look of utter shock on the faces of all these people, the undeserved apology I gave, the final goodbye from my partner, the cold, wet walk to Mr. Forman's car, the drive back, the bright, distorted lights, the crossing of the Burrard Bridge with my imaginary music playing, the ride up to my apartment in the elevator, the soothing by my parents, and my eventual sleeping.

I woke up in the morning, refreshed and feeling better. I was sick with some sort of stomach ache, so I didn't attend school. I stayed home, in bed, for I was both mentally and physically sick. I tried to busy myself with catching up on homework and other things of that nature, but was unsuccessful. All that my mind was capable of bearing was the events of the night prior. Call me unforgiving, call me Miss Grudger, call me spoiled, but I couldn't wrap my head around that night, or the apology. Being the kind person that he is, my partner had provided me with the password to his email. Being the cunning person that I am, I figured that this ass-a-holic lady would most likely send an email of disdain to my partner, for she did not have my email account. So I logged onto my partner's account. I knew that even if an email had been sent, he wouldn't let me know for some time. Why? Because Regionals were coming up the next day, and I'm assuming that he'd want me to have a clear mind, so that I could kick some Lower Mainland West booty.

Regardless, I logged onto the account, and found myself to be right. This tournament director -who had preached professional behaviour to me the previous night- had written an extremely accusing and hatred filled letter to my poor, polite partner. She is 55-ish years old. My partner is 15. Is it okay for a woman, who runs a website/company on communication skills, I might add, to send a terrible letter to a teenager? I don't think so. I mean, look, if you are really unable to overcome that outburst by this adolescent, then you probably aren't fit to be working with adolescents. If you can't take "the high road", then why wouldn't contact the child's teacher, or their coach, instead of the child himself? I don't know, maybe hormones screw up after menopause.

Monday 17 February 2014

The Girl at the Pool - Part 4

The thoughts rushed through my head at a billion per second. Why should I have to apologize for exercising my right to freedom of speech? Why should I have to apologize for taking the initiative to state something that the majority of the people were thinking? I shouldn't, right? Okay, sure, maybe I didn't make my statement in the most civilized manner, maybe I didn't file a formal written complaint, but at least my voice was heard - literally. After much persuasion Mr. Forman, I was pressured to apologize, I was forced to apologize. I went up to the tournament organizer, a feminist-looking, short-haired, male-faced woman, and her short, fat, scrunchy-faced companion. I apologized for my "erratic" behaviour and I said that this will probably be the end of my debating career. They said that my outburst probably hurt the girl who actually won first place. I told them that that wasn't my intention, but regardless, I'd stand by what I said.

The night ended with my teary-face and a polite goodbye from the world's politest partner. I walked out with Mr. Forman and stepped into his car. As we drove through the dark, rainy night, I glanced into the nothingness (skyscrapers) through the dew-covered windows. The bright lights became distorted through the tiny water droplets, which I found to be on the outside part of the window, when I tried to wipe them away. Somehow, it was the perfect.

On the way, Mr. Forman gossiped about another boy in my school, and told me about how he hadn't expected me to act that way. According to him, I had always seemed so professional in my manner of being. I guess that makes sense, but it's a rather harsh judgement, considering that he only ever sees me debate. If only he had seen me outside of debate - I guarantee he wouldn't have said the same. I basically told him that I hope that he isn't mad at me, and that I hope that this action doesn't reflect badly on the school, as a whole. Alright, so that was the end of that. I walked the few steps to my building, buzzed my parents to let me in, and voila! I then proceeded to take the longest -and loneliest- elevator ride of my life. I got upstairs, and my awesome little sister was at the elevator door. She did some cute little move, to signify that she was happy that I had come home, and I gave her my dust-covered ribbon.

She was ecstatic! A first place ribbon! She devised a quick, little scheme: I would stay in the hallway, and she'd go into our apartment and show my parents the ribbon and then she'd say "presenting the best debater, Nat!" Then, I'd walk in, and the rest is banal. So, I walked in to the applause of three people. My mom saw my tears, and decided that they were tears of joy, so she started crying with me, so did my younger sister. I hated raining on their parade, still, I told them that I was actually crying because of the days events.

Thursday 13 February 2014

The Girl at the Pool - Part 3

So after my little ''outburst'', I stomped out of the auditorium, and started crying in the halls. It was bad. Luckily, I had a true friend with me, and she walked out to comfort me. She had just come to spectate, but she ended up taking on the role of psycho-therapist. She persuaded me to come back in for the team rankings. I listened to this wonderful, kind person, who would later prove to me that, even though she is a North American girl, she has some serious backbone. Anyways, I walked back into the awards ceremony, they announced the top teams, and my partner and I got best team. I didn't want to take my award because I have a lot of honour, dignity, pride, ego, sense of justice etc.. The North American girl was on my side, but this snazzy guy -who thinks he is really cool- came up to me with all his swagger and was all like (in an extremely sensual voice) "don't be a sore loser, go up there and accept your prize", then he sort of nudged my shoulder, and I was up at the ribbon area.

My partner and I were standing there, and they gave us these ribbons. Then they tried to shake our hands, my partner did shake hands with them, I simply could not find it in me to do that to such assholes. I took my ribbon, stuffed it in my bag, and I was out of the auditorium, to have a good cry. I ran around the enormous, foreign school, trying to find somewhere where no one could find me. I succeeded, and found refuge in the gym, which was unlocked and empty. I layed down on the gym floor, and threw my ribbon of first place through one of the basketball hoops. It got stuck in the netting, and I didn't want to get it.

After about 10 minutes, I decided that it would be time for me to go back. After all, my new debate coach - Mr. Forman, who is a champion swimmer who enjoys teaching debate- had kindly offered to drive me home that night, so that I wouldn't be subject to Vancouver's treacherous transportation system. Once I got back, I found a bunch of the people from my school and my partners schools quietly talking. I still don't know what about, but I my guess is as good as yours. I was greeted by Mr. Forman, who was going to drive me home, and told by him that I needed to apologize.

"Apologize to who?" I asked.
"To the tournament directors." He responded.

Sunday 9 February 2014

The Girl at the Pool - Part 2

I had a debate today. It was at a public high school. My partner was the one that I had discussed in the previous post "Incompetence". As I had said before, he is amazing, both as a person and as a debater. Anyway, since I don't know if I mentioned this in the previous post, and because I'm too lazy to look back, I want to mention the fact that he is extremely insecure. He's one of those people who constantly belittles themselves. I hate that, but oh well.

As a joke, he had downloaded Queen's song "We are the Champions", to prove that he was sure that we were going to win. A pretty unexpected move, coming from him. Then, when we finally begun our debates, he joked around again - saying something about how we should walk out of the awards ceremony if we aren't first place. Right, this was a joke, but it did have some merit. I knew that he was fed up with always losing, and more than anything, I knew that he deserved to win. There wasn't one person at that debate that was better than him - not one! The boy was flawless, he had every single little aspect of debate down. In fact, my peer agreed. She said that if she were a judge, she'd ask to have her scoring region moved beyond 95/100, just so that she could give him a higher mark.

Anyways, after the last round was over, I was happy. I knew that we had done really well, I knew that he had done better than me and I knew that, as a team, we deserved to win. Anybody would've known that. Also, the topics at this debate were the worst topics I have ever had to debate. The person who made up those topics is most likely retarded, or really scared of generating any controversy. So I told him that he deserves first place, as an individual speaker. Being the good religious boy that he is, he said that he hopes I win first place speaker, and I said "no, you deserve it more" and so on.   After a little bit, we all took group photos and reflected with our coaches on how our debates went.

We finally made it to the awards ceremony and they started calling the top ten individual speakers, and the top five teams, or something like that. They begun with the tenth best individual speaker, and worked their way up. They called me as number six, which was totally unfair, as I had done much better than sixth place, but regardless I didn't say anything. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best for my partner. First place wasn't far from reach. Obviously, I was wrong because they called him as second best speaker. That was unacceptable, he had deserved better. He can't stand up for himself and so I would. I yelled out, in a very un-debatey way, something along the lines of "he should have gotten first place and I should've gotten better, this isn't fair and this sucks! The judging is so biased"

Then, I heard a highly functioning sociopath yell out something along the lines of "I agree! He should've gotten first place!" A little bit of reenforcement never hurts. My partner was accepting his ribbon and staring at me like "what the hell is wrong with you, crazy lady?" But he never actually said anything, but let's be clear, the way someone looks at you speaks louder than his/her words. I knew that he didn't really approve, but I really didn't care. He is insecure and has an issue with fighting for his rights. So let's clear the air completely, my partner is not retarded, he has the ability of telling right from wrong, but he sadly has no backbone, like many other people in North America. The "highly functioning sociopath" is not from North America, so he's pretty tough, I guess. However, it may just be the fact that he is a sociopath.

Saturday 1 February 2014

Debate: The Dilemma

As you may have understood from my last post, Sick Priorities, I have come to a sort of cross-roads in my debating career. I am facing a dilemma about whether or not I should continue with debate. It has been something that I have loved for so long, but it is starting to hurt me emotionally.
When I first started, it was something that I thought would stick with me throughout my whole life. Sadly, this past year has been encouraging doubts in my mind about debate, and about what I truly want to do with my life.

Honestly, I don't want to find something else, but I don't want to be subject to the terrors associated with debate anymore either. To one that has never adored debate as much as I have, this post probably seems like a drastic exaggeration and makes me seem like a weakling, but I assure you it is not. I urge you to look into the depths of your soul and find something that means very much to you, a person, perhaps? Think about how you'd feel if that thing/person cheated you so many times. Wouldn't you be hurt? I feel like I am in a relationship with debate and that personification would be the the best way to explain myself:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
When I first met Debate, it was love at first sight. We were introduced by a substitute teacher -Ms. Opatovsky- in grade 7. Everything about Debate was perfect. The subtle words, the intense arguments, the fiery passion in his voice, even the back and forth arguments were sublime. I went home to my mother, and described to her the beauty of Debate and told her that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. She was fine with that. Our love was just perfect, I had found my missing piece and I had become Debate's new accessory. I knew that this would be a long-lasting and love-filled relationship. It was for about 2 and a half years. Then the rains came. Some of his antics, the ways Debate cheated me: biased judging, undeserved scores, no success - were simply starting to get to be too much. I was depressed for a while, but decided to give this old flame another shot. It was fine for  a little bit, then the same things started repeating themselves. Little by little, Debate was killing me. My love so strong was getting chewed on and dissolved by Debate. I was being used.

All this time I had lived with a veil over my eyes, thinking that Debate truly loved me - that he would support me. It was all lies. I continued on with him, simply because old habits die hard. Despite our seemingly perfect external appearance, despite everyone telling us what a great couple we made, we had some deep problems. We both continued, not wanting to disappoint those around us, but it was a mistake. We grew apart. Debate came back and tried to woo me back to his seemingly affectionate arms. This time, it would take more than just Debate's smooth talking. So he gave me a win, or two, or three. I fell for it, and I was warped back into his cunning world. It seemed like each time I was on the rocks about our relationship, Debate would pull out a win for me, as if to encourage me to stay. Being the naïve romantic that I was, I would accept. But I am now at a point, a point where I know Debate for who he truly is. I know his antics, and I know his true intentions. I want to break off our relationship for good, but I don't want to hurt anyone. So I believe that Debate and I will stay together for these last few months. We will portray our pretty image, and then at the start of grade 11, I will drop off the face of the Earth. Leaving Debate and his antics behind, and most importantly, leaving the grief that he has caused me behind.  Debate can try and save this one, but it's going to be much harder than a few wins, it's going to be an uphill battle, which I'm not sure he is willing to fight. 

I pledge that I will keep myself open to love. I will give Debate one final chance to caress me back into his arms, but if this fails, then so does our relationship. I will come to the practices, and I will attend the tournaments, but I will be vigilant. I will not let myself fall as easily as before. No more tricks, I beg. And please, do not try and save our relationship, it simply does not concern you. I have a broken heart and only Debate can heal it. I am sorry that I will not be attending practice today, I just need a break.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
In a way, I am grateful because debate has served as a sort of window pane to the evils of this society, but at the same time, I feel that I needn't be exposed to such evils, in such a quantity, at this time in my life. On the other hand, my life has been so very improved by debate. I have made my academic life revolve around it. I try to intertwine debate into everything I do. Though this may sound like exaggeration, I truly believe that debate had given me a sort of purpose in life, and I think that stopping it would force me to find something else, which may or may not be as amazing as debate.


I guess that I don't have a rich enough vocabulary, or that I am not mature enough to clearly portray these feelings, so instead, I decided to personify debate. I believe that that was the best way to demonstrate all my feelings. Thanks for listening.