Debate

I haven't blogged about our debate yet! I meant to do this ages ago, but caught up with a bunch of stuff. I thought the debate, though stressful, was a good learning experience. I had never debated like that before, all organized with the rebuttals and Q/A sessions. It was nice to be able to go through that, even though I didn't necessarily like it at the time. It was a very high stress situation, which was not really my cup of tea, but afterwards I think it was good for me to try.

As I am not a confrontational person and did not have a really strong opinion on the matter, I was happy to just share information at the beginning of the debate. I am not very good at thinking on my feet, which is why I did not want to be in the Q/A section of the debate. Even the rebuttals would have been a bit nervous-making for me. So I was happy with my position, though I did sort of feel like maybe I should have said something later. However, I feel like I really brought forth valuable information and contributed to the group in that way, talking also for at least 4 minutes.

The thing that was the most difficult was Heidi being gone. Originally, it was supposed to be me, Heidi and Katie for the first 15 minutes of the debate presentation. Everyone else had their slot to talk too. This was to try to make sure everyone got the chance to say something since it was such a big part of everyone's grade. However, with Heidi not there, it meant Katie and I both had to talk at least 7.5 minutes each. This was very difficult because neither of us had planned on talking that long. We thought we together would cover 10 minutes, and Heidi the other 5. So, in our debate, Katie and I did cover ten minutes together as planned...only Heidi wasn't there. This then got screwed up because other people had to jump in out of place, messing up our order. So although it was planned fairly well, it did not do as great in practice because of this inconvenience.

However, I know this is not Heidi's fault or anything, and in no way blame her for this or am angry. I just wanted to point out why we were so low on time and why things weren't as smooth as they could have been.

Other than that complication, I thought the debate went fairly well, better than I thought. Although I was nervous, it was good for me to share the information and to participate in something I otherwise would have never participated in. It was a nice activity even though it was not one I normally would have liked.

Sarah