I used to participate in high school speech and debate (side note: I am a bit surprised that I haven't actually written any blog posts about this before, but I can't find any references). It meant a lot of very interesting research on policy and philosophy, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time. So, I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for the activity. Well, soft spots sometimes lead to empty bellies and hearty laughs.
First, you'll need a tiny bit of background. Ultimately, the events are competitions, no different than, say, a swim meet. But it's not like you can measure who finished the debate the fastest. Instead, you need to decide who was more convincing, or who won the argument. Basically, you need a real life person to make a subjective call; you need someone to act as a judge.
To that end, each school that participates is responsible for bringing a certain number of judges to the competition. The more competitors you bring to the event, the more judges you need to bring. It's a pretty simple system, but the end result is a pool of judges that can decide on the winners and losers. The host school always makes sure to mix and match the pool enough that people don't judge competitors from their own school, so it keeps the system as impartial as possible.
The reason I mention all of this is that I was recently asked to help out as a judge for my alma mater at one of these competitions. Like I said, I have a bit of a soft spot for the whole activity, so I agreed to do it. Secondly, it only seems fair that I'd help out, since I used to ask other people to volunteer as a judge. Pay it forward, if you will.
So, there I was in a high school library on a Saturday afternoon. As it turned out, I was the only judge from my alma mater (I was also amused that the people who asked me left out this little detail). Still, I started to get into the swing of things, and the old passion for it started to kick in. This particular event was new to me, but I picked up the gist of it after the first round. I was all set to take care of business for the two afternoon rounds.
First, though, I had to eat lunch:
There are a few things of note here. One, notice that it is all salad. I like salads well enough, but I've never gone out of my way to eat nothing but salad for any meal. There is one notable exception, but that will have to be a blog post for a future date. Suffice it to say that this was NOT the exception. I had salad for lunch because that was all they had. There were no other mains, there was no roll or bread. It was just salad.
Secondly, if you're eagle eyed enough, you will notice that there are two types of salad on that plate. The one on the left is a lentil-based, vegetarian salad (the one on the right is a pasta salad). They had the lentils on the menu to account for dietary restrictions. I don't have those restrictions, but I asked for it because, well, the meat-having salad didn't seem like it'd be enough food. Keep in mind, you're basically looking at a double portion, and I would argue that something like a third of that plate is still empty. Imagine what the people who only got a single portion were eating.
Let's just say that I was less than full after eating that plate. I actually considered going back for seconds, but the people doling out the food mentioned that they were running low. I knew I was hungry, so I wasn't about to inflict that on someone else. Instead, I grabbed a sliced up piece of banana (it was maybe two inches wide) and munched on that to keep my hunger at bay.
Now, some of you might be thinking that this was a funding problem. After all, not all schools have huge budgets, and sometimes you run low on funds. Let me assure you, this was not the case. This school had complimentary charging stations sprinkled throughout their library. There was a fairly nice bank of at least twenty computers where students could put in work. There was a student parking lot, the flyers on the walls talked about accepting donations, and the buildings were not run down by any stretch of the imagination. You get the idea.
To further illustrate the point, there was a funny map of the Bay Area making the rounds on Facebook a while ago (I couldn't find the original source, but it looked sort of like this). The whole shtick was that the various counties and areas were labelled with amusing epithets. If you look at the map I linked, for example, there's a whole area called "rich people up on hills." There's no actual map or official document that would label it as such, but it's a funny description. This school was located somewhere in that general area. Like I said, it was not a funding problem.
When I got home that night, I mentioned to the Mild Wife that I was hungry after that paltry lunch. She immediately realized that the people in charge of providing lunch had basically provided what they would have eaten. It sounds pretty obvious when you think about it, but it really put things in perspective when she put it like that. The real nail in the coffin, though, came when she quipped that I had inadvertently ended up on the Rich People Diet. Apparently, that's how you stay thin: you eat a handful of salad for lunch.
The empty belly subsided pretty quickly, but the laughter took a while longer to die down.
First, you'll need a tiny bit of background. Ultimately, the events are competitions, no different than, say, a swim meet. But it's not like you can measure who finished the debate the fastest. Instead, you need to decide who was more convincing, or who won the argument. Basically, you need a real life person to make a subjective call; you need someone to act as a judge.
To that end, each school that participates is responsible for bringing a certain number of judges to the competition. The more competitors you bring to the event, the more judges you need to bring. It's a pretty simple system, but the end result is a pool of judges that can decide on the winners and losers. The host school always makes sure to mix and match the pool enough that people don't judge competitors from their own school, so it keeps the system as impartial as possible.
The reason I mention all of this is that I was recently asked to help out as a judge for my alma mater at one of these competitions. Like I said, I have a bit of a soft spot for the whole activity, so I agreed to do it. Secondly, it only seems fair that I'd help out, since I used to ask other people to volunteer as a judge. Pay it forward, if you will.
So, there I was in a high school library on a Saturday afternoon. As it turned out, I was the only judge from my alma mater (I was also amused that the people who asked me left out this little detail). Still, I started to get into the swing of things, and the old passion for it started to kick in. This particular event was new to me, but I picked up the gist of it after the first round. I was all set to take care of business for the two afternoon rounds.
First, though, I had to eat lunch:
There are a few things of note here. One, notice that it is all salad. I like salads well enough, but I've never gone out of my way to eat nothing but salad for any meal. There is one notable exception, but that will have to be a blog post for a future date. Suffice it to say that this was NOT the exception. I had salad for lunch because that was all they had. There were no other mains, there was no roll or bread. It was just salad.
Secondly, if you're eagle eyed enough, you will notice that there are two types of salad on that plate. The one on the left is a lentil-based, vegetarian salad (the one on the right is a pasta salad). They had the lentils on the menu to account for dietary restrictions. I don't have those restrictions, but I asked for it because, well, the meat-having salad didn't seem like it'd be enough food. Keep in mind, you're basically looking at a double portion, and I would argue that something like a third of that plate is still empty. Imagine what the people who only got a single portion were eating.
Let's just say that I was less than full after eating that plate. I actually considered going back for seconds, but the people doling out the food mentioned that they were running low. I knew I was hungry, so I wasn't about to inflict that on someone else. Instead, I grabbed a sliced up piece of banana (it was maybe two inches wide) and munched on that to keep my hunger at bay.
Now, some of you might be thinking that this was a funding problem. After all, not all schools have huge budgets, and sometimes you run low on funds. Let me assure you, this was not the case. This school had complimentary charging stations sprinkled throughout their library. There was a fairly nice bank of at least twenty computers where students could put in work. There was a student parking lot, the flyers on the walls talked about accepting donations, and the buildings were not run down by any stretch of the imagination. You get the idea.
To further illustrate the point, there was a funny map of the Bay Area making the rounds on Facebook a while ago (I couldn't find the original source, but it looked sort of like this). The whole shtick was that the various counties and areas were labelled with amusing epithets. If you look at the map I linked, for example, there's a whole area called "rich people up on hills." There's no actual map or official document that would label it as such, but it's a funny description. This school was located somewhere in that general area. Like I said, it was not a funding problem.
When I got home that night, I mentioned to the Mild Wife that I was hungry after that paltry lunch. She immediately realized that the people in charge of providing lunch had basically provided what they would have eaten. It sounds pretty obvious when you think about it, but it really put things in perspective when she put it like that. The real nail in the coffin, though, came when she quipped that I had inadvertently ended up on the Rich People Diet. Apparently, that's how you stay thin: you eat a handful of salad for lunch.
The empty belly subsided pretty quickly, but the laughter took a while longer to die down.
Comments
Post a Comment