Procrastination station, dissertation style

I'm having a hard time focusing right now on my dissrtation... it is my first set of dissertation hours for the semester, so getting back into the swing is a real challenge.

Maybe if I post a little about what I'm distracted by it will help --

WARNING, WHAT FOLLOWS IS A PRETTY CYNICAL RANT ABOUT MY LOCAL DEBATE CIRCUIT -- AT LEAST IN THE FIRST FEW PARAGRAPHS. IF YOU CAN'T LOOK AT MY CYNICAL SIDE, DON'T READ ON... Some of this may be egotistical and slanted, it may also be flat-out wrong -- and I hope the situation doesn't occur... but, this is what is bugging me at the moment, so live with it.

BNState tournament seemed to add a provision that the host jerk knows will cause me not to bring my teams to the tournament. He did so by adding it to the on-line event description and most likely without discussion at the BN state meeting in the fall. The good news on that front is that I just got off the phone with the nice and reasonable woman at BNState org saying that they passed increases in the trophies for debate and added speaker awards... FINALLY.

I refuse to let host jerk exclude me and my teams because he has a paternalistic streak. Frankly, I think part of this could be that hubby and I remember when host jerk was a competitor. Hubby beat him on a regular basis -- now his life is coaching debate and he has a reputation at his backwater school as being a good debater -- it must suck for the guppy when hubby shark moves into his pond. He and his mentor at backwater want to keep debate the way they think it was done in about 1997... sadly, they weren't good at debate THEN, why the hell would they want to KEEP it that way.

I also think the most slimey way possible is to add it to the event description on-line -- no notice or anything. I'm sure his idea was that it would slide by and then he and his hand-picked judges could burn us with it like the clumsy-ass way they did it at his own tournament when it looked like we could break.... State actually could be kind of fun this year in a project way -- I can load my 2nd speakers up with a huge coaching in prep / consultation of materials GOOD block and turn the whole thing into a miserable experience for the twit. It will include evidence about how the rule was added in the month before the tournament and not included in the original invitation. Add to that points about small-schools, national competiton and debate paternalism and we have a really good fight. Additionally, IF I get ballots (BNstate tournament regularly leaves debate judges out of the debate pool... big issue... long history... lots of BS) I'll have four opportunities to write essays about how this round could have been improved by coaching in prep.

Maybe I'll just take D1 and D2, they can go 0-4 after breaking at national tournaments and the same weekend they will be qualifiying for NPTE -- just to be a study in contrasts. I'm considering not going with them just to prove that they don't need to be coached in prep... It will prove the illegitimate nature of the state tournament and give us a good reason not to host it next year or to go back in the future.

Also -- I'd love to give this crap to the BNstate major newspaper that did a story on the team a couple of weeks ago... watch the organization go down the toilet when it comes out that they are a buch of cheating ass-hats.

In all honesty, I'd love to see Ms. Reasonable take care of this in her own pleasant way. She is really so nice, everyone loves her and she's on my side. She really doesn't care about our minor debate tizzies -- and she wants to see more schools at BNstate tournament, so I think she'll get it resolved. Also, it will be fun to make host jerk know he was wrong and have to admit it.

ok.. I'm feeling a little better about this.. end of cynical rant mode...

Also, D1's issue should be resolved one way or the other soon. I can't say any more than that -- except that, if you are reading this D1 -- I did try my hardest to make it work out for you with the big guy. We should really talk honestly about all of this with the goal of changing things for good.

I'm not feeling ready to go to Concordia -- because I'm NOT ready... and neither are my teams. Rex is doing a new kind of debate, mostly because they need him to enter to make the field work... he has such a good attitutde about it and we have a new case that is right up his group-X alley... all should be good.

We are also formulating new team eligibility rules. The Dean of Students at BNCC wants to meet about them next week, which should be productive. Big guy is right, we need to have a set of academic standards for an academic activity -- I'm sure Dean of Students can help me finalize them... besides, she and I should be friends -- it will be very helpful if we are....

Now I'm stressing because I pissed away half of my dissertation hours... dammit. I should get started and take parts of it to Concordia with me...