reason for decision

6:30 AM. I wake up to the sound of birds chirping. No, too familiar—this birdsong is electric. I fall back asleep. 6:35 AM. Easy. This four-note melody was set by Christina, still asleep next to me. I reach over and turn it off. She won’t mind. 6:40 AM. Fuck. On max volume, my phone blares out like a fire alarm. I leap out of bed to shut it off, careful not to trip over the suitcases piled up front, but by this point, all three other girls are awake, groggy, and glaring daggers at me.



Sorry— I say, At least we're up now!



7:00 AM. The first morning of a debate tournament is always chaos. Jessica and Cayla are morning showerers—though neither are especially good at wake-ups. Christina rifles through her carry-on for her day's outfit. I perch on the edge of the bed, holding up a tiny mirror and attempting to ink jet-black wings across my eyes. If they come out symmetrical, the cosmos had blessed us: today would be a good day. If not, I was on my own.



7:20 AM. Y'all. Pairings are out. We're late.



Pairings meant a mad dash to locate our phones, type in tabroom-dot-com, and identify who we were up against and where we were headed. Teams are marked only by their school name and last initials—for instance, Jessica and I are Interlake DS. So while most team codes sound like gibberish, a familiar one almost certainly meant a formidable first round.



7:25 AM. Once oriented, we stuff our backpacks with colorful Pilot G2s, stacks of legal-size paper, a couple protein bars, a very full water bottle, and our laptops. There’s never time to double-check. Immediately, we were out the door, praying that we didn’t forget something.

A policy debate round lasts around one-and-a-half hours. There are four 8-minute constructive speeches and four 3-minute cross-examinations followed by four 5-minute rebuttals. Each team is allotted 8 minutes per round of prep time to allocate however they please, and judges may take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to adjudicate a round.



This last waiting period is by far the worst part. The round itself is usually too fast-paced to notice my anxiety. But as soon as the last speech wraps up and the judge sends us outside the room to wait, all the pent-up stress unleashes itself like a bomb and heads straight for my gut. Unfortunately for Jessica, I know every cognitive distortion in the book. My post-round strategy is to immediately start rattling off all the arguments I missed; all the things we could have said; every way we could lose. To catch my breath (and give her a break), I stop to guzzle water and look for the restroom, which always seemed to be in the building's most secluded corner—ideal for biding time. When I return, I text my friends at the tournament, looking for time to meet up, while avoiding texting others, who asked how my round went. Anything to make the wait feel shorter. But whether 5 minutes or 30, it always seemed like an eternity.



The judge opens the door and tells us to come back in. It's time for the RFD: the Reason For Decision. My nausea returns in full force as we shuffle back into our seats.



This was a very good round, the judge says, like they always do. In the end, I voted for the affirmative team.



Not good. We were neg. The judge launches into a detailed explanation of how he reached his decision, and our opponents start typing furiously—taking notes, texting coaches, or maybe both at once. I am barely listening. I am waiting for my stomach to calm.

The end of Day One is usually the peak. Everyone is in a good mood because everything is possible.



A standard tournament has six preliminary rounds, called prelims: there are four on the first day and two on the second. Then, teams with a good enough record—usually 4-2 or better—proceed to elimination rounds, called elims. As long as you end Day One 2-2 or better, you're still in the running for the next. And if you win just a few more rounds in elims, you might qualify to the Tournament of Champions, or the TOC. That accomplishment heralds trophies, social status, a line on a college app: in the insular world of high school debate, the TOC is the holy grail.





Despite our rough start, Interlake DS ends Day One with a 2-2 record, and so do Christina and Cayla, Interlake LL. I grab dinner with a few summer camp friends I haven't seen in ages. When the four of us return to the hotel room that night, the room buzzes with excitement and anticipation. Laptops are out, keyboards clattering. We complain about bad judges and laugh at sore losers. I start researching a new critique I heard about, and when I finally find the perfect article to fortify my case, it feels like nirvana. By 1 AM, our alarms are set, and we’re all fast asleep.

It always feels easier to wake up on Day Two. Sometimes, we even have time for breakfast. Good luck! I yell to Interlake LL as we part ways. You too! We got this!



But the cheer never lasts long. With a 2-2 record, every round becomes a bubble round: just one loss pops the bubble and takes us out of the running for elims. Pairings come out again. Our opponents, Greenhill GR, hail from a renowned debate school on the outskirts of Dallas. They’ve brought one of their many hired coaches to prep, watch, and record the round. Their video equipment looks expensive. But the debaters are young and strategically clumsy. They lose decisively. As soon as the judge ends the RFD, Greenhill’s coach stands up and barks Let’s go! The boys look shaken. They quickly pack up, then shuffle after their coach, who is already storming out. You left your camera here! I shout after him. He doesn’t return.



Round Six is tougher. Our opponents are decent, and we've lost to them before. But before it starts, I spend five minutes g-chatting Jessica, trashing them. They have good coaches, but they're not smart. Their case is terrible. There's literally no way they can beat us—these arguments literally don't make sense. The last time we lost, it was definitely a judge-fuck. What kind of idiots would come up with this? The shit talk isn't nice or fair, but it's become a pre-round ritual that puts me in the competitor's mindset. I've lost too many rounds to anxious self-sabotage to care about my conscience. In debate, we call this a self-fulfilling prophecy: your attitude and worldview will enact itself. If you treat a rival nation as an aggressor, you're more likely to incite war; if you expect to lose a round, you won't put in 100 percent. We win, barely.



But a 4-2 record is no place to celebrate. When there are too many 4-2 teams and not enough spots in elims, the group is split on the basis of speaker points, which are assigned to individual debaters after every round, on a scale from 0 to 30. Inexplicably, the community norm is never to step outside of 27 to 30, differentiating debaters in tenths of points instead. So making it to elims often hinged on something like a 0.2-point difference—just one ungenerous judge.



To improve our speaker points, Jessica and I did hours of speaking drills every week. Some exercises aim to improve enunciation: we sped through tongue twisters at 200 words per minute and rap lyrics at 300. In others, we try to lower our voices—it’s more authoritative, coaches said—and eliminate likes and umms—they make you sound like a ditz. It crossed our mind that this was sexist, but didn’t we want to speak like a 29.5?



The drills don’t matter in the end. Interlake DS gets 4-2 screwed, missing elims by just two ranks. Jessica and I look at each other. Well, shit.



The most disciplined debaters recover from losses with what I considered an uncanny chirpiness, following the best teams through elims to take meticulous notes and mimic their skills. I did this my first few years of debate—it was what we were supposed to—but by now, I was sick of watching my friends win from the sidelines. Plus, everyone knew we didn’t make it: debaters are all too aware of their position in the totem pole. I didn’t want to remind them.



What if we just left? Jessica suggests.



Huh? You don't want to watch rounds?



I mean, do you really want to? Because we could get boba instead.



Let’s go.



We look up the nearest boba shop on Yelp, which was a 15-minute drive from the tournament venue in suburban Las Vegas. The Uber would cost 12 dollars each way, but at this point, we’re eager for any excuse to get out. We hop in the car and go. The drinks cost five dollars each, and they aren’t very good—again, Nevada. Still, we use the free WiFi to watch a BuzzFeed video called Seven Excellent Egg Hacks, and once sufficiently distracted from our losses, we order an extra Thai tea for Interlake LL and call an Uber back to the hotel.



This is still one of my favorite memories from that year.

Jessica and I were partners for all four years of high school, a rare and resilient feat. We often joked that we were the same person: both of us born to Chinese immigrant parents, both the eldest daughters in households of high expectations. You see, while most partnerships dissolve when one individual quits to pursue less exhausting endeavors, Jessica and I were both too stubborn. Our partnership was based in a firm foundation of shared desire and shared desperation.



Interlake DS’s performance was rarely atrocious, but we never triumphed, either. We forever teetered on the edge of success, so we continued to doubt ourselves: this was the curse of the 4-2 screw. i’ve been wondering - at what point am i no longer unlucky and just terminally shitty? I tweet after the Las Vegas tournament. Nobody replies.





Jessica and I begin describing our relation to debate as cruel optimism, a term borrowed from literary theorist Lauren Berlant. “Cruel optimism” names a relation of attachment to compromised conditions of possibility, she writes. It’s when the object of desire—a crush, a career, a TOC qual—becomes the very barrier to your flourishing. Yet because of its centrality to the yearner’s life, because the object is so captivating and so close yet so far—for these reasons, the desire can’t be let go.



Critical theory, rationalization. This is how we made sense of our growing fatigue.

After each tournament, I would download a 200-line CSV containing speaker stats for every competitor. I compared my mean points, median points, and deviation-adjusted totals to friends and adversaries alike. The numbers, however arbitrary, create a strange aura of objectivity: evaluating the quality of your argumentation doesn’t feel too different from evaluating the quality of you. It’s a lot more personal than a math test or a mile time—harder to compartmentalize. I began to see my peers to three sigfigs, and looking in the mirror, I saw the same.



During my junior and senior years of high school, I begged my parents to let me fly south for national circuit competitions where I might qualify to the TOC. Las Vegas, LA, even Washington DC. They were reluctant. Out-of-state competitions were costly, would send me far away without adult supervision, and I’d inevitably end up pulling all-nighters to catch up on late homework—not to mention the hours of extra tutoring I did to cover travel costs.



So it’s especially painful when they pick me up from SeaTac airport, asking, How come you still didn’t win? Do you think it’s time to stop? Takes so much time and money. Half-asleep, I respond, No, I’ll prep more; I think we’re really close. I’m not sure if I believe myself. Our conversation fades out, and the lights lining the highway blur into streaks of white.

Interlake DS’s first big break comes at the University of Washington tournament, with a 37-team participant pool that was barely big enough to count for the national circuit. Most teams are local public schools, though a few had flown in from California for what they assumed would be an easy win. But we don’t plan to make it easy: Washington is our home turf. We know the teams and we know the judges, who’d seen us grow up from our hungry novice days. We can drive 20 minutes home from campus and sleep in our own beds at night—no more sneaking four people into a two-person hotel room. Here, there are no private school coaches staring us down during speeches. And during elims, two sophomores from a neighboring school follow us from round to round, sitting in the back of the room, whispering to each other yet too shy to say hello.



I guess we’re the big fish now, I say to Jessica.



Weird, she replies.



Before UW, I'd underestimated how much psychological comfort contributed to my performance; and conversely, how much hyper-competitive status games depressed it. After winning the state championship last spring, Jessica and I stopped competing locally, dismissing it as a waste of time. We only registered for UW because of the new national designation. Yet freed from the shackles of expectation, this weekend ends up being a lot of fun. Other national tournaments were exhilarating, educational, and motivating, but rarely straight-up fun.



I spend the weekend giving speeches I’m proud of among people I respect. The four of us—Jessica, Cayla, Christina, and I—make it to finals breezily, and afterwards, we head to the Ave for boba and steaming bowls of udon. The slogan emblazoned on our shirts, Interlake hegemony, finally feels true.

The next tournament is at Gonzaga University in the heart of winter. Jessica's dad drives us six hours east over the Cascade Mountains to Spokane, Washington, a city I’ve never visited without at least one stranger walking up to me to make racist remarks. We crash in the Red Lion hotel like we've done every January since 2014, and in the morning, we traipse across the snow and around the pond to Gonzaga's elegant brick buildings. Suddenly, I feel ice hit my leg. It slides down my calf and into my boots. I turn around. One of the new freshmen, Edward, is cackling, having shot his target with one snowball and gearing up for another. I point at Cayla's back and mouth: Get her instead!



Gonzaga goes well. Despite being deep in Trump country, it’s still Washington, so I feel at home. The whole Interlake team is here—for the freshmen, it’s their first travel tournament—and I spend the night of Day One nodding along as they regale me with battle stories from the day. Good thinking with that cross-ex strategy. The other team said WHAT? Sorry, it gets easier, I promise. The chatter is a healthy distraction from my own rounds, and living vicariously through their eager innocence, the activity feels a little bit magical again.



On Day Two, we debate from 8 AM to midnight. There is no time for meals, so Edward brings us coffee and pitas while we wait for our decision in semis. After 25 minutes, the judge panel hands us a win. We then lose finals, but it's okay. We've qualified to the TOC.



It’s 1 AM by the time we’re back at the hotel. The Interlake squad envelops us in a sea of praise: You made it! You thought you wouldn’t qual to the TOC, but you did! My phone pings, too: friends post Congrats! on my Facebook wall, and near-strangers fill my inbox with the same. But I don’t feel jubilant, just relieved. Before wiping off our makeup and heading to bed, Jessica and I snap a picture: me on the right, her on the left, and Edward in the center with (unearned) plaque in hand. We text it to our parents.



That February, Valentine's Day weekend, we fly into the Oakland airport for the Cal Invitational. It's a massive tournament fielding over 200 teams, guaranteeing that I'll get to see far-flung friends, and the sunny Bay Area weather is a welcome change from Washington’s winter rain. In some ways, Cal feels more holiday than high stakes.



Over the course of the tournament, Jessica and I debate thirteen men (six white, seven Asian) and one woman. Several of the men try to crush my fingers in the obligatory post-round handshake. We narrowly beat two cocky juniors—they were easy to hate—and one bursts into tears when they lose. It is hard to feel remorseful, so I don't. The next year, the crying boy is asked to leave his school after bullying his classmates. He and his partner both transfer so they can keep debating together. It pays off—that year, the pair win the TOC. When I learn this, I remember our round and feel vindicated in my callousness. In fact, I’m almost proud.



Interlake DS goes 4-1 at Cal before being pit against one of my close friends in Round Six. Yet I cannot convince myself to hate him; in fact, I feel certain that he will abandon our friendship once they see how poorly I debate. I give two anxious, scattered speeches and lose the round. My friend-slash-opponent and I were planning to grab late-night poutine afterwards, but I can’t bear to look him in the eye, so I apologize and head back to the hotel to sleep off the stress.



All 4-2s break at Cal, but we bow out in our first elim the next morning. TOC-qualified or not, Interlake DS had gotten no further in the tournament than in 2015. The loss sucks for about an hour before we console ourselves with pineapple buns from nearby Sheng Kee bakery. We eat them on a grassy slope outside the Life Sciences building. The air feels cool and cleansing.



Remember last year? I ask Jessica. We lost in triple-octas, just like this.



Yeah, we spent Day Two crying on the fourth floor of Dwinelle.



Wow. I marvel at the memory, which feels as faint as a dream. This is so much better.

Sometimes I wonder how so much of my debate-related stress dissipated that winter, despite being so all-consuming during the first three years of competition. One explanation is that my college apps were submitted, so I was no longer worried about converting wins to acceptances. Another is the TOC qualification. Before, I'd been so focused on this singular goal of the TOC, and finally achieving it offered the breathing room to enjoy myself. A third, more likely factor is the self-fulfilling prophecy. With one good tournament, UW, we went from constant imposters to actually feeling like winners. Rationally, nothing changed, but emotionally, it was everything.



Jessica and I barely prep for the TOC, which is held on the weekend bridging April and May. We've just signed our college commitments—me to Stanford, she to Brown—and that ordeal was enough stress for the month. We dedicate the rest of senior spring to pointless drives around town and unexcused absences, not afternoons in the old history classroom where debate practice was held.



When we arrive at the tournament, we have no expectations. Most debaters stay up late to prep, chugging Red Bull as dark circles etch themselves under their eyes. Jessica and I order pasta at midnight. It comes without utensils, so we make chopsticks out of coffee stirrers and collapse into fits of laughter when the noodles slip from our grasp. Over the next two days of competition, Interlake DS loses four of seven rounds. Instead of ranting about judges or agonizing over the could-have-beens, we spend the rest of the day wandering around Lexington, Kentucky's barren streets. The street is lined with a couple burger joints, a print shop, and a dusty-looking vintage boutique. There are not very many trees. As we walk, a pedestrian yells konichiwa! at us, and we roll our eyes at him. We sleep well at night.





(nov 20, 2020)