Month: April 2022

What Comes Next?

For my last post here, I want to give a quick wrap of what I have done so far and explain what I have planned for next year.

This year, I got to compete on three different teams as a charachter witness named Maddox Vaughn. I got to travel to Columbus and for some reason I went to Boston twice. My first team came top 5 at our first tournament. My second team won the Mumbo Jumbo tournament and my last team came in 3rd at our regional competition.

All in all, a pretty successful year.

Now I am captaining a team for our fun season. We aren’t competing against any other colleges, just scrimmaging with other Penn State Teams. The fun part is, we are running joke theories and goofing around. If you would like to hear me talk about blaming a perfectly identical monkey for murder, I implore you to check my last post.

After we have our fun tournament, our season is over officially. However that isn’t stopping us from planning for next year.

Next week elections for executive positions will begin. People have already started campaigning and it is intense.

Our election process is a bit confusing. First we have the A-level positions. These are positions like President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasuerer, and Tournament Director. Then we have the B-level positions, like Social Media Chair, Fundraising Coordinator, Education Coordinator, and Judging and Alumni Coordinator.

People are running for A-level positions next week, and then the people elected for A-level positions nominate people to serve on B-level positions.

I am not running for an A-level position. I am not insane and I would not enjoy that. However, I know someone running for Vice President, and it has been hinted that I might be nominated for Fundrasing Coordinator. I am meeitng with him tomorrow, so I’ll know for sure then.

Other than potentially being on the executive board, I do have plans for next year. Since I am getting experience captaining now, I think I might apply to be a captain during our competative season next year.

If I do get accepted into that, I would be a part of the selection committee during the audition process. At the begining of the year, all new members have to prepare an audition and present it in front of a panel. I did that earlier this year and made it through to the rest of the season. If I am selected to be a captain for that part of the season, I would be one of the panelists.

All in all, I am so glad that I joined this organization. I met so many of my friends through this and some of my favorite memories happened because I joined here. I do take a very sarcastic tone with these blogs, but I mean this with full sincerity: I cannot imagine what I would be doing with my life without this organization. It helped me find friends at a campus far away from home. I got to make a new home here.

I know not everyone is interested in these types of things, but if you are even vaugely interested, please reach out to me. I would be more than happy to help you apply for next year.

In general though, I implore all of you to join something new, you never know who you’ll meet! If you have an idea of something you want to do, go do it! If you explore the world around you, you’ll find more things you love.

Captain O Captain

As a little treat for making it through the school year, our team likes to throw a bit of a celebration.

We take a case from years past, and goof around with it. We aren’t giving genuine, intelligent arguments for the case. We are doing everything as chaotically as possible just so we can have a few laughs.

Even though none of us are taking this seriously, we are having a competition! We were split into 4 teams. In late April, we will all compete against each other to see who comes out on top! Our graduating seniors are judging the tournament, so they know that we aren’t doing things traditionally. They will simply be judging us on vibes alone.

I am on Team 3, and for some reason I was selected to be a captain alongside one of my best friends! I have no idea why I was selected for this, but I am very excited to have been given this opportunity.

She and I are meeting tomorrow to discuss how we want to run our team! I made a google form to find out what my team members want to do. Do they want to be a witness, an attorney, or both? What type of witness do they want to play? Do they want to be partnered with anyone?

After everyone sends us their information, my co-captain and I will decide which witnesses we call on each side. We have nine witnesses to choose from, but we are only allowed to call three per side. Once we figure out what people want to do, we can start creating our theory.

So in past posts I have mentioned some crazy theories that people have used in real cases. Our goal is to double the insanity.

The case we are taking this year is about a trained monkey attacking a man live on set during the filming of a TV show. The TV show is suing the monkey trainer for having a bad monkey.

Our current suggested defense theory is that someone stole the trained monkey right before the show started and replaced him with a completely identical untrained monkey. Therefore, it was this mystery monkey who they should be suing instead of our client.

I know another team is calling the monkey trainer to the stand. However, one of their team members owns a monkey suit. So they are calling the monkey himself instead of the trainer.

Everything that happens at this point in the season is simply for fun. We are here for a good time, we spent the rest of the year working hard. This is how we relax.

I know I am a captain in the joke part of the season, but I am still very happy that I get to have a leadership position in a lower stakes situation. Then next year, I can captain a team during the regular season!

If you were in this situation, what kind of crazy theory or joke would you try? I know I mentioned our defense strategy, but how would you accuse the monkey?