End of the Season

I'm long overdue for a post, but between a hectic final tournament, travel home, and getting caught back up on teaching/classes/life in Manhattan, its been a bit hard!

While I was sad to see the season end once again (I don't care what anyone else said, I liked spending the year talking about nuclear weapons!) I was happy to return to a regular(ish) life in Kansas.

I have several hours worth of video footage from the tournaments (nearly every team I judged was nice enough to let me tape them) coupled with a handful of interviews that should keep me very preoccupied in the upcoming weeks.

It was particularly unfortunate however, that some individuals who had agreed to interviews, skirted them and chose to not be involved in the project; I can't say I'm entirely surprised, but I do feel confident that the people I did talk to will do my research justice to explain and confront the role of the cameras and their effect on the NDT/CEDA college debate community.

The level of competition and emotion that exists within the last tournament of the season is unquantifiable- at times I felt wrong having a camera capturing these intensely personal, emotional and for some teams, very sad moments as their season, their career, their life as a debater ends. I do think though, that after taping and talking to so many people about the community, watching such a wide variety of rounds over the course of time I was at the NDT and CEDA Nationals- that I'm more certain than ever that the debate community is one that should be proud of all that they do and will continue to do, regardless of some bad press/public opinion.

Back to thesis writing, I promise not to take so long before writing again.