The Last Harvard: Sunday

Sunday at the Harvard tournament is probably the best day of the weekend.   Most of my initial social obligations are met, so I feel no trouble finding a quiet corner of campus and hiding.   After all, being an alum and former staffer has its privileges; knowing the non-tournament areas of campus well is an unqualified benefit.

The tournament day, in speech at least, also has that carnival atmosphere of a large tournament where students are breaking — or not breaking — to the next level nearly every ten minutes.   The typical screaming and carrying on accompanies each break posting.   In the past few years, the tournament began posting each break on their website, which has had the twin effect of making the actual posting less of an exciting hullabaloo, but also made life much more convenient; I can sit in my lounge with my still-working wireless connection, and know what’s going on all across campus with my students; I even know where they are.

So I spent the morning in MD, touched based with extempers and debaters, and then went for a lovely late lunch with Joe V at La Casa de Pedro, a Venezuelan place that is close enough to still be in reach of a suddenly sick kid, but far enough that no other forensics people were there, an important consideration since lunch with Joe V means a healthy round of character assassination.   Don’t worry, it was mostly about Menick.

Then we returned and I wandered to the Science Center, where my phone promptly died.   Now, given that our protocol was “call or text me when you arrive or leave” — despite the extempers believing this did not apply to them — this was decidedly unfortunate.     I tried to get the damn thing to work and instead stole some time on Mike V’s phone to establish whereabouts and whatnot with the kids.

Chrissy made it to DI Octos, the 2nd break round, thus making the trip worthwhile for her.   The extempers got a little massacred; three of them didn’t clear prelims at all, which was more than a little surprising, but it’s a randomly judged tournament so you can’t expect much out of it.   One PF team made the first break on a 4-2 record, while the other two missed clearing on 3-3s.   And the last extemper made finals again, which is a great thing for him; last year he took 5th.

That also meant I had to wake up on Monday since the extemp final was scheduled to launch at 9:00 AM, which meant 8:30 draw, which meant at least an 8:00 AM arrival.   I set my alarm grudgingly for 7:00 AM, but seeing as I did get home by 9:00 and cooked my own dinner, I can’t really say as it was terrible day.

Except for the dead phone, and not even I can blame Harvard for that.

However, Monday awaits us.