Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Second Debate

I woke up determined to study. I woke up and showered and went to the bookstore to buy more flashcards. After that, I was at the library and then I had a quesadilla at Trillium. I specify on what I ate for lunch because I was actually really content since it's probably the most Mexican thing they offer. Amelia and I went to class early, with intentions to study, but we ended up to running around the empty hall.

We started class with questions about what was going to be on the test, and went over the model of the policy debate. Sam reminded us that the test was only 10% of our grade and we shouldn't worry so much about it. It's a relief, but we all still studied for a long time after class. Once questions were over with, we were split up with our partners again. This time the resolution for the debate, which was Worlds again, was, "This house believes that billionaires are dangerous for democracy." Amelia and I were on the negative side of that, which means we had to defend billionaires and state they were in fact good. 

I was worried we wouldn't be able to make a good argument because there was so much evidence that billionaires weren't good people. Despite that, Rubin helped a lot with structuring our argument and getting us to share really useful ideas for the argument. We spent about 30 minutes working on our argument, most of our topics were funding for campaigns and donations. Also, we agreed that billionaires supported the economy in a sense, allowing a capitalist economy, which works well with a democratic government.

Sam came in to the room to tell us the affirmative side or government was ready to go. Most of us in opposition were worried that were not prepared. In the next room, we were again divided in groups for the actual debate. Amelia and I were going to be Leader of Opposition and Deputy Leader of Opposition, and this meant I had a choice of going 2nd in the debate or 4th. I chose 2nd. This time around, I felt like I made a way better speech than last week's and I got compliments on it, so I felt really good about it. Regardless, I believe if it was a real debate we still wouldn't have won. 

After class, I mostly studied with my classmates, mostly some I hadn't talked to much before. But, I was able to make it to the Insomnia cookie social at Balch, which was great. 

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