Chapter XCI: Belated Birthday Update

Image of the day: Wilting Orchids at the Hilton

At 6:15 AM on the morning of my birthday (last Sunday), I was stirred awake by the crowing of an emphysematic rooster. This was odd--considering I was in a room on the fourth floor of the Hilton in Woodland Hills--but I didn't think much of it. The previous night had been a blur of a blur, and nothing would have surprised me. Eventually, the irksome noise stopped, and I dozed off.

A moment later, I was woken up again. As it turned out, one of my roommates for the weekend had hit the snooze on his cellphone's alarm, and it was ringing every five minutes. Thanks to the miracle of polyphonic ringtone technology, it actually sounded like a real rooster (albeit diseased), with echoes and everything. Everytime I fell back asleep, I would forget it was just the alarm, and wake up again, wondering why there was a dying rooster in the room.

So the morning didn't start off too well, but I dealt with it by stuffing all the complimentary coffee packets into my backpack. And one of the not-so-complimentary coffee mugs. After that, it was up to Northridge for the final rounds of the annual CSUN Debate Tournament. Yes...I spent my birthday at a debate tournament. How fucking nerdy is that?

Due to a technicality in the bracketing, Shayla (my debate partner) and I ended up automatically winning our quarter-final round. We spent the two-hour slot commiserating with the team that had automatically lost, assuring them they were the better debaters and that the loss was not a reflection of their personal worth as human beings. We had a group hug at the end and it was all very Chicken Soup for the Soul.

We debated against Sacramento State in the semi-finals, a team we share a small rivalry with. We had faced each other in the elimination rounds of two previous tournaments: At Berkeley, Shayla and I had won on a 3-0 decision (of a three judge panel), but at Pepperdine, we had lost on a 3-0. As Northridge was the last tournament of the quarter, this round would be the tie-breaker, so to speak. Moreover, our previous encounters had been extremely vitriolic, and both teams had bordered on ad hominem attacks. They accused us of "trying to destroy the planet" while I had belittled their "fundamental misunderstanding of their own arguments."

I decided I was going to constrain myself and present the judge with a stark contrast between Cal Poly's composed demeanor and Sac State's theatrics, but Shayla took the lead in fighting fire with fire and shouted them down during cross-examination. We ended up winning on a Reverse Voting Issue--basically, they argued that we were being abusive by breaking the rules of the debate round and should lose and our response was that we did not break the rules, and it was abusive of them to insinuate that we did when it was so "blatantly obvious" that we didn't. All three judges agreed.

It was an incredibly tiring round though, and we ended up losing in the Finals on a split decision (1-2) because we just wanted to go home. After the first speech, Shayla turned to me and asked if we could just forfeit. I sighed, and said no and we half-assed our way through all the rigmarole. Second place out of 36 teams, but it felt like...well, like second I suppose. Which ain't fucking bad.

On the drive back to San Luis Obispo, Shayla bought be a packet of M&M's at a gas station for my birthday. Yay!! :D

I ended up getting home at 11:30, and became wildly intoxicated with my roommate before going to sleep for the next 24 hours.

The end.