My datebook tells me that the combination twenty-two units of class to attend, a flight to command, a radio show to broadcast, an undergraduate fellowship to complete, and a sanity to maintain already make for an all-too-full fall term.

But, the startling realization that I’ve already expended half the magical moments of college and the belligerent attitude that this only comes once in a lifetime led me to engage yet another endeavor last week: I provisionally joined the Pepperdine Speech & Debate team.

While the aforementioned logistical barriers dictate that my involvement with the activity will be limited, I joined just in time to compete in last weekend’s parliamentary tournament at Claremont-McKenna College on the other side of Los Angeles. Though a steep learning curve (we were shut out our first four rounds), the experience was also richly rewarding (we were undefeated in the continuing rounds on the second day). It was a fun, fair rhetorical ravaging on topics ranging from marijuana, to foreign policy, to pollution reduction.

Beyond learning the semantics of the alter-reality called collegiate debate, the experience was tremendously informative in learning how a “nuanced” worldview looks at matters of disagreement. In short, I think the experience did more in a weekend to educate about the thought process of my political adversaries than two years of classroom exploration have explained on the matter. It was also powerful a powerful realization that many of my core principles simply can’t be impenetrably articulated in five minutes.

Taken as a whole, the weekend of banter was an excellent opportunity to sharpen the skills of rhetoric and logic while indulging the abundance of free snacks and amusement of folks that took this far too seriously. Theoretically, I’ll have time to do one more tournament this semester–and as an added bonus, this evening the debate team auditioned for spots on an upcoming History Channel program. Who knows where this craziness could lead to?

With diabolical debate partner Brendan Groves