On Debating

The UADC was a total bummer. My adjudicator tests were wrongly entered into the tab, so the spreadsheet took it upon itself to ensure that it made a mess of me at the tournament. But that trip to Thailand wasn't all in vain. The picnic in Ayudhya, spending time with friends, gorging on Pizza, and not to mention being flummoxed by the absolute kisch that was The Egypt.

But that's not what this post is about. This post is about an altogether different perspective-shift that the UADC brought about. At some point between break-night and boarding the plane back, I experienced an almost-epiphany type conversion.

I told myself that I'd had enough of judging. That I now wanted to speak. Senior Year; nothing to lose or gain. Well I've spoken at one debate last year, and it was clear that I should stick to judging. My then team-mates still curse me for making their first ever debate as random as I did. Both of them have now gone on to become good debaters in their own right, and we now manage to look back at that tournament and laugh about it. About how I crashed onto the floor of the Physics Lab, or how Ashish wanted Ariel Sharon to admit to the mass-murder of Jews.

Either way, I was second on the speaker tab; from the bottom, of-course.

For above stated reasons, it was overwhelming the positive response I got to the transition. Arawn agreed to help us train, and his girlfriend said she "wondered why I didn't speak earlier". Psychick said he thought I was decent, and is always willing to sit and deconstruct my speeches and offer constructive feedback.

But what was most bemusing, was how easy it was to find two people who were readily willing to team with me. After RIDL, I wouldn't have given a double-take even if Iyer wanted to disown me. But it's been more than a year, and I think the horrors of her past don't haunt her any more. Either way, I'm looking forward to teaming with the liliput. She's a joy to be around, and the last time I checked, she was clocking some killer scores at the UADC. Shreyas Pai is another unfortuante young man who doesn't know what he signed up for. He's bursting with energy, and for a freshman, with the kind of pedigree that LDSMSRIT offers, he's not bad at all. We gel really well, the three of us, but whether that'll translate to good team dynamic, only time will tell. Either way, if we need to be a respectable team, all of us: particularly myself, need practice. Copious amounts of it. And we hope to get it starting two weeks from now, at tippsy dippsy's Circuit Debate.

Oh, well. At the end of the day, it's debating. It's about learning and having fun. Besides, only time will tell if I can ever clock seven minutes of smooth-flowing speech. Haha.