April 21: My first award
The first time I actually won something was at a debate tournament
when I was in Grade 8. I won third place for public speaking in the
junior-senior category at a debate contest about capital punishment. My
partner, Grant, and I won two out of three debates even though I kept
invoking the Bible and told my opponents that people in prison spent all
day eating white mush. Grant stopped being my debate partner shortly
afterward and this was probably a wise move on his behalf.
So I made some crazy statements but I guess I was eloquent when I said them which is why I won the award. It was a bronze medal and it said AE Cross on it. AE Cross was the name of the school where the debate took place. For lunch we had hamburgers.
Before the debate, Grant and I did some research at the south branch library, which was shaped like a giant pyramid. I met Grant's dad, who told me he really liked Bruce Springsteen. Grant and I had to decide on how we would kill people if capital punishment suddenly became legal. I wanted a firing squad. Grant said it would be lethal injection. This pissed me off. I thought that shooting a person in the head was a lot more efficient than tying them to a table and pumping them full of Javex, but Grant won that battle because even then he was a pint-sized Christopher Hitchens.
Grant stopped debating in Grade 9 so he could focus on hockey. I stayed with the debate club because I was determined to be the nerdiest kid in school and one year two of the teams from our school made it to the provincials and the other team, made up of two geniuses named Tonja and Michelle, won the whole darn thing and I thought they would be celebrities when we got back to school on Monday but of course they were not and that is because junior high school kids don't care at all about the debate club.
I think I still have my medal.
So I made some crazy statements but I guess I was eloquent when I said them which is why I won the award. It was a bronze medal and it said AE Cross on it. AE Cross was the name of the school where the debate took place. For lunch we had hamburgers.
Before the debate, Grant and I did some research at the south branch library, which was shaped like a giant pyramid. I met Grant's dad, who told me he really liked Bruce Springsteen. Grant and I had to decide on how we would kill people if capital punishment suddenly became legal. I wanted a firing squad. Grant said it would be lethal injection. This pissed me off. I thought that shooting a person in the head was a lot more efficient than tying them to a table and pumping them full of Javex, but Grant won that battle because even then he was a pint-sized Christopher Hitchens.
Grant stopped debating in Grade 9 so he could focus on hockey. I stayed with the debate club because I was determined to be the nerdiest kid in school and one year two of the teams from our school made it to the provincials and the other team, made up of two geniuses named Tonja and Michelle, won the whole darn thing and I thought they would be celebrities when we got back to school on Monday but of course they were not and that is because junior high school kids don't care at all about the debate club.
I think I still have my medal.
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