The last time?

2005-03-21

While all of your spring breaks were spent in drunken revelry on sunny beaches, mine was spent here. In St. Louis. At my college. Hosting 600 students and educators at the Pi Kappa Delta national forensics tournament and convention.

I was especially amused by the fact that a lot of educators - the LEGENDS of our honorary, people that I profoundly admire - were just casually strolling around the campus partaking in our local offerings. Look! There's South Dakota State's Prof. Joel Hefling waiting for the poorly maintained elevator in Webster Hall! There's Ferris State U's Gary Horn flipping through the poorly maintained student newspaper! There's Southwest Baptist U's Dr. Bob Derryberry sitting in a booth in the university center eating a Gorlok burger! There's PKD President Susan Milsap going into the men's room! Okay, that last one didn't happen. YET...

Despite the intense camaraderie that's the backbone of any PKD tournament, I was pretty mopy all week. Even Tom Huebner, the President-Elect from Carson-Newman College, stopped me on the way to the ballot table and said, "Hey Andy, is something wrong?" I was caught off guard by the fact that he was kind enough to ask me in the first place, so I just responded with, "Oh, I'm just dog-tired." Which I was. I had been working three consecutive 16-hour days at that point on about 15 cumulative hours of sleep. Still, I'm no stranger to sleep deprivation. I should've taken Huebner aside, bought him a Gorlock burger, sat him down in a vinyl booth and laid out the following reasons as to why I was a bit on the melancholy side:

* I had to come home from the hotel almost every night to feed the fish and the bunny. Part of the national experience for me is the exotic locations like Boise in 2001 and Blatimore in 2003 (hardly exotic for some, I know), and the team's communal hotel experience, which I felt very disconnected from being tournament staff.

* I had been planning - well, hoping - for months to see Jessica Pinion last week after a year of distant correspondence. She didn't show up, and I didn't have time to call her. I judged her friend, Meagan, in a debate round and told her to tell Jess that I said hi. The next day, Meagan told me that she had talked to Jess and that she said hi as well. That was it for the week.

* Despite the fact that many of my non-friends were around, a bunch of them had graduated, and others like the McKendree College squad whom I am particularly close to had chosen to commute daily to the tournament rather than stay at the hotel. Every single day ended quietly and uneventfully.

* Nevermind that fact that I wasn't competing, this tournament could very well be the last time I was going to see many of these people. My friends, my admirers, those that I admire... if I don't come back for the Central Michigan convention in 2007, this week was it. There were too many hands that I didn't shake, including yours, Tom.

But all I could muster up the strength to say was, "Oh, I'm just dog-tired."

BUT LEST YOU THINK I'M 100% DEPRESSING!

* Webster got 4th place out of 72 attending universities. How we swung that I'll never know, but I'm happy nonetheless.

* James, Ryan, and I shared a national championship in Oral History, a short documentary filmmaking competition. It's the unprecedented third straight win for Webster in that event and raises my national championship tally to 7.

* Speaking of James, I got to address the convention with an endorsement of his candidacy for national council student representative. He may not have won and it may have been the only speech that I gave that week, but that's just fine by me. There are few things more gratifying than hearing hundreds of people laugh at your jokes at the same time.

* I got to chair the Dramatic Interpretation showcase panel, in which the top four competitors out of the 70-some in the event perform in a non-judged round with a discussion afterwards led by, for lack of a better word, experts in the event. In addition to a terrific round, it was a tremendous honor to preside over the showcase of my first and favorite collegiate individual event. It was almost as if my forensics experience had come full circle from humble beginnings to distinguished conclusion.

* Surrounded by other alumni of the Webster program, Pi Kappa Delta finally granted us an alumni chapter charter. There's my name, right there on the charter, which will sit in Webster's trophy case until Pi Kappa Delta ceases to exist. I have left my indellible mark on our program.

I'm home now, recovering from the hectic week and relaxing. I'm wearing my flannel pants, my handmade Boy Scout moccasins, I'm unshaved, unshowered, and unbrushed, and I plan on keeping it that way until I pass out for the night. It's 5:30 PM. Because it's my day off, I could use a Bloody Mary.

Have you guys noticed that I haven't written anything funny in weeks now? What's up with that?

-Andy

Creamy goodness

Important stuphph!

If I were any cooler, this motherfucker would burst into flames.

Drinkin' with LINCOLN! (And DAVID SEDARIS, despite no clever rhyming phrase!)

A quick timeout before I go back to DYING.