Daily Debates

I find myself getting into fairly intense debates with my coworker over some pretty random topics on an everyday basis. And I am a pretty productive person at work, so I'll be presenting my arguments for why I regard Kelly Clarkson as a good singer and Britney Spears as a bad singer but a performer while I am simultaneously discussing work over our office communicator. Equally important topics.

This Kelly vs. Britney conversation was the debate of the day last Friday. It began because I mentioned that I had the new Kelly Clarkson and Jason Aldean song, "Don't You Want To Stay," stuck in my head. My coworker commented that Kelly wasn't good. The conversation spiraled and my argument was that Kelly has a great voice and has a lot of range, while Britney isn't a good singer, she's just popular and is more of a performer with her dancing and computerized sounds. I was very adamant about getting my coworker to admit this was true. I can appreciate that she likes Britney, or whatever, but that she has a better voice than Kelly Clarkson I couldn't accept.

Another insignificant debate we have on a repeated basis is over the Harry Potter and Twilight series. I can't remember if she's "Team Edward" or what not but I know she's shamelessly obsessed with both of these series. Twilight is something I absolutely refuse to read or watch. I saw ten minutes of the end of the first movie because I was on a bus and it was playing. I slept through the rest of the movie on purpose. Harry Potter I refused to get into when I was younger, and I've held onto that stance into my post-high school, post-college life. I know tons of people that love Harry Potter, and it's definitely better than Twilight, at least. But my coworker tries to convince me that both of these series are life-changing, epic, must-see, must-read movies and novels, at least once a day. I tell her it's just not my thing, and I think by now we both realize the other isn't going to cave, but it's just one of those things we find humorous to refer to and debate on.

On a similar not to that, is her love for deep-fried ANYTHING. Fried donuts, deep-fried PB and J, even a Krispy Kreme burger is on her list of beloved foods. She's from the South, big surprise. I have tried deep-fried oreos, but that's the extent of my irregular deep-fried experiences. They were delicious. I just can't see deep-fried PB and J having the same effect. That could just be my stubbornness, maybe that's a good one. Krispy Kreme burger, I won't budge. Gross.

I think our biggest debate so far has been over sports. Little background information--she's admittedly an uncompetitive person (unless playing Call of Duty(COD)) and I am competitive in almost everything I do. This debate began because my coworker said her dad is of the opinion that, "second place is first loser." I agreed and said that it's similar to how schools these days are teaching kids that, "everyone is a winner" and leagues that give everyone trophies or ribbons just for participating. She was of the opinion that everyone should feel good about themselves even if they're not good at sports. Which is nice, but when I'm playing a sport if I receive a ribbon for participating, I'm not happy. I remember when they started giving participant ribbons in Field Day in elementary school, and I'd toss them in the back of a drawer and never see them again. But I'd keep the ones that I received for 1st ,2nd or 3rd place. I'm aware that not everyone is as competitive as my family, but for real sports leagues, even for kids (I'll say above the age of 7, to be reasonable), I don't think every kid should get a trophy just for participating. They're not there to remind you of that year you played baseball, their purpose is to give reward the best teams that year. If you want a memento of the season, that's what team pictures are for. My coworker and I went off on this for most of the day off and on. I was getting pretty riled up because I think it teaches kisd to settle for mediocrity and that they should get a trophy or some kind of real-life equivalent just for showing up. She was laughing at me because I was getting so intense about the discussion. But I guess that's just my competitive nature showing!

The topics range from wildly unimportant to pretty serious topics we bash around back and forth in good humor, but some of them are really quite random. She's even given me some tips on Call of Duty to use so that I can play with my boyfriend and extend my competitive nature to video games when I get bored watching him play. Pointless or useful the conversations definitely make the day go more quickly.