Solon Debate Team Blog: Finals, Finally

    After several lengthy days of intense and grueling competition, the final rounds began.  What began with hundreds of competitors in the performance events (Humorous Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation and Duo Interpretation) ended today with the final six competitors duking it out for a shot at the national championship.  Although they began at 3, we were forced by our coaches to get up much earlier than that with the reasoning being that hoards of people will all be vying for a very limited number of good seats.  Fair enough, we had naively believed.  The NFL seemed to have caught onto this phenomena, and decided to open the doors only when the time for the final rounds arrived.  Thus, for much of the time that we thought we would be in our seats waiting, we were in fact just waiting for our seats.  

As it turns out, seeing the final rounds in person was well worth the wait.  First came the Humorous Interpretion final round with comical performance after comical performance.  Dramatic Interpretation came afterward, with some especially powerful deliveries of various pieces.  Then, the Diamond Coach Award interlude began.  Many left, but we stayed to pay our respect to the various dedicated teachers and coaches who had dedicated so much of their lives to bettering the speech community as a whole.  Duo Interpretation was the last of the final performance rounds, with some spectacular and creative performances.  After having seen so many of these events and cuts performed online on places like YouTube, it was incredibly refreshing to actually see the pieces delivered live.  It really is better live.

Following those performances, we met up with one of our teammates' mom and her friend who knew Dallas fairly well.  They brought us to a very nice Indian restaurant called Cosmic Cafe, and after eating some delicious and traditional Indian cuisine, we headed back to our hotels to crash and ruminate in the excellence that was the final rounds in the performance events.