Adkins/Lemuel/Mabrey Lab: Day Two: Playtime is Over

The second day brought the Uber-Nietzschean vacuums great pleasure. After starting out slow in the lab challenge, we moved from tied for first place to being in out right first place. We really want the pizza party. And I think it was our stunning knowledge of pop culture that clinched first for us. We were shocked nobody knew who gave the last speech. It must be the pressure of the pizza getting to us.

Ok, so playtime isn't totally over. The best part of the day was welcoming two new members to our squad family. Carisma and Jessica joined for us for the first time today. And I apologize if I spelled names wrong; as the writing on the chalkboard (yes, old school) proved: I cannot spell very well. We welcomed them in with introductions and our new favorite game: two truths and a lie. We learned that Terrance has never worn shorts, Paul the elder is engaged (the students couldn't believe it), Paul the younger has a girlfriend (again, the students must not believe anything the Paul's said) and many other exciting facts about our squad.

After an exhilarating morning lecture on disadvantages we started our first debates of the 2007-2008 debate season!!!! We had our mini-debates over the Bio-defense disad. And it was a conclusive 3-0 (Adkins, Lemuel and Mabrey) decision for the students. They all did a great job in their first speeches of the workshop. Everyone sounded great and argued above the expectations. I mean we had evidence comparison, impact analysis and yes, we even had offense on the disadvantage. Woohoo.

In the afternoon we started our research. We decided that all of our research would supplement our current files. It's not that Ed Lee did a bad job, it's just that we have different visions of what counts as good evidence. ;) Really we do love the work that Ed did. We just want to have more evidence and more variety of arguments. Today we focused in on topicality violations, global health services, and the bio-defense disadvantage. The good news is that we survived the library without any paper cuts. Although I wonder if libraries carry books any more?

Our dinner break was disappointing. I think the general consensus of the camp was that dinner was underwhelming. Kind of quesadillas, hamburgers and salad a dinner does not make. The diet pepsi was refreshing but still not diet coke.

We concluded the night with a surprise for the whole lab. Drum roll please. ...............................................................................................................................................................
Full practice debate tomorrow. You see, it is actually kind of funny, maybe ironic. We asked them what they thought of the mini-debates and the most frequent comment was that they were too short. Well, the debates got longer. Yeah debates! We will have three full team debates with GHS on the aff and case attacks and disads on the neg. I cannot wait. I bet there will be lots of improvement from this mornings debates, even after only one day. That's how smart and hard they are working.

Here is hoping for another great day!