A Slight Delay

Just to let everyone know, I’m delaying this week’s Friday blog to Saturday. I have a Mock Trial competition tomorrow, I’ve still got work to do, and I’d like to get to bed before too long. So I’ll blog tomorrow.

Disenchanted

So here’s the first of my promised Friday updates. I’m going to put on my anthropologist hat for this one, and make the claim that IB is not designed to educate students and grant them a more worldly perspective, as the whole program claims. Rather, I’ve come to the conclusion that the International Baccalaureate program’s objective is to make students callous and bitter, to help them survive in the real world.

Just think about the subject matter that’s covered in IB at Gresham High School. Starting with Biology, where part of every unit is a lecture on disorders, also known as an hour and a half every month learning about all the things that could go wrong in your body. Move on to history, where one subject is “causes, practices & effects of war,” where you spend your time talking about the deaths of millions of people as though it’s just another quiz question; that is, right after you finish discussing the histories and methods of the most brutal dictators in the history of the world. After that there is IB English class, where most of the novels you read deal with existentialism: a philosophy which is based around the idea that nothing in the universe really matters. Finally, Theory of Knowledge, where you review existentialism AGAIN and are also forced to accept that the entire human experience is ultimately subjective and unreliable.

Then there are all the extra requirements for the IB program. The Extended Essay and CAS for example. Now it might seem at first that CAS (which includes 50 hours of volunteering) is an honest attempt by IBO to do some good in the world. But there are a few problems with this. First of all, the entire point of volunteering is to do something good in the world, for no other reason than because it’s good. What happens in IB isn’t volunteering: it’s IB students being voluntold to do good things. There’s also the Extended Essay, which is just 4,000 more words for a student to schedule into their time.

“But wait, Brian!” you’re all saying, “Are the IBO coordinators really sitting around thinking of ways to disillusion us?” Well, of course not. But one of the most interesting things about culture is that it evolves on its own. If it finds that its young are unable to survive in the real world, it finds a way to adapt. The members of culture aren’t necessarily always aware of this; for example, many anthropologists argue that the Hindu people don’t worship cows because they’re actually holy, but because eating cows would ruin the entire economic structure of India. I’ve come to believe that idealists really don’t do as well in the “real” world as people who are disillusioned to a certain degree. If school is supposed to be the place where students are prepped to deal with the real world, then wouldn’t it follow that school has to disillusion us somewhat? IB seems fairly adept at doing that.

(My heart’s not really in this one tonight, guys. Sorry.)

Victory and Defeat (But Mostly Defeat)

So for those that don’t know, I spent this past Friday and Saturday at the Mt. Hood Community College Saints Invitational Speech Tournament. Could they make that name any longer? I really don’t think so. Which is appropriate, because the tournament felt long as hell. Point is, it was a debate tournament. I competed in L-D Debate as per usual. I won second place, which a multitude of people have congratulated me on. Justin, in particular, tried very hard to convince me I’d done a good job.

Problem is, the plaque I won for this particular “accomplishment” is sitting face down on my floor where I can’t see it. It’s a nice-looking plaque too; engraved metal set on a nice-looking stained black wood. When people have asked how I’ve done, I haven’t just been saying “I won second place.” I’ve been saying “I lost in the final round, and got second place.” In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I don’t like losing. I mean, I really don’t like losing. I may not seem it, but I actually have a strong hyper-competitive streak.

The MHCC tournament was a little different in that the debate finals were after the awards ceremony. During the ceremony Shannon Valdevia (the MHCC debate coach) gave a speech talking about how important accepting defeat with grace is. After debate finals, while we were waiting to see who had won, I made the remark to Justin that “there is no grace in defeat.” He got kinda mad at me. When I got my plaque, I tried very hard to give it to Justin, claiming I didn’t want it. I was mad and disappointed and frustrated. It didn’t help that one of the two judges who voted against me in the final round came up to me afterwards and told me he liked my debate style better, but voted for my opponent because we were practically tied the whole time, and he got to speak last.

I’ve always been like that too. One time, Justin made a comment about Edward McGlone (the person I could never beat in debate) and I absolutely flipped out. Refused to talk to him for like 3 days. It was ridiculous, and I felt horrible afterwards. For some reason, I have a powerful compulsion to be the best, especially when it comes to debate. I’ve been really upset quite a few times after a bad tournament; I’m known on the team for always assuming I lost every round. After the MHCC tournament, I drove Justin home, and tried one more time to give him my plaque. He said something that really got me thinking. It went something like:

“I think you really do want it [the plaque]. Before you were just in the heat of the moment, upset about losing. But really, you’re proud that you made it to the final round and got second place. You’re happy you accomplished that.”

After he said that, I pretty much took the plaque without any argument. I also blamed him for my being this way, because Justin used to do the same thing. But as I think about what he said, I’m not entirely sure Justin’s right. I mean, there is a part of me that is proud I was able to get second place. But there’s also a part of me that is going to insist for weeks to come that I should have done better, a part that’s going to go over every mistake I made in that last round. I’ve been thinking a lot about why I am that way, and I think it’s just because I hold myself to a very high standard. I know that I could have won that last round, therefore I decide that I should have won that last round. And it’s due solely to my own stupid mistakes that I didn’t win.

I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it does to me. It’s like, I know I’m capable of being the best, so being anything less than the best is failure. In that sense, I hold myself to a sort of moral absolutist standard: there is victory, and there is defeat. Nothing else. Defeat is unacceptable in my mind, because I know I can have victory if I try hard enough. That’s why I was so upset when I got rejected from Lewis & Clark. I felt as though I had failed.

Problem is, life doesn’t work that way. I’m not always going to win, and I know that. But for some reason I continue to get this feeling of self-loathing every time I don’t get first place. It’s really frustrating. I am proud of getting second place. I know I’m a good debater. But I should have gotten first. And it’s not my opponent’s fault I didn’t get first. It’s not my judge’s fault or my coach’s fault or anyone else’s; I know it was my own doing.

And I also know Justin is right: there are people that are proud of me and who love me, no matter how I do. Ultimately I know I’ll have to be satisfied with second place. It’s a learned skill, I think. Everyone wants to win, and if you want it enough you can win when you need to. I really think this year is my year at State and National Qualifiers. I’m gonna work hard. Just wait and see, you’ll be hearing my name soon.

P.S. If you didn’t notice, I’ve decided I’m going to update this blog at least every Friday. I’m going to stick to that, because I enjoy having this opportunity to reflect on my life. It’s really a great way to clear out the mental clutter that builds up.