When I didn't break yesterday after I was somewhat expecting to, we talked a lot about whether it's better to be really close to something you really want, or to be a long ways away. Namely, four of the six people I debated broke, and the prospects for my number of ballots were rather grim. I was thinking about whether it would be worse if I had gotten two ballots or seven (one less than the required number to move on to double eliminations). I finally decided that although I would be really frustrated with getting seven ballots, it wouldn't be worse than getting two.

I went into rounds five and six yesterday pretty confidently. I was sure that I'd at least split round five, and I was almost 100% sure that I'd won both ballots for round six. From my estimates, I thought I probably had eight or nine ballots. I think I probably deserved eight. I didn't deserve any from the first round, but after that I think I did a lot better.

Amanda looked at the numbers of ballots today. I split the first round (got one ballot). I won the second round (two). I split the third round (one), won the fourth (two), split the fifth (one). So going into the sixth round, I had seven ballots. I only needed to split the sixth round, and so far I hadn't lost a single round. But of course I didn't know that at the time.

I was my usual self in the sixth round. I went fast; I read a lot of cards; I had a lot of evidence and examples. One of my judges didn't write anything down the whole time, but one, a former policy debater, was flowing. My opponant was spread in her rebuttal, and she didn't have time to address the majority of my points. Objectively, I think that I clearly won the debate on many fronts. There were many debates this tournament that I definitely didn't clearly win. But I think the two that I did clearly win were round two and round six.

But, alas, it doesn't work out that way, does it? The sixth round was the only round that I absolutely had to win at least one ballot, and it's the *only* round that I lost. It sucks.

I'm okay. I'll move on. Amanda got ten ballots at nats, and I got seven. All I wanted was to make her proud, and I think I was close enough to her ten ballots. I know I should have broken, but life doesn't work that way sometimes. For the first time, really, after a frustrating thing like this happening, I feel okay. My very last round of LD ever kind of sucked, and high school debate is over, but it's okay. Really.

All I can say is, those judges from sixth round had better have a dang good reason to drop me.