[eDebate] DCA Debater #2: Kathryn Clark

[Kade Olsen]

Kathryn was 2nd with 152 points.

Overview
We cannot include the juiciest details of Kathryn's life. What happens
in Disneyland stays in Disneyland. So don't expect to hear about that
special "party" her freshman year with the worms, Hunter, and the
concrete donkey. Besides, Kernoff gets jealous too easily.

We also have videos. But I posted those two years ago for Brian's DCA
and everyone assumed Brian, Josh, Kathryn and I were having an orgy.
IT WAS A FUCKING WRESTLING MATCH. In protest of dirty minds and
Nazism, I refuse to track down the link myself.

In the beginning…

Kathryn was born in a small, one bedroom farmhouse outside Limerick,
Ireland.  Her birth-parents were poor, potato farmers, struggling with
the effects of another failed crop.  They made the painful decision to
give up young Kathryn to the Clarks of the West Des Moines Clarks.  If
they couldn't raise their daughter themselves, they wanted to ensure
she would have a strong, Irish-Catholic upbringing.

The Clarks, of the West Des Moines Clarks, were respected adoptive
parents.  Along with her two, less fair skinned Korean brothers,
Kathryn underwent a rapid transformation from an underfed Irish baby
to an underfed American baby. Things were not always easy, though. For
years Kathryn would walk around as a dog. Her sister had a leash for
her and she ate her meals out of dog bowls. When Josh went to visit
her house, her brothers tied a leash on her and made her go around the
house barking like a dog. This is only a mild exaggeration.

A compulsory sidenote: Kathryn hates taste. Actually, genuinely, hates taste.

Her early intelligence quotient shocked teachers and doctors alike.
What she lacked in common sense she easily made up for with vast
knowledge of manufacturing competitiveness and Asian hydropower
projects.

High school was a difficult time for Kathryn as she struggled to fit
in among the various cliques at Valley High School.  She had quite a
few suitors, and even said yes when some guy asked her out in binary.
Sadly her parents wouldn't let her go out on a date when she was
younger than 21. Oh wait, she's still younger than 21.

Speaking of math: Kathryn is modest about this, but if you incessantly
annoy her, she will recite 150 digits of pi from memory in under a
minute.

Anyway, as a Catholic Kathryn was the most sexually naïve person ever.
But people change in college.

It all started with her first lie. Her first few weeks she was a
helpless, stranded little kid. And sometimes, when you're lonely at
night, well, things happen. Most people just wash the sheets and don't
tell anyone. Kathryn, instead, decided to try the dark art of lying:
"I swear! Some girl came into my room while I was asleep, peed on my
bed, and then left!" True story.

The changes continued during and after a certain class Kathryn's
freshman year. The professor was talking at length about this passage
where Derrida writes about his dying mother performing fellatio on
him. As everyone in the class looks down in disgust, Kathryn is
attentively paying attention. Brian immediately notices something is
wrong and gleefully bursts her bubble by leaning over and asking,
"Kathryn, do you know what fellatio is?" When she replied, "no," Brian
explained. And because pre-alcoholic Brian was the one explaining,
there were excessive and unnecessary details (not as bad as Jennings'
bio though). Kathryn screamed, "EWWW!" and shuddered for the rest of
the class.

Later that day, on the walk back to the debate office, Brian was
continuing to giggle about this to himself. He then decided that,
since Kathryn didn't know what "fellatio" meant, she also very likely
didn't know what "cunnilingus" meant. So he asked, "have you ever
heard of cunnilingus?" She replied: "No." Brian explained that it was
"when a man performs oral sex on a woman." Rather than freaking out
and shuddering as before, Kathryn laughed and said, "that's not even
possible." This must be why Kathryn said in her last CEDA finals
debate that "Brian taught me so much...and not just about debate."

Fast forward a couple years and the innocent, sweet, Catholic, Iowan
Kathryn Clark has been replaced by Mistress CowCorn. Don't get me
wrong – Mistress CowCorn still has standards. You have to be
pre-pubescent and own pocket protectors. And, ever since that one
special night at the Coast, you need to look like Brett Wallace.

Even though she is obviously attracted to what she describes as Josh's
"vaginal" hair arrangement, it's clear who holds the whip in her
relationship with Kernoff. At one point I asked Josh, "Dude. Drive me
to Food Court." He said, "No way. I have to spend every minute this
weekend working on my paper." I said, "Drive me to food court, or I
will tell Kathryn that Harry Potter is playing in the Boston IMAX."
Kernoff was immediately on the floor crying, "Please, don't tell her!
Don't tell her! She'll be so upset if I say no to her! She'll hurt
me!"

When Caroline B asked Josh if she could borrow his hoodie, Kathryn
said, "Its okay for you to take Josh's hoodie." Then Kathryn paused,
and finished with, "But if you take Josh, I'll kill you. I'll slit
your throat with my huge knife and take out all your insides." Later
that week she threw a glass bottle at Luxemburg. He doesn't know about
that yet, because Kathryn throws like a girl. And by girl I mean
Hunter.

Another true story is that Kathryn was seen playing the Penis game by
herself in a corner.
"penis…….teeheehee…..PENIS….teeheehee…..PEEEEEENII*hiccup*."

So I guess we should talk about debate. First, there were the debate
arguments. There was the honeybees pic, the honeybees aff, some stupid
crap about farms and the economy that none of us ever read, and the
"Kathryn" tub (Disney font made it look better). Oh, and the trade
aff, the trade neg, the trade accordion, the trade DA, the
intellectual property k, the milliken aff, the "misc random kclark"
folder, and our personal favorite, the Buddhism kritik. Kathryn stayed
up like four weeks writing that one. It was about technology or
something. None of us actually read it.

Then there were the debate partners. Her first year she was paired
with teen heart-throb and skate boarding champion Jeremy Martin. It
was uneventful, overall.

In her second year she was thrilled to be paired with teen heart-throb
and the very well-dressed Brian Smith. J-Mart quit and no one would
debate with Hunter and David except Hunter and David. It was
uneventful, overall.

In her third year she was thrilled to continue her partnership with
teen heart-throb and slightly less well-dressed Brian Smith. Around
this time Brian decided not to be an ass and started drinking. Soon
after Kathryn also took the plunge into void. A true example of the
result:

Anonymous: "There's no answer to the 9-0 CP."
Kathryn: "I know how to beat the 9-0 CP! Teeheehee!"
Anonymous: "How?"
Kathryn: "Suck a judge's pee pee!"

In her fourth and final year, Kathryn was thrilled to be paired with
pre-teen slash emo heart-throb Kade Olsen. That year was eventful.
"Chewie, you have to protect the princess now."

THE PINK ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. Kathryn: we are incredibly proud that
you have taken  home the title of most gullible debater two years in a
row, but we are not shocked.
A-Subpoint. The category was invented just for you. Brian was
particularly proud about his idea and told everyone about it while
doing that laugh of his.
B-Subpoint. Kathryn hadn't acquired the rep points from beating
everyone else a lot.

This nonetheless leads us to conclude that the award should, from here
forward, forever be known as, "The Kathryn Clark Most Gullible Debater
Award."

Now, at lot of people are going to say she only won this award because
she is a woman.  Talk like this totally cheapens the years of
preparation that Kathryn put towards this effort.

Just this past year Charles and Turner convinced Kathryn that the
David Campbell of critique fame is an heir to the Campbell's Soup
fortune.  Now that we think about it, this bio may be the first time
that Kathryn is finally learning the truth of this cruel joke.

Kathryn has even been duped when it came to jokes about her own
hometown.  For instance, Brian convinced Kathryn that "Des Moines" was
French for "the breasts."

"Has someone called the airport?" On the way to a tournament this past
season our bus to Logan broke down on the side of I-89.  Knowing that
we were in very real danger of missing our flight the coaching staff
began to talk about our situation.  Kathryn helpfully interjected the
above question. Of course!  Genius.  We should just call the Logan
Airport and have them hold the plane for us.  I'm sure they wouldn't
mind.

"Call the whambulance!!!" a.k.a. The Last Section

Kathryn was an awesome debater. She won the Kentucky Round Robin
twice.  Won the Dartmouth Round Robin as a sophomore.  She won West
Georgia and was the top speaker at Wake.  She also was a three-time
elimination round participant at the NDT.  Then there's that CEDA
finals. Now, I think this is totally fair game because she walked over
a certain dynamic duo in our last debate…

Kathryn lost a career record of TWENTY SIX CEDA FINALS BALLOTS!!!!!
Slusher says: "26 ballots, yo! That's huge!!!!!!"

Despite her CEDA setbacks, Kathryn is an incredibly nice person. She
may forget to get on her flights, but she won't forget to give you a
hug or an easy comedic target. Especially since her first encounter
with Bailey's, she's been an incredibly fun person and we adore her
for it. Even with the whip. And that shaggy puppy named Kernoff she
keeps in her handbag.

Love,

David, Hunter, Slusher, and lots of other tidbits from around the DFU.

PS. Hunter and I are sorry about the obviously narcissistic
references, but who honestly expected otherwise? We're just living
vicariously through you. Deal.

ADDENDUM #1:

Brian Smith, Kathryn's partner for two years, was asked to send in a
comment on Kathryn.   Here's what he sent:

"Please don't email me at this address."

ADDENDUM #2:

Adam Garen, who coached Kathryn in her key formative college years was
asked to send in a comment on Kathryn.  Here's what he sent:

"Man, I lost my google box.  In a café paying by the minute for the
internets.  I'll get back to you next week.  I met a girl!!!!!  Make
sure you include the 9-0 counterplan part."

ADDENDUM #3:

We emailed Kade for commentary. We babelfished this from Cavespeak to English:

"Despite the appearance, Kathryn was a fierce competitor.  After an
early exit at
fulerton on some bulshit T argument, well actually it was the octos, and
Dartmouth CO was pretty good at losing in the octos, so not really early.
Nonetheless, she walked around with a small voodo looking doll of a boy with and
jabbed it with needles for weeks afterwards.

Kahtryn was so competitive that she would do extraordinary amounts of research
for teams that weren't even debating.  A couple days before the Dartmouth RR the
following conversation took place:

Ken: "Uhh..Kathryn what are you working on"

Kathryn: "George Washington negative"

Ken: "Um, you do realize that they aren't actually going to be at the round
robin?"

Kathryn proceeded to glare at Ken, find that goofy looking vodoo doll thing, and
beat the living shit out of it somemore.  People can draw the connections.

 I'd  like to add that Kathryn was amazing debate partner that carried
me for a year.  Not only did she not kill me, but she put a lot of
effort into making sure I got better.  I can't count the number of aff
rounds that we won when the decision started with "well, the 1ar
didn't really cover but..."  She never was angry after I goofed
something up,  put up with all the smoking , and was always
encourging.   And lets be honost, the only reason shes not #1 is the
negative bias... no love for the 2as..."