Tournaments are the most highly stressful, draining activities you could possibly imagine. Way more draining than any soccer, tennis, or baseball game ever has been for me.

This is what happened... it's an old story reoccuring. I was 4-0 when I broke into octafinals. That's the first time I have EVER not lost a single debate in prelims. But I thought I had lost them all. So when I looked at the postings I didn't believe them. I asked my head coach several times if it could have been an accident. My speaker points were high, I see looking back, so I must have been seated fairly high, probably in the top six or less out of 35.

I went to that octafinals round, confused and worried that me competing in it was a mistake, and it was the same boy I lost to in semis last weekend. I was negative though, and last weekend in Wyoming I had beat him as negative. But when I saw it was him... when I saw him standing there... I knew I had lost. Before I even walked into that round I had lost.

And I did lose. Not over arguments, but because all the ballots said they voted on his presence and performance... basically his appeal to the judges. Which is something important that I need to work on.

But it's hard to play out this same story again and again. It happened a lot last year. I do really well in preliminaries but cannot believe it and lose my first outround. It's getting old.

As cliche as this sounds, I did literally cry myself to sleep on Friday not. Not about tthe tournament but because this is my last month and then I will maybe see her twice in the rest of my life. That's all I could think about all weekend. And as irrational as it is (she's done nothing wrong), I am furious at her for leaving... I hate her for leaving. I have been avoiding her.

Below anger there is nearly always hurt, and I am hurting incredibly badly, and there is no one to blame it on but her, even though I know it's not her fault. I just don't want to lose her...