Creative Writing My Summer Off Essay Research

Creative Writing: My Summer Off Essay, Research Paper

Creative Writing: My Summer Off

Memory can be so fickle. Like some great book that is slowly loosing

its pages, you begin with an entire novel full of details and descriptions and,

if you’re not careful, you end up with nothing more than the cover and the brief

synopsis on the back page. My novel on the subject of the end of summer school

debate has lost its share of pages but the back-cover synopsis, the essence of

the entire experience, is still with me.

?We are about to begin our annual debating tournament,? the instructor

beamed with an enthusiasm that let each of us know how happy he was that we had

made it this far. ?It will be the culmination of your six weeks of learning and

will count as a considerable part of your grade for the course. We will begin

at eight tomorrow morning. Get some practice, get some sleep, see you there.?

I don’t know what drew me to the course but I can remember my parents

telling me they felt I should go to summer school. I was opposed to the concept

of summer school right up to the moment I was issued the dictum ?go to school or

get a job?, at which point I became the world’s greatest advocate of off-season

learning. Besides, I was only fifteen and the workplace just wasn’t ready for

me. So I thumbed through the course book, singing a chorus of no’s until I

arrived on the Debate and Public Speaking page. There resided a large

photograph of a boy confidently standing behind an ornate podium, clearly frozen

in the middle of some captivating and influential argument. I read the passage

describing the course and was immediately sold. How could a stuffy math class

or a trivial course in art compare to ?a course that teaches students the skills

and techniques of competitive debate, culminating in a week long tournament??

So I filled out the forms and mailed them and before I knew It I was sitting in

a lecture hall, learning the skills and techniques of competitive debate.

As I have said, I was only fifteen and perhaps this debating course was

not yet ready for me either. I was both the youngest and least experienced of

the lot. Little could be done to gain ground on the former adversity, but I set

about rectifying th latter by filling a notebook with all the wisdom that the

teacher could impart to us during the hour long periods. When it was time for

the first debate, I studied up on my notes, reviewed my speech, marched over to

the outdoor amphitheater and was summarily destroyed by a girl would surely go

on to be a lawyer, if she wasn’t one already. Two days later I was bludgeoned

by a boy who lied to the judge so convincingly that all my facts were forgotten,

he would be a politician. And so the sorry sequence continued, the opponents

kept changing but the results remained the same. I grew bitter and frustrated

but I did not walk away. Instead I compiled lists, long lists, of what I had

done wrong and how to do better. With each debate the lists grew longer, until

their growth was halted by the teacher’s announcement that the tournament would

begin in a day and we were to get some rest.

That night I studied and review my lists, reliving the anguish that

accompanied each pointer: ?Don’t let your speech blow away in the wind. Look

the judge in the eye. Breath deeply. Don’t stutter.? The following morning I

went into the debate and rambled through a mediocre speech in a mediocre tone.

When I had delivered my mediocre conclusion, I waited for the judge’s decision

because it is the polite thing to do, not because I needed further confirmation

of my imminent loss. So I sat there In my chair adding to the list as the judge

announced that each of us had garnered the same number of points, but, because

ties were not allowed, he had awarded the debate to me. I was dumbfounded but I

concealed my disbelief so the judge would think me deserving of his accolade.

When I shook hands with my opponent, it felt different than it had previously,

maybe it is because this time I was giving the hand shake rather than receiving

it. I had taken the grand prize and that hand shake was merely his consolation

gift. I erased each of the points I had added to the list, I was becoming

better at debate, but I was not ready to argue with success. Maybe the list now

covered every possible pitfall, making loss an impossibility, but I doubted it.

I am proud to say that I was giving the hand shake at the end of each of

the next four rounds, placing myself in the semi-finals. I never assumed that a

debate was going to be easy, but when the politician walked into the room and

shook my hand, I knew this match would be a challenge. He won the coin toss and

chose the affirmative side, which gave him the power to define the terms of the

debate. The resolution given to him was ?be it resolved that two heads are

better than one

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