State debate tournament (Malaina is BANANAS!)

My preliminary record was 3-1 (another miracle... I thought I was sucking... and for the second tournament in a row I beat this boy, Max. He got 2nd place at the last tournament and 4th at this one). I walked into octafinals and looked at the girl that had won state last year, all of a sudden, out of anonymity. She was no longer anonymous, but infamous. Ignomanious, I would say. She was tall, thin, Will's kind of beautiful, and I wasn't afraid of her becasue I knew Amanda could have beat her so easily.
I guess I forgot that it's been apparent all along that I am not as good at debate as Amanda is.
I fought, though, and my arguments pounded hers like hammers on fenceposts, but she is something other than a person when she debates; she annihilates; she leaves little pellets and skeletons of debaters and their dreams in her wake.
I never gave up. I fought and faought and she lied and lied. I felt good about the round and my debating. I wanted to win it for Amanda. I had promised her I would, a long time ago in September.
I lost, of course. Malaina (my opponant) is mesmorizing. Lay judges don't see the circular confusion of her arguments; they lap her and her slitted miniskirt up. Me, I lost it in the cross-ex when she slaughtered me and in the affirmative summary when she made up a lot of lies about me.
I was supposed to win for Amanda... I thought I could, for an instant. I really believed it. That was supposed to be enough... believing...
I failed. Not myself. No, I have next year. But Amanda... there is no next year.
The whole time during Malaina's affirmative summary as she lied and lied about the things I said, all that was playing through my head was "This *crap* is bananas... B-A-N-A-N-A-S!"

Oh how I longed to burst into song.
New plan though: when I hit her at NFL's (in finals of course) in two weeks I will mention her name in ever speech (instead of saying 'my opponant') and I will get her name wrong every time. Constructive... I'll call her Melanie. Rebuttal... I'll call her Natasha. Then after the round when I shake her hand I will say, "Great job, Andrea!" And she will say, "My name is Malaina." And I will slap my forehead and say, "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry Natalie, I'm just so bad with names when I have no reason to remember them."

Also, during her aff summary if she is aff I will shoot spitballs at her through a straw.

And of course... voting issue number 1- value criterion clash. Voting issue number 2- who better upholds justice/which thesis makes more sense. Voting issue number 3- Natalie is BANANAS, B-A-N-A..."
You get the point.

:-) It's high school and I got beat by someone I really wanted to destroy. Let me be immature for a moment.

Meanwhile, I struggle to cope with letting someone down, even if they don't think I did. Brittany and Will said to me, "I thought you should have won, definitely on the flow." And Mr. Pogreba said, "The ballots all said it was really close." And I said, "I didn't want to win for me." And they all stared at me blankly. "Who else is there to win for?" they asked.
They just don't get it, do they?