APDA Nationals 2014

Another year and another debate season has passed, making me feel even older than I normally do when I meet novices. This class of seniors is the first set of seniors who I did not compete with at any given point in time, which is crazy!

Day 1

This year Nationals was held at UPenn. I drove down with Rocky, Allison and Greg on Friday and arrived right after round 1 and just in time for Round 2! Later that night I had a few people over which turned into a dino and Fordham party, which was nice! However, that turned into a very late night...

Day 2

Gareth and I, my roomie for the weekend, showed up for round 3, but were not paired in :( so I decided to take some pictures on campus! 

After judging the rest of the afternoon, it was time for my favorite part of Nationals, the banquet and senior speeches! At the banquet it is tradition for the senior to give farewell speeches before the break. It is also an occasion for everyone to get dressed up and take lots of pictures. 

Everyone gave very sweet speeches, a lot of shout out to significant others. Lots of people in the APDA web I guess!

This year the banquet was held at Hibachi Japanese Steakhouse, which was on a pier right by a bridge and overlooked the water. They also had a DJ and a dance floor, which was a nice change!

It was so nice to hear everyone's speeches. Sadly many of them were cut short due to time constraints of the venue. 

After the banquet, I went on some adventures at the hotel, but didn't have much luck making it to the roof of the hotel :P

Day 3 

Rocky drove me and Allison home back to NY after dropping off a broken, literally, Ashley off at the airport. Sadly Ashley has broken her ankle at Nationals :(However before heading out, we stopped by Tony Luke's for some cheesesteaks, but it was closed due to Easter... FAIL! Nonetheless it was still a nice car ride with good friends. 

I had an amazing weekend seeing everyone, especially all of my out of state and dino (alumni) friends who I do not see that often. Thank you to the UPenn Debate Society and the tab staff for hosting and running Nationals! 

Most importantly thank you to the awesome friends I've made and the debate community for being so amazing, you are the reason I keep coming back. You're stuck with me for the long haul I like to call life! 😉