All due respect.

I lost a debate today, but that doesn't really matter to me. It doesn't really matter to me if I win or not now, the thing that really matters is trying to get the reward that I deserve from all the work I put in. This is really making me mad, so I'll do a good job explaining.

Now debate, is something close to my heart. I've been sacrificing every weekend for the past 3 years towards the betterment of my debate career. If that doesn't sound like a lot, then something must not be connecting. I've missed weekends of music, painting, hanging out with friends, and just enjoying myself. I miss just sleeping on weekends and just not having to worry about anything. I think that somewhere in this "haze" I forgot about what really mattered to me, I couldn't tell because I was so infused with just being "better" and doing "better" than I did last time. I feel like sometimes, I can't get back into being a "normal" person with "normal" things to do. Recently, I've been feeling as if my efforts are not worth doing in the first place. That was one of the major issues with today.

I wasn't having a good day anyway (getting up at 5:30 doesn't help any). First round was delayed by 2 hours, people were getting on my nerves, people wanted to play the "blame game" all day long. People just flat out sucked today, and I never think that negative. When I think negative sometimes, then I think about things that I would otherwise "block" out of my head. Unfortunately today, I had to think about how sucky of a job that our coaches are doing to help us WIN something. I don't really get mad at people at all, but when people talk to me like I'm stupid, then we are going to have issues.

This really started last year when I lost the bid for team captain. I really wanted to be captain, and I did what I could to say "Hey, I'm going to be the best darn captain ever". When the flawed voting system didn't work out for me, I got sad. If that wasn't enough, I found out the the kid who used to make fun of me 2 or 3 years before made captain, then I really got pissed off. They announced who wast to be the captains at a team party, and I ended up leaving not even 5 minutes after. That next Monday, they are blaming me for not "Taking the loss in stride" and not "being a good role model". I got hashed because "everything is my fault". I had to tune it out and hope for the best next season.

Next season comes around, I doubted that I would win one round out of three, but when I started to go 2-3 and had the high speaker points, I had hope for myself. In the first 2 months of debating, I got 66 or so points; a nice pace for someone who only had 200 or so over 2 years of debating. I'm progressing, and that is a good thing. The better thing is that I'm only 4 or so points off from getting into finals. But that doesn't matter to the "Captains" because they always break no mater the cost of the team, or even the cost of the other debaters. I wouldn't do that. Never will. When I see these liars get into finals without working working for it honestly like I do.

When I left the meet tonight, I wasn't acting "stressed out and angry towards others because I have a lot on my mind" like our coach said, but I was acting the way that I was because "I'm sick and tired of not getting the respect that I deserve from everyone". Hell, if I can give other people respect, why can't they do the same to me?

I've gotten used to being the "odd one out" on the team and I don't care about that anymore, I think I care more about the simple things, respect, hard work and truthfulness. If we could have these things on the team, then I wouldn't be half as mad as I am now.

I don't think that I'm going to talk to the head coaches by myself this time because the last time I did that, nothing happened. I want something to happen this time, not that mess I had the last time around. I just wish that I had the people who could help me out sometimes, but they always have to be 500 miles away.