Concordia cum veritate

People have actually already started asking what I’ve been up to so far over the summer holidays, and I admit that updates in the form of blog posts over the past few weeks have been as common as Mariah Carey wearing shorts in Malaysia (XD).

Well, in so far as I’m concerned, the summer break has been somewhat refreshing thus far-it feels good when one has the license of sleeping in every now and then, yet at the same time maintain that “student feel” through the usage of summer courses and/or a job (God willing). But anyway, the highlight of the break so far has been none other than an awesome weekend event I went to last week.

People, I can now say that I have attended the infamous University of Waterloo Annual Debating Death Trudge!! =D =D Dubbed DDT VI: The Undiscovered Gov, this event was the latest addition to a running tradition of early spring debates organized by the University of Waterloo, and it promises to display a manic side to debating that you may have never seen before:

“Debates begin on Saturday morning and continue to Sunday morning. The break is announced at breakfast. Only the strong survive.”

So reads the event description on CUSIDnet lol. Prior to May, my decision as to whether I should participate in DDT VI was still very much in the air, as I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to splurge CAD 200 on a generally non-serious debating event lol. But the one phrase that lingered in my head, the words that finally allowed me to decide that I would be going to Waterloo-Kitchener were the ones uttered by some random unknown at one of the last EDS meetings of the semester: “Everyone should try it.”

Which I could not help agreeing with =D

Apparently a sizable portion of the EDS felt that way as well: John Sergeant, my partner for NorthAms who was also a University of Waterloo alumni was quick to set up plans for us all. In the peak of preparation, there was supposed to be five of us on the trip down: John Sergeant and Philly D., as EDS 1, kolego Oscar and myself, as EDS 2, with Alex Amar as our representing adjudicator. Unfortunately, circumstances got in the way and in the end, only John Sergeant, Philly D. and myself were ultimately able to go =( This turn of events left me without a partner to debate with, and for a moment the prospect of judging was staring me straight in the face – something I wasn’t exactly keen on, truth be told >.< Nevertheless, at 10.00 am Friday the 9th, I still found myself strapped in the rented vehicle bound for Waterloo (this vessel I later chose to dub the ‘EDSmobile’ XD) with John and Phil, all excited and raring to go =D

Some 700 km/7 hours/two Metallica + Iron Maiden + KoRn albums later (yes it’s THAT far away @.@), we arrived at the University of Waterloo campus, which I found impressively large (and easy to get lost in) at the very least (note that I have managed to do this at MANY universities, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS and the University of Toronto among them…thankfully this did NOT happen at uOttawa when I first arrived XD + =.=”). We were soon joined by representatives from Trinity College of the University of Toronto, York University, and Wilfred Laurier University which happened to be just down the road.

Very random shot entering the Waterloo region.

Upon registration and thus seeing familiar faces, I managed to catch-up with Jeremy Larkins from York, a truly amazing guy + debater I got to know at Dalhousie Nats 2008 earlier this year-it was great to see him again. Truly, that awesome round we had against each other at Nats worked wonders for us lol!! Even better, the two of us would later vie to out-do each other as many times as possible over the next 24 hours as the tournament progressed =p + XD (more on this later! =D)

It was also here that I met the person who would be my hybrid debating partner for the weekend: Dafne, the DDT Tournament Director, introduced me to Jesse Beatson from Trinity College of the University of Toronto. Jesse had initially come down to judge, but decided to throw his plans astray after – in his own words here – he “saw how happy I (Irving) was at finding out that I would be able to debate over the weekend after all.” XD + =D

The partnership is formed! =D

As a side note, Jesse is also a first year student at the U of T – majoring in philosophy. Due to our mutual love for puns and ridiculously inane things, we also decided upon a team name that pretty much summed up our academic endeavors and possibly foreshadowed how we would handle the tournament…we formally became Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones.

XD?

After registration, all of us were bundled away to begin the first two rounds of public speaking…a tournament which I had also arbitrarily chosen to enter @.@ Those of you who know my personal history of general oration will know that public speaking happens to be a venue which I used to despise a LOT and had once sworn to never participate in ever again. But somehow, I had the random urge to participate in this one lol @.@

Since this is technically the start of the DDT, I will now provide the usual match-up information; note that this time they are divided into three sections: Public Speaking, Debating, and Family Feud-the latter being a made-in-Waterloo event where two teams are merged together into a huge, ambiguous conglomerate and made to square off against another amorphous mass of debaters. The catch is that both teams are arguing for the same side of a motion and the event is conducted gameshow style, complete with hosts, intimidation tactics and active jury voting lol!

Other things you should know is that the DDT is essentially a style tournament for debating, i.e. no serious cases, extra marks for humour and wit, and also a looser interpretation of the rules and case logics. If this is somewhat ambiguous still then hopefully the event split here will clear things up; I also included highlights if every round to illustrate how crazy it was on a whole LOL!! =D

PUBLIC SPEAKING:

Round 1: THW Remove The Letter “I” From The Alphabet (YES, ironically I got the alphabet which appears the MOST in my name lol @.@)

Round 2: This _______ Is A Work of Art (participants are given a random picture on a projector and asked to describe how + why it qualifies as art. Note however, the pictures aren’t exactly from Van Gogh or Picasso XD)

Round 3: Describe Your Ideal Supreme Court.

FINAL: THW Assasinate Animals.

DEBATING:

Round 1: THBT Conversations Over The Internet Should Be Done Using ONLY Emoticons and Abbreviations

Gov: RIT The Threat Down

Opp: Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones

Round 2: THBT Mr Speaker, You Should Push That Red Button (YES, I know, like so freaking arbitrary XD)

Gov: Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones

Opp: Trinity The Indian and The Jew

*Notable Moments:

i.) Mitchell Gerskup from Trinity gave a speech with musical accompaniment XD

ii.) The Opposition ran a counter-case, imagining up that beside the red button there was a green one as well…and umh, we should press that one instead XD

Round 3: THW Legalize Necrophilia

Gov: RIT One Foot In The GRAVE

Opp: Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones

*Notable Moments:

i.) Opp counter case: “But what if there are undead….?” XD XD

Round 4: THBT We Would Take Zac Irving’s Car On A Road Trip

Gov: Trinity The Indian and The Jew

Opp: Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones

*Notable Moments:

i.) “Madam speaker, we from the opposition have a counter case for you-we would say that we would rather hire a paralyzed camel as opposed to using Zac Irving’s car!!!”

ii.) Once again, musical accompaniment from Mitchell.

Round 5: THW Sponsor A Government Funded Raccoon Hunt In Toronto

Gov: Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones

Opp: Trinity Burqa Kings

*Notable Moments:

i.) The critter hunting program was called RACCOON-Regionally Aligned Culinary Culling Of Ordinary Nuisances XD

ii.) Zac Irving turned his speech into a reflective prose about his childhood…managing to guilt the government side to the point of not wanting to rebut/POI him lol @.@

Round 6: THBT In The Case of A Sex Change, A Divorced Couple Should Not Have Alimony Agreements Still Running.

Gov: York/Queen’s Dr. J.H. Gillis A

Opp: Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones

Round 7: THW Implement A Sin Tax For Movie Adaptations of Novels…Because Adaptations Suck!

Gov: Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones

Opp: EDS Freddy Kruger

*Notable Moments:

i.) “Have any of you seen that latest novel-movie adaptation?…it’s called The Golden Coma.”

Round 8: THBT Santa Should Diversify His Workforce To Include More Than Just Elves

Gov: Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones

Opp: Marianopolis Old Enough To Be Your Children

*Notable Moments:

i.) “Mr Speaker, we would lobby for Santa’s workforce to be expanded to include the yeti, vampires, sasquatch, Abominable Snowmen, Adorable Snowmen, … and Russians.”

ii.) “When Russia needs to create more jobs, they expand the KGB…”

iii.) “Do you know what happens to these elves when they get old and can’t work? They get fired…in the back of their heads.”

iv.) “The more different people we have in society. the more problems we have…we should kill all Asians.” *insert =.=” Irving face here*

v.) (Opp) “If he is as twisted as you say, then Santa should not be allowed near children”, (Gov responds) “Why do you think the elves are there in the first place?” XD

Round 9: THW Build A Giant ______ (fill in the blank round…Gov decided on “sleeping bag, of all things =.=”)

Gov: WLU Team Awesome

Opp: Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones

Round 10: THBT Upon Reaching 100 Years of Age, All Citizens Should Receive A Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card

Gov: York Pre-Law

Opp: Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones

*Notable Moments:

i.) Opp counter case: “No, the government should provide funding for plastic surgery instead, under the name of ANCIENT-Authorized National Clinical Incentive for the Essentially Not Tender.”

ii.) “I think we can tolerate a bit more crime.”

FAMILY FEUD:

The Berenstein Bears Family: 0 wins, 3 losses (XD?), 5 points overall.

FINAL RESULTS FOR Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones: 3 wins, 7 losses, 75.95 points, 10th place overall.

Personal Speaker Scores (Debating): 38.5-38-38-38-38-38.5-38-37-39.5-38, average 38.15, ranked 14th overall.

Personal Speaker Scores (Public Speaking): 38.75-38.5-39.0, ranked 4th overall.

Family Feud Scores: 2-2-1, ranked 6th.

—

Phew that was a long one @.@ But yup, that should be about it lol. At this conjecture I would like to point out that if you notice, my rounds chart for public speaking extended all the way to the final round-this is not an anomaly in where I accidentally included that round in my tabs report. The reason its there was cause I SOMEHOW ACTUALLY BROKE TO THE FINALS LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLL!!!!!! XD XD XD XD + =D =D And it was in fourth place LOL!!!!

This would be my first ever break achievement in a CUSID sanctioned tournament and I openly admit it is not much: it comes in a tournament where hardly any bigshots turned up, and the tournament itself is not taken seriously most of the time lol XD + @.@ But hey, it’s a start innit? It was a nice way to finish the 2007-2008 debating season – with a break for the EDS at the Waterloo DDT =D The EDS actually managed two breaks at DDI VI – John Sergeant powered his way into a fifth place break finish as well, adding to the North Ams break he achieved last January =D Hopefully this is the start of better things to come! =)

Righto, here we go-photos!!

RANDOM:

The church where we billeted for the night.

Jeremy Larkins of York University, Public Speaking Round 2.

Trin/EDS The Philosopher’s Stones!!! =D

Jesse Beatson with the thumbs-up as we listened to Mitchell’s musically aided speech XD

The campfire + marshmallow session =D

Amir Mohareb, York University…I think I blinded him for a bit with my flash after this pic XD

York University + Marianopolis + Wilfred Laurier University.

CUSID members.

Irving (uOttawa), Jeremy (YorkU), Andrew (U of W).

PUBLIC SPEAKING FINALS:

Jeremy Larkins, 7th place breaker.

John Sergeant, 5th place breaker.

Ngeh…Me XD

Zac Irving, 2nd place breaker.

Dafne took this shot of me in the finals-thanks lol! =D + XD

Public Speaking Champion-Andrew Choat, University of Waterloo.

FAMILY FEUD/JEREMY VS IRVING IMAGES:

FACE-OFF!!! XD

Damn he won LOL!! XD

Family Feud Finals.

Talk about intimidation lol!

MORE RANDOMS:

DDT VI Finals: Trinity Burqa Kings VS York/Queen’s Dr. J.H. Gillis A

The breakfast on Sunday (look for me!).

Philly D., John Sergeant.

The hybrid dream team XD

Wargh I think that should suffice for now lol. Damn this post is actually turning out to be as long and tiring as the DDT itself was lol. Anyway, the DDT proper was won by York/Queen’s Dr. J.H. Gillis A, manned by York’s Amir Mohareb and Queen’s Robert Embree, defeating Trinity Burqa Kings 7-2 in the finals on the motion THW Ban Summer (like, literally…XD?). The Dysfunctional Familty took home Family Feud championship honors, and Andrew Choat claimed the Public Speaking title for the University of Waterloo.

Looking back, that was one wild weekend @.@ It was the first time in my life that I had stayed up for over 24 hours, and I have to say that this was definitely the best way to do so lol-debating my butt off with friends and new acquaintances, all the well enjoying the heck out of myself =D Other random personal records do include: not showering for around 72 hours straight (and smelling like it >.<), and being farthest out west from Ottawa since I officially arrived in Canada lol. Also, I managed to see the ridiculous truth in the unknown EDS senior’s words that “everyone should try it“-where else would you be able to participate in a wild night of non-serious debating, experimental speaking and just letting your life go lol =D + XD

Damn I had a really good time-CAD 200 well spent lol @.@ To sum it all up – since words invariably fail – all I can say is that to those who didn’t make it out there, I sincerely think you missed out on loads of fun lol…so do come next year ahahahaha!!! Bagus gila sampai aku sanggup buat promotional pitch kat blog aku seyh XD XD

A special shoutout to the DDT VI organizers from the University of Waterloo: Dafne, Tim, Thor and the rest-it was an awesome show!! The only regret I have now is that this was only my first DDT (this is almost a crime lol!) and that at the very most, I will only be able to make it to DDT’s VII, VIII and IX during my tenure in Canada =’D + =(

Thus the crucial question arises-will I be trying to make a return for next year’s early May edition of DDT, even though the summer of 2009 is definitely my clear planned return date to Malaysia – after 20 months of being overseas, away from home and family? It’s still too early to tell I guess -

But still, don’t be surprised if you hear that I’ve postponed my trip home for another week to participate at DDT VII lol.

=D?

Cheers people!