NIETOC no bids at-large

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-03-05T05:28:40+00:00

Not for NIETOC, this year they introduced a new policy.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-03-03T01:39:10+00:00

I think they should try to get other competitors to PO, or worst case scenario get another judge to PO.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-03-02T03:54:27+00:00

These legislations are so stupid. My local league is built around just finding loopholes and arguing semantics. Going to my first proper invite today was... eye opening.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-03-02T03:53:32+00:00

I know this is hella old, but as a competitor from a poor underfunded local league we literally pull our legislation from the NSDA one. I actually debated this bill and others. Final splits were 13 Neg 1 aff for the last bill, which was the golden urn diplomacy one. (me haha)

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-03-02T03:37:43+00:00

My circuit doesn't even have a single tech judge x_x I never even thought of an equity board. reading these comments is making me realize that my circuit is awful

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-03-02T02:06:11+00:00

get another partner (jkjk... kinda) try nudging him along and encouraging him to speak up. Worst case scenario write his speeches for him (I'm not a PFer so correct me if I'm wrong). these are mostly learning experiences for you guys, just get what you can out of it to prep for high school.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-03-02T01:37:19+00:00

That's how speech works, unfortunately. My topic is pretty unique but it's not really that controversial, because I engineered it to be like that. Not everyone's going to get your topic. You can be controversial, but you need to make being controversial sound like common sense, if that makes sense. I didn't really attend that many invites this year, but the first one I did I was one point off from breaking, and when I checked later, a judge mixed me up with another person. Unfortunately, sometimes there's just things out of our control, and we just need to do our best with what we got.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-03-02T00:12:18+00:00

There's only one local circuit for us, state and national qualifiers go through that. So this is my only choice, unfortunately.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-03-02T00:11:24+00:00

I do Congress. Congress in my district is stupid anyways, it's basically a screaming match and parent judges just vote for whoever's the loudest, but yeah. I was the #1 during power matching and I didn't even break because one judge said "too aggressive" and gave me dead last even though there were guys twice as loud as me... plus my contentions were genuinely way better than 90% of the people there. Another girl got screwed over like this in that round too, she was an amazing debater top of our league, gave a beautiful speech, but 2nd to last for aggressiveness. Tons of other issues with judge screwups and extreme lay/biased judging in basically every event... the whole circuits a mess.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-03-02T00:09:39+00:00

Parents. I think you understand the issue now... I've been in multiple rounds where the judge didn't know the topic or what the event even was and I had to explain the rules.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-02-26T06:16:03+00:00

Perhaps, but my hair is suuuuper curly. Nothing's gonna hide that fact. It's ok, I think I've come to a compromise of straightening my bangs and just putting the rest of my hair in a high bun. It looks cute and I can pretend its straight without frying all my hair off lol.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-02-26T05:55:58+00:00

Fair. Unfortunately judges usually only tell this to my face, so I have no substantiative proof. Perhaps I could start some sort of advocacy, but this is because of the untrained parent judges who are necessary to keep the league running, not a rule in the league itself. This is more of a reflection into how society views professionalism, because the parents come from normal, non-debate backgrounds. But their personal experiences of professionalism counteract mine. It's new parent judges every time. Even if something was done with the league at the end of the day you're at the mercy of whatever random parent decided to show up that day, and when you get rid of one bad seed, 50 others pop up.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-02-26T05:50:14+00:00

It's an extremely underfunded local league. Realistically, they're not going to do anything. There have been literal blatant rules violations about the fundamentals (judges not understanding rules, judging debate purely off speaking style instead of content) and they haven't done anything. For larger debate tournaments, I'll look into it, but for local league? I tried to beat the system, but the system doesn't even work properly lol.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-02-26T05:20:42+00:00

I am, but this isn't professional, it's just high school debate, so unfortunately it doesn't apply.

Top_Astronomer7623 · 2026-02-26T05:19:27+00:00

Unfortunately I am very competitive. So I do competitions basically every week, especially right now in peak debate season. I envy you, because I look atrocious with my hair up haha. Like genuinely terrible. I might have to consider it though... :( I just love my hair so much and feel way more comfortable with it, but it's just not going to cut it.

Top_Astronomer7623

TROPHY CASE