I was not cool in high school. In fact, I was probably the epitome of socially awkward, dorky, and fashionably inept. I made up for it by being class Salutatorian and figured that college was where it was at. At college I would reinvent myself into “cool.”
In college I tried very hard. Started straightening my hair every day, wore these ridiculously painful shoes to class and eventually realized that again, I did not have what it took. Just like in high school. I wasn’t friends with the “cool” people. You know, the soccer team/SGA types. It took me a couple of years to fully become okay with that but eventually the painful shoes stayed in the back of the closet and I was all about the imitation Birkenstocks.
By the time I graduated I learned that I really did not want to be the SGA type of cool after all. And then I stumbled into debate.
It was my second week at BWHS when I was asked to head up the debate team. It sounded kind of fun, but I really had no idea what I was agreeing to. I remember the first tournament – I was scared, I thought everyone was so weird, so intense. There were sixteen year olds throwing around words like hegemony. Then there was this whole other language. Flowing, topicality, counterplan, solvency, link-turn, impact analysis. Why was critique all of the sudden spelled with a K? Then we start abbreviating things. You run DA’s, go for T, perm the counterplan. And why the heck did everything end in nuclear extinction?
I’ve been a coach for a year, I went to camp, I learned to speak the language, and here is what I love most about it: it gives nerds that opportunity to really fit in – to be “cool.” We’re a part of something. We have our own jargon. Kind of like Trekkies and Klingon, only less jumpsuits and more ties and blazers. In the judge’s lounge you meet college students reading Heidegger, economists who work on the hill writing CRS reports, the debate mom who makes awesome lasagna and doubles as a nuclear weapons inspector, periodically traveling to North Korea and Iran. In the cafeteria kids are talking about federalism, Obama, the bailout bill, Obama, the pitfalls of wind energy, Obama, and whether or not Renewable Portfolio Systems provide an incentive for alternative energy. Most of these kids have spent two or more weeks on college campuses during the summer researching their cases, writing briefs and talking with a pen in their teeth to improve speaking ability. They haul around large plastic boxes full of expanding folders. The intense ones have carts. Most of their boxes are covered in bumper stickers advocating a variety of liberal causes.
This is just a snapshot. Back in the classroom from 4-5pm three nights a week mass quantities of Twizzlers are consumed, everybody talks at once and if we’re lucky we get about half an hour of solid practice in. They show up before the first bell the next morning, just to hang out in my room and get passes to come in later. They stay after on Friday, just to hang out and play annoying music on my speakers. I had to kick them out of my room at 5:30 this Friday. Tell them to go home and get a life, “If only for a few hours before I see you again at the crack of dawn tomorrow [Saturday] morning.”
They think I’m “cool.”
I’ve never been cool before. Peers never thought I was “cool.” Whenever I’ve worked with kids in some kind of church ministry someone else has always been the “cool” one. Someone else who has all this charisma, who can jump around in an absurd costume or shoot basketballs in the gym. But not anymore. My debaters aren’t really impressed by people who do all those other things. They think that’s annoying. They’d rather see someone with a sarcastic sense of humor and an appreciation for SNL. I guess that’s where I come in.
It nice to finally be “cool.” It’s nice to have a place where I’m normal, where my sense of humor is shared and appreciated. I laugh a lot when I’m in debate world. I know, I know. I’m 24, why should I care about being cool? In reality, it’s not so much about being cool. It’s about being who you are. It’s really only been in the past year that those waves of insecurity fostered in college have finally subsided and I’m just okay with who I am today. I guess I’m a late bloomer in that respect. Debate really had little to do with that, but how coincidental that once I finally became okay with not fitting in, then I finally found a place to fit in.
This morning I stood in my closet and observed my shoes. I’ve long since gotten rid of all my painful, stylish shoes (they say DC is the least fashionable city in the US, once again, the right place for me). I had to choose between my leftover-from-college imitation Birkenstocks and my brown Sketchers. I chose the Sketchers. Then I went off to a debate tournament. My kids won trophies. That made me happy.
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