THS debate biatches weekend

This weekend I will be hanging out with five women that I have know since high school. We all met through debate. Yes, we were complete debate geeks or MASTERdeBATORS as was the joke. The "sport" was dominated by men for decades, and when we were in high school in the early 90s, gender equality in debate was almost, but not quite, there. So an entire debate squad dominated by kick-ass women was still unusual. And we were oh so completely kick-ass. Debaters from other school trembled in fear when they heard they were hitting some of the Topeka High School biatches. We also weren't afraid to look good as well.

We all went on to do interesting things with our lives. Ann worked at the Washington Post for years before switching careers to become an urban planner. She's in a Master's program right now. Erin 1 (we actually call her by her last name but I don't want to post that online) is a chemical engineer who received her MBA a few years ago. Erin 2 (we also call her by her last name) worked for various think tanks and policy research groups around DC as a web designer and communications person until leaving that life to get her Master's in education so she could teach high school English - and be the debate coach (oh, irony!). She recently made another career switch to home/life organization guru (with a website and blog in a major magazine) while completing a graphic novel on the side. Jenn did her BA & MD in 6 years and is now a doctor with a hospitalist specialization. Laurell is our resident hippie do-gooder, working for an urban gardening project with inner city kids. She's also the mother of a wonderful 8-year old. And I am an overeducated graduate student, as you all know.

Since we were all debaters, needless to say we are all strong, intelligent, opinionated and argumentative women. It can be a bit intimidating when we're all in a room together. Certainly with our personalities we all don't agree with each other all the time, and can have our rows. However, I know all six of us will be there for one another for the rest of our lives. If something tragic happens (god forbid), these are the people I call first (after my husband and parents, of course). They will not stop caring about me even if I do something incredibly stupid. They may give me their opinions, advice, tell me I'm being stupid, etc., but in the end they will always love me no matter what. It's rare to find a friend like this and I've found five. We are all so lucky.

So this weekend we're all meeting up in DC (which is convenient since three of us live here), getting a hotel room downtown, and partying all weekend. Even though we're all serious women in our 30s with careers, families, etc., we can still let lose and go crazy every once and a while. So if you see a group of intelligent, beautiful, 30-something women out this weekend acting totally inappropriately and drunk off their asses, you know you're come across the THS debate biatches!