Kudos News for November/December 2013
The leaves turn brown, the air turns chill, and pilgrims throw maize at people. Yes, it’s the holiday season. And November/December means the speech and debate season is in full swing. On the 9th of November, the league held it’s first debate tournament of the year at La Reina school in Thousand Oaks.
SCJFL Fall Debate at La Reina:
Most of the squad had seen some action in one or more of the early season warmups, but for many others, this would be their first taste of live fire. Unfortunately, as both Freeman and I were occupied running tab at this tournament, neither of us got a lot of pictures. Fortunately, some parents filled in a few gaps for us. Well, two and 2/3 gaps let’s say: Vincent, Mei and Vincent, and that’s about two third’s of me in the background of the second picture.
Of course Vincent didn’t win that trophy all by himself; his partner Mei and he both played key roles in this impressive success. Despite going up against older students with more competition round experience, Vincent and Mei were able to go undefeated and claim the 4th place hardware on speaker points. This is a great result for a couple of 7th graders in arguably the toughest middle school league in the country.
However, while the photo documentation at La Reina may have been severely subpar, the results were not, as Kudos walked away with the top two spots in policy and had three trophy winning PF teams against a large, difficult field.
1 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Kelly Wong (TC) | Policy | 1st | Trophy |
2 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Lauren Song (Irvine) | Policy | 1st | Trophy |
3 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Michael Wu (Irvine) | Policy | 2nd | Trophy |
4 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Jonathan Ge (Irvine) | Policy | 2nd | Trophy |
5 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Mei Johnson (TC) | Public Forum | 4th | Trophy |
6 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Vincent Liu (TC) | Public Forum | 4th | Trophy |
7 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Michelle Xu (Irvine) | Public Forum | 8th | Trophy |
8 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Cicily Deng (TC) | Public Forum | 8th | Trophy |
9 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Michael Huang (TC) | Public Forum | 10th | Trophy |
10 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Catherine Lee (TC) | Public Forum | 10th | Trophy |
11 | 11/09/13 | La Reina | Brian Chang (Walnut) | LD | 7th | Trophy |
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Alhambra HS Invitational:
On November 23rd, many of our high school students competed in the Alhambra HS invitational for their home schools. Lucky for those home schools, all that Kudos training really paid off. Our LD’ers, in particular, are accomplishing remarkable things as freshman:
11/23/13 | Alhambra HS Invitational | Stanley Yu (TC) | Novice LD | 1st | Trophy |
11/23/13 | Alhambra HS Invitational | Stanley Yu (TC) | Varsity LD | 5th | Trophy |
11/23/13 | Alhambra HS Invitational | Kirk Wu (TC) | Varsity LD | 3rd | Trophy |
11/23/13 | Alhambra HS Invitational | Nora Sharp (TC) | Novice PF | 1st | Trophy |
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St. Rita’s Elementary Invitational at La Salle:
The beginning of December brought our first Elementary Tournament, held this time at La Salle High School, with St. Rita’s and Kudos providing tab and background organization.
This tournament afforded our 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders an opportunity to compete in one of 2 debate events, or 1 of 5 speech events, each modified to shorter time limits for the elementary level, but representing the same basic format as the events at the middle and high school level. Events included: public forum debate, SPAR debate, Duo Interp, Storytelling, Poetry, Expository Speaking, and Impromptu Speaking. This was our largest elementary tournament yet, drawing around 100 entries in all.
Our littlest warriors proved quite might indeed, as Kudos brought home a lot of hardware.
In Public Forum debate, Kudos claimed the 4th, 2nd, and top spots:
Our kids did a great job in speech events as well, winning several awards in Storytelling – including first place – and taking home awards in Poetry, Expository.
And here are a couple of other nice group shots to make up for the lack of pictures from La Reina.
But SPAR was probably our best event, as Kudos students claimed all five trophies and the top 8 places overall:
And while we’re dishing out the pictures willy-nilly, here’s a nice solo picture of Mandy, standing triumphantly with her undefeated record in SPAR and her trophy to prove it.
Winners List for the St. Rita’s/La Salle Elementary Invitational:
1 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Eric Gao (Walnut) | Public Forum | Top Speaker | Certificate |
2 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Brandon Szeto (TC) | SPAR | 1st Place | Trophy |
3 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Mandy Yang (Irvine) | SPAR | 2nd Place | Trophy |
4 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | AJ Wong (TC) | SPAR | 3rd Place | Trophy |
5 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Aaron Zhang (Irvine) | SPAR | 4th Place | Trophy |
6 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Justin LI (TC) | SPAR | 5th Place | Trophy |
7 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Jynel Zeitz (Irvine) | SPAR | 6th Place | Trophy |
8 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Eric Gao (w/ Aileen) (Walnut) | Public Forum | 1st Place | Trophy |
9 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Aileen Wan (w/ Eric) (Walnut) | Public Forum | 1st Place | Trophy |
10 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Ryan Lee (w/ Emma) (TC) | Public Forum | 2nd place | Trophy |
11 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Emma Chen (w/ Ryan) (TC) | Public Forum | 2nd place | Trophy |
12 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Christian Yang (w/ Audwin) (Walnut) | Public Forum | 4th Place | Trophy |
13 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Audwin Chang (w/ Christian) (Walnut) | Public Forum | 4th Place | Trophy |
14 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Elaine Hong (TC) | Poetry | 4th Place | Trophy |
15 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Maggie Hu (Walnut) | Expository | 4th Place | Trophy |
16 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | William Chang (Walnut) | Expository | 5th place | Trophy |
17 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Connie Cheng (Irvine) | Storytelling | 1st place | Trophy |
18 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Stephanie Cao (Irvine) | Storytelling | 5th place | Trophy |
19 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Konnie Duan (TC) | Storytelling | 7th place | Trophy |
20 | 12/5/13 | St Rita’s Elementary | Annie Li (Irvine) | Storytelling | 10th place | Trophy |
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The Harker School Middle School Invitational in San Jose:
The next day, I boarded a plane with a smallish group of our middle schoolers to go compete at the Harker Middle School Invitational in San Jose. It was freezing cold, btw. Absolutely bone-chillingly cold the whole time we were there. Seriously, like half of the stories on the local news were about how cold it was. But I digress.
We arrived to nice accommodations at the Moorpark Hotel, just a couple of blocks from Harker, and settled in for a good night’s sleep in our respective rooms.
Morning brought battle for the kids, and after a hearty breakfast, they made their way to rounds.
We brought two policy teams, three PF teams, plus Caty and Barbie doing IE’s, and we were going up some very large Northern California squads, so we knew going in that we were at a numerical disadvantage. Additionally, Mei and Michael were victims of a tab mistake, in which a win was accidentally entered as a loss, and this mistake prevented them from advancing as they deserved. Nevertheless, we still managed to come home with a good amount of awards. And thanks to Caty’s mom, we even have pictures of a couple of them.
1 | 12/7/2013 | Harker Invitational | Kelly Wong (TC) | Policy | Semis | Trophy |
2 | 12/7/2013 | Harker Invitational | Lauren Song (Irvine) | Policy | Semis | Trophy |
3 | 12/7/2013 | Harker Invitational | Jonathon Ge (Irvine) | Policy | Semis | Trophy |
4 | 12/7/2013 | Harker Invitational | Michael Wu (Irvine) | Policy | Semis | Trophy |
5 | 12/7/2013 | Harker Invitational | Michael Wu (Irvine) | Policy | Top Speaker | Medal |
6 | 12/07/13 | Harker Invitational | Michael and Mei (TC) | PF | Octos | **Did not advance on tab error** |
7 | 12/7/2013 | Harker Invitational | Caty Szeto (TC) | Poetry | Finalist | Medal |
8 | 12/7/2013 | Harker Invitational | Caty Szeto (TC) | OO | 2nd place | Trophy |
9 | 12/7/2013 | Harker Invitational | Caty Szeto (TC) | Impromptu | Finalist | Medal |
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SCJFL Winter Speech and Debate at GCC:
But we had one more fight to go before getting a little break in the onslaught of tournament action: the 2nd SCJFL Speech and Debate tournament of the year, held at Glendale Community College on December 14th. This was a rather unusual tournament for us, as it combined both speech and debate onto a single day. It also used a different public forum topic than Harker. So we ended up putting our more experienced debaters in extemp, and trained the debaters who did not go to Harker on the December topic, immigration.
At the moment, it appears that I have literally no pictures from this tournament. I will continue to look for some and add them if I can find them.
In the meantime, the results are in. Once again, Kudos does quite well, breaking a team of 6th graders in PF, getting 3 breaks in LD, and winning policy, as well as achieving several awards in the individual events.
1 | 12/14/13 | Glendale CC | Catherine Lee (TC) | Poetry | 4th Place | Trophy |
2 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Anjee Feng (TC) | PF | Octos | |
3 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Joshua Zheng (TC) | PF | Octos | |
4 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Miranda Chang (Irvine) | PF | Octos | |
5 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Tony Feng (Irvine) | PF | Octos | |
6 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Brian Chang (Walnut) | LD | Octos | |
7 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Justin Jiang (Walnut) | LD | Octos | |
8 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Courtney Chan (Walnut) | LD | Octos | |
9 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Michael Huang (TC) | Extemporaneous | 2nd | Trophy |
10 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Mei Johnson (TC) | Extemporaneous | 3rd | Trophy |
11 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Vincent Liu (TC) | Extemporaneous | 4th | Trophy |
12 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Kelly Wong (TC) | Policy | 1st | Trophy |
13 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Lauren Song (Irvine) | Policy | 1st | Trophy |
14 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Michael Wu (Irvine) | Policy | 2nd | Trophy |
15 | 12/14/13 | Glendale | Jonathan Ge (Irvine) | Policy | 2nd | Trophy |