Point Counter Point
(25 February - 6 March 2005)
6 March 2005
-Sunday is never easy to come back to, but I seemed to
have an easier time than everyone else. Lately so many folks seem listless all the time, & I'm always surprised by
how much energy I do have on shift. I may be frustrated with the job a lot, but I'm able to hold things together
somehow.
5 March 2005
-Spent the whole day at Stanford again, & now I'm
supremely sad about the fact that it may have been my last debate tournament that I ever attend. We'll see, I guess.
'Deis broke 1.5 teams, which was the cue to have them hit each other, & the hybrid with the qualled debater beat
the half-qualled full 'Deis team, causing more controversy. In the end, everyone got along again, but it put a real
damper on the weekend, especially after the Deis/Minnesota hybrid won semis on a 7-0 decision, showing that maybe we could've
gotten another qual. Regardless, the final round was great fun & featured the highly-touted Oxford visitors against
Justin & his hybrid partner. They got whupped, but I gave a floor speech in their defense after fighting hard to
get floor speeches put in at all. & then it was over. I can't tell you what I'd do for another year of
eligibility, to go back & do it all over again. But I know it's time to move on, to put some mental distance
between myself & the land called APDA. It's just been so much fun to get back on the circuit for 3 of these last 5
weekends, to really feel a part of it again. I need to find something challenging, competitive, & communal like
that again... till then, I'll always feel the void I feel now.
4 March 2005
-Actually lost money at poker last night, which I
wasn't sure I could do anymore. I kid, I kid. It was a good solid night with 12 people at the table at one time
for a while. Zimmy & Bernbaum debuted at the table, & Zimmy just took people's money left & right.
-Went
over to Stanford for their tournament today & judged yet again, getting to hang out with the 'Deis team for almost
certainly the last time this year. I was stunned at how few people I recognized, but I still had a truly great time
hanging out with the team & just living in the debate culture one last time.
3 March 2005
Happy Birthday to Alisha Creel
Happy
Birthday to Martin Clayton
-Cleaned a lot of things up today, which is a good start to
getting everything back on track. I would love to catch my webpage up since I'm so far behind, but I just don't feel up
to it today with everything else. Soon enough, soon enough.
-At least hosting poker night feels a little productive,
even though it isn't. It's nice to put on a show for other people now that I don't have debate anymore. It's not
a comparable thing at all, but sometimes there's a little performance involved.
2 March 2005
-So I'm actually going into a weekend with all of my
notes caught up. Granted, it's only a day, but the relief I feel of being ahead of the curve is boundless. I need
to start doing this all the time.
-Meeting was at Chipotle today, which was great, & was pretty relaxed. Things
are on cruise control for now.
1 March 2005
-Finished all my notes essentially on time, which is a
great relief & hopefully a sign of good things to come. I even cracked the essential 1,000-minute threshold in
only half a month.
-A really earnestly great day at work, where I got a break from some of the more difficult kids &
got to take some of the better ones out to dinner. In a few months, if we get the right kind of turnover, this job
could be authentically fun for the bulk of the time.
28 February 2005
-We got all this new stuff for the
"Store" activity that I run at work, which was quite exciting for everyone. Hopefully the kids will be
motivated now, which would be a nice change of pace the way it's been going lately. I guess that's the whole
idea.
27 February 2005
-Today we had our hands full, but we were up to it.
Just barely. There's times in this job that timing is absolutely everything, & if things teeter too much in
one direction or another, it can verge on catastrophe. Those moments of crisis don't make it any easier to counsel
someone, but make it all the more critical to excel at that. I just knew that when I saw the almost full moon
yesterday, we were going to be in for it today. I hate being right.
26 February 2005
-Fish & Em took me out to the "Pirate
Store" at 826 Valenica in SF today, after a delicious Mexican meal at a little taqueria in the area. It was
supposedly the last thing for my birthday, to make up for not being there last Saturday. It was fun, though the place
itself is much smaller than I'd envisioned. By far the best part was a little lock-picking clinic they gave (on
old-style locks; not aiding modern criminals)... I'm now able to pick a skeleton-key lock, methinks. Arr!
25 February 2005
-After another great haul at poker night last
night, I've officially made more money playing poker this week than doing my actual job. Not more money than Emily
& I combined, mind you, but more than either of us individually. That's just crazy.
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