Last weekend were the
National Debate Championships at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I went with my school,
St. Francis Xavier, as one of 14 members. Some of us judged, most of us debated on two person teams. StFX was in a three-way tie for sending the most number of people (matching the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta). Achieving this status was the first of several accomplishments of the weekend that I am proud of. Now, while sending a large contingency does not necessarily entail high performance at the tournament, it does say something about the internal development and performance of your club. I, along with my debate partner, re-formed the StFX debate team 5 years ago. As this way my last debate I left the weekend extremely proud to know I had aided in developing the team to be such a presence in the Canadian University Debating Circuit.
The second achievement came in the form not of overall wins for myself, but of my individual performance. Having been scored on my speaking skills in all of the 6 rounds provided an indication of how I had developed over the past 5 years. I left the Nationals with a ranking of 2nd in Atlantic Canada (only to our current StFX Debate President) and 37 of 104. Having achieved this in the face of the best debaters in Canada (and some of the best in the world concurrently) makes me feel pride as well.
The third achievement I left with came after just finishing the movie
Rocket Science. This quirky movie about a boy who tried to find himself in the world of high-school debate demonstrated the larger world of debating. Debate is something that has intrinsic and extrinsic values that go far beyond mere resolutions argued from the affirmative and negative. I am proud to say I was and will always be a part of that. I have learned valuable lessons from debate that will last lifetimes.
Debating is one of the few things that I can say has been with me at StFX since the beginning. Debate is like a loyal girlfriend. And while that sounds pathetic and disturbing, I would say that is not the point. Debate has been constant. It has provided. It has helped me grow and learn and heal. Like any relationship you get what you put in. I have given a lot to Debate and I am now getting all it has got to give.
