Entering College Forensics

Woo! That aside, I'm starting to settle into the land of college debate for now.
We meet weekly (from 6 pm to 8pm, blargh), and our first tournament is either in November or December.

My first impression: College debate is far more systemically ruthless. Apparently a standard tactic for the Negation (or opposition, since there is no negation any more...) is to refute the Affirmation (or Proposition, for the same reason)'s case in the first speech, and to hold off on the counter-case until the second speech.

Now, this may not sound completely evil, but realize that this forces the Affirmation (I refuse to become the Prop. and Opp.) to refute an entire case in their rebuttal. And this is accepted as being standard fare. Bah. Whatever happened to debate being about communication and sharing of ideas? I, for one, refuse to degrade myself with these tactics. I hold myself to be an ethical debater, and I will not compromise myself for material gain.

Besides that, I'm going to be doing an oratory on the American Dream. I'll talk more about that when I finish writing it.

Finally, apparently we get food stipends for tournaments. Woot!