The Dallas Miracle

I think it was a miracle. I think it was.

From the minute I sent an email to the organizers, asking if they are interested in hosting a round in Dallas, I didn't think that it would happen. I don't know. There was a bit of optimism in me because my school had a principal change, and that this new one is more open-minded. However most pessimism still retained. I knew that maybe not a lot of people would wanted to join because chances are, the round is going to be interfered with the UIL rounds.

I brought the competition to the principal and managed to got her to see Patrick via a call. It seemed really optimism, seeing how after my initial meeting with her, she seemed very open to it.

Nope. "It isn't going to happen this year, but maybe next year," my principal said. According to her, we would need a lot of people to manage the whole thing, especially a fully dedicated teacher for WSC. We have no teacher that fits the criteria.

"This isn't going to happen," I thought. I got Coppell's Aroras and Kyle, and Grapevine's Lauren, see if their school would decide to host the round. Coppell returned no solution. Grapevine seemed very promising but to no avail, their principal said no (I think).

The principal later had a change of thought. He decided to let it happen after many times negotiating with Lauren and Co.

When I saw this, I was ecstatic. I did not believe that we would have a round. I quickly gathered my friends and we ended up having 5 people total from my school and Kyle from Coppell. One of the Mac people, Mariane, was my teammate.

I also checked with my best friends and some of the smartest people in school but they're going to UIL Regionals. I was right initially. Needless to say, the number quickly went from 5 to 2, leaving us one partial team from MacArthur. Not good for Mac. Definitely not good for me because I was the first person to bring this up to our principal and we ended up only having 2 people going to the round.

In my opinion, it started going downhill from then. Kyle wanted to go to Houston. I see no logic in this. Our two drastically different mentality started to clash each other. One of us wanted more competition, while the other wanted convenience. After days of arguing and arguing with no resolution, I had to let him go from my team 4 days before the regionals.

The obstacles didn't end there. After submitting the registration form, Jeremy Chumley sent me an email, asking if I know any other teams would join in. I replied along the line of: "Grapevine is going to send 7 teams. Coppell is sending 1 team. The rest of Coppell WSC team however is going to Houston." Jeremy was baffled. He said that the round might be postponed or cancelled, and my heart went pounding. I do not want to go to Houston. It's 6 hours away, it's right after my AP exams, I would need to find a hotel to stay in, and no one is going to drive me that far.

Thank god, Jeremy said the round is staying. April 14, it is.

I managed to find myself another person from my school who were decent enough for me to find a lot of potential in. MacArthur finally has a full team of Mariane, Joslyn, and me.

I filled the final registration, and practiced with my team last minute. Got with my debate mentor with a quid pro quo deal and got myself some strategies. In the end, 9 teams from 3 different schools came to the Dallas Round along with Patrick and Alisya as the official staffers from WSC. I think I'm fine with that.

I don't care if other complain how this round was too small. It was quite an intimate experience with other scholars, compared to my last regionals in 2016 HCMC Round where there's roughly 150-ish scholars and I talked to no one. The round went smoothly with little hiccups. If you don't count the clickers having weird stuff with the batteries and occasional mic stuff, then overall: it went super.

Also I like how the Dallas people here are very nice and open.

I would like to say lots of thanks to Patrick and Alisya for making such a small round magical and awesome, to Lauren and Co. for having such an enormous effort in bringing WSC to Dallas, and to Grapevine HS for hosting the round. Without them, this round would not happen.

Also lots of thanks to my brother, who came to the round as an adjudicator! He did a wonderful job.

Last but not least, to my teammates, Mariane and Joslyn for joining my WSC adventure. Without you, MacArthur would not be fully represented. Without you, we wouldn't have such a great time at the regionals.

Thanks for playing.