The Beginning of the End (Of Class)

Yesterday was long, frustrating, stressful and filled with an unnecessarily long amount of work due to my procrastination.  There was a sense of accomplishment when I finally finished up my assignment, but other than that, it was an experience I wouldn't like to go through again.  Today, by all means, was nearly an exact opposite.  There was no stress, no long 10-hour projects, and no bus endless bus trips.  All in all, today was really chill and enjoyable.

Studying Pays Off!

Today's session in Debate and Rhetoric was very straightforward.  The first item in the agenda was handing in my project and getting the results back from my test.  When I got the paper back, I was scared to look because I knew the paper was a huge part of my grade and had tremendous influence in terms of whether or not I passed the class.  Once I was handed my paper, I walked back to my seat, sat down, and slowly unraveled the paper.  On the top of my paper in big blue pen was a barely legible 90/100.  I passed!  Not only did I pass, but I got an A- on the test!  I only missed 2 out of 18, so I was stoked to say the least.  Immediately after I calmed down from the post result hype, Dr. Sharkey passed us out a three-page article regarding the four Supreme Court Justices that voted against legalizing gay marriage.  Most of their arguments were very weak because it appeared that they had a bias based on the foundations of religion.  However, the one argument that made sense was when a Supreme Court Justice stated that the decision was undemocratic because nine people decided the fate of 300 million (remember this piece of information). 

Once we finished going over the article, we jumped into a debate.  The nation was "This House believes that the Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage was a mistake." I was elected to be the Closing Government, meaning that I was going to have to support this notion, which I found tough because I had the opposite mindset.  In order to create a logistical argument, I based my speech off of the notion that it was undemocratic for nine people to express the views of 300 million.  I remember explicitly saying "How can you call the United States a democracy if you let nine people speak for the minds of 300 million?"  I stated that the United States was a pluralistic society that had so much diversity, yet did not let its citizens and their different sets of morals decide on whether or not the nation to legalize gay marriage would be legal.  I then talked about Ireland, whose government allowed its citizens to vote on the issue, which brought about organic change, regret than their government forcing their citizens to accept the ruling like in the United States.  I believe I did a better job at presenting my arguments in comparison to the previous two debates last weeks, but with at least two more debates left, there's room to improve and hone my skills.  After class, my day was average.  I played basketball for a couple hours, then headed back to the dorms to finish reading my textbook and study until nightfall.