one KIT wonder: December 2006

moon and horror shows

Friday, December 22, 2006

Misery loves company. The cycle never ends. One miserable thought tends to lend all that is despair to another and soon the entire being is consumed in a state of helplessness not unlike the feeling of free falling into an abysmal depth. That sinking feeling that you just could not get out of.

I love my pity pot. I just love sitting and brooding uncertainly over everything over an uncertain period of time, waiting for my rocket to come and take away all that clouds the better of me.

Life is beautiful. It matters not which myopic perspective we choose to view it from but due to the relative nature of life, a fulfilling smirk of genuine joy over anything could just be waiting at the corner of our lips.

There was a sudden urge to listen to the Smashing Pumpkins as I road tripped back into the city. My life is so mundane that I took pride in addressing that urge by searching for the CDs while doing 90 on the freeway, as a form of rebellion. Because that was what the Pumpkins reminded me of- teenage high school angst-fuelled rebellion; that time of life when you just wanted to break all the rules but your tied-hands could only do so much without getting your ass thrown out of the house. With the sugar sickness, you spy the kidnap kid.

I hate it when my writings feel pretentious like this. I am going in circles in search for something that I could not find because I do not know what I am looking for.

Vancouver looms in three days. I do not even feel the slightest happy about the trip. I feel tired. Indifferent. It is my first and last World Championship but I don't give a fuck. There is a strong neccessity to kick this gloominess before it gets too much into me and spoils the entire trip and my beginning of a new year.

Sex is definitely over-rated. Whatever the fuck happened to getting to know a person and romanticism, unabridged? I like you, you like me; I have what you want, you have what I need; You do things that I like, I return the favor; I leave the morning after, you don't call, we forget each other. A thick red line has to be drawn, before it is all too late to halt consumerism from invading our bedrooms, before sex will always be a mere product that feeds our basic primal wants. The last time we were here, I loved her.

Her brash, audaciously impulsive take on life reflected all that was dull and gray in mine.

She was the vermillion of my life.

posted by Kit
12:48 PM
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nice weather for ducks

Monday, December 11, 2006

And so we lost, again, in the semi finals.

The haunting depression of how sweet debating in the Grand Finals could have been, revisited. Deep down, I was not as much affected with losing as I was with not winning. Put some thoughts into it and maybe you would understand where I am coming from.

This House Believes That The Government Should Fund Palliative Care For Memory Loss Patients.

We were on the Opposition bench with a very pro-affirmative resolution. The government came up with a proposal for a revision of the NHS in the United Kingdom to include coverage for patients with Alzheimer's, dementia and other similar mental degeneration conditions because according to them- status quo has no such provisions. Their arguments went predictably, along the line of how mental conditions are very debilitating condition duh, lowers the quality of lives of people, how the state player has an interest in protecting its people and how they can achieve that by making the state pay for healthcare and treatment for these sick people. Their line of argumentation while were very convincing as both speakers had great manners and speaking styles, was flawed as they were just giving generic explainations that could be broken with further analysis.

We were the opening opposition. During prep time our stand was that there were two takes on palliative care that needed to be fulfilled for the treatment to be successful. The curative part whereby you fund the doctors with money to pump up morphines and other happy drugs into terminally-ill patients to alleviate their physical pain; and the more important part of compelling the patients to accept their illness- which we argue can only be done thru family and friends' active involvement.

I messed up big time in trying to establish that link and prove that it is mutually exclusive from their proposal. As in really big time in a way that the entire room of audience had their mouth agaped and hands threw up in the air wondering what the fuck was I saying in my speech.

We went out there falling into the trap of contending that the NHS would not work and as a counter-proposal we said that the family should play a more important role. It was really stupid and messy. We had the right arguments, just that they didn't come up the way they should have been and we were made to look like fools. At least I did. Given a 2nd chance, I'd lay it out that we concede memory loss' a bad thing, duh but the new NHS proposal of institutionalizing palliative care won't do any good and then set it against our model of home care with some sort of private/ indirect government incentives e.g. one-month paid leave to tend for the sick or something.

We could have agreed on government funding but argue for a different approach to improving the quality of life for these patients. I think we would win although they affirmative could always twist it that we agree with their principles.

I am not a good debater. I can't think and come up with ideas in 5 seconds and make people believe that I really believe to my death in that idea.

Sometimes in between debate rounds, I question the justification behind all these self-torture and ego-abuse because it really sucks alot of balls to make a really bad speech in front of a fuckin' crowd in the later stages of a competition. And the worst thing was having that round recorded by the organizers and have the adjudication pool insisting that it was a below-average quality debate.

In the end of the day, I believe in the resolution of conflict thru engagement. I would like to win because victory gives me the validation that I had resolved something with my intellectual capability to rationalize and analyze logic.

I have been somewhat an anti-social of late. I feel drained from debating and just would like to spend my time for the rest of the holidays kicking back and listening to what others have to say. But the Malaysian crowd is a boring lot with nothing much to say. So I'd still have to make conversations that are most likely to be non-self sustainable. Either that or I would have to hang out with my debating friends from other institutions whom I must say, have a rather chronic afinity towards the consumption of marijuana but good thing is that at least they are able to carry a conversation and sustain it.

I have stayed off drinking for a good one month, discounting the 24 beers I had during the debate competition in Borneo. Last nite, the guys called to hang out and smoke up a'lil. I was on my way to their place until I stopped by Vicki's who had emptied a 30bucks bag worth of marijuana into a bottle of ketchup. After three-pieces of good ole' Kentucky Fried Chicken plus shit loads of magical weed sauce, we were fuckin' stoned out of our balls- I mean my balls, her ovaries.

That shit hit us like a train that choo-chooed thru the rest of our evening as we were transfixed upon Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express.

posted by Kit
6:24 AM
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more than a life away

Friday, December 08, 2006

The scenario has taken a rather familiar turn.

Friday nite. At home in front of the pc, researching for a debate competition that will be held in 12 hours. Ferry Corsten blaring from my woofers.

This National Health Science Debate gig sucks mega hairy balls. For the first time in my life, I'm going for a competition with pre-released motions. And I have barely recovered from the last tourney.

THBT the government should fund palliative treatment for memory loss.
THBT all employees medical coverage plan must include a 'Successful Aging
and Wellness Program'
THW make pre-school education compulsory
THW ban genetic predetermination of babies
THW continue prescribing Ritalin for ADHD children
THBT babies with genetic defects should be aborted
THBT sexual assignment for intersexed infants should be decided at adulthood
THW set an age cap for practicing clinicians
THW vaccinate our children against cervical cancer
THBT geriatric care facilities should be government funded
THW legalise euthanasia for the elderly
THW provide government funding for cosmetic surgery in the elderly (humor round- wtf.)

Fuck the doctors.

Vick called me up to smoke some dope and Priscilla wanted to drink at Laundry. My friends are somewhat nocturnal. Heck it's a Friday night anyway and that has to warrant for something.

Except for all that I wanted to do on this rather chilly evening is to have a cup of hot chai tea with someone and do some readings for tomorrow.

The hard part being I know exactly whose company I'd cherish most and what she would be doing tonite. If only I would dial that number and take a drive to her place. We could layan to my new house music CDs.

Some loving hugs and kisses would go a long way for the rest of this lonely night. She could then drive me to competition tomorrow after some early morning blueberry pancake and toast breakfast.

Focus. Focus. Focus!

posted by Kit
7:04 AM
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looking down on our mute faces with a great, raging and unseeing eye

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

And so all that took off on a bad note must end on a bad, albeit high note.

After losing our opening round, we picked up some steam for a gallant run at the National Championship that was then staved off at the semi-finals. We got the 8th and 10th best speaker in the tournament that meant jack shit. In the end of the day, the final was so close yet, painfully so far. It was our institution's best achievement thus far and although I am happy with our new found bragging rights, I am not satisfied.

People will only remember the Numero Uno.

We lost to International Islamic University. Fuckin' terrorist wannabes screwed us over on the motion "This House Believes That The Media's Responsibility Lies With Its Shareholders" with a really funky case that defined the media as Al- Jazeera and the shareholders being the Qatari government having full ownership over the news network to counter Western media e.g. CNN, Time, NYT biased take over the war on terror.

Funky.

I just don't understand why the fuck some debate teams would twist and turn motions to tailor -suit their shameless pursuit of success. Why can't they just have open and honest debates? It was clearly a debate on media ethics v. capitalism. Why can't they just set the damn debate about Google in China? Bastards.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed that debate. I had to prepare my speech in 7 mins after tossing my earlier notes that was rendered irrelevant by their funky set up. It was a good debate. Actually it was a pretty fucked up debate, we lost Unanimous, 5-0. We got some blunt ass fucking by the adjudicators for not 'living up to the challenge' and 'not debating as well as we could have done, normally'.

What the fuck. I guess that semi final round reflected our team's infirmities. We do not have enough experience to be dynamic and it really stood out like a sore penis in later parts of the competition.

We can only get better then.

Andrea broke down after the quater finals. She was sore that she couldn't do better to respond to the opposition's case that was entirely different from what we had anticipated during prep time. The only time I cried was when I didn't break at Asian Championship despite having a good early run. I think emotions could be interpreted as a reflection of commitment towards excellence. I don't blame her for failing to respond. None of us could have done better that her and I thought she provided just the right platform for me to come in to rock everyone's balls off. I still hold that my Prime Minister could not have been anyone better and she made our Quater final round a winning one.

Things got worse in the Semis and it was just our luck and incompetency that we had failed to advance. We literally debated without an idea what the fuck the opposition was talking about. Andrea was blanked out. Massive. Being a communications student, she was jumping up and down when the motion was released and it was about media ethics. She got totally hit in the face when those fuckers twisted the motion. I hated myself when I could not help her out when she wanted me to go Opposition Leader at the eleventh hour because she didn't get what the fuck was goin' on in the debate. I am not an advocate of last minute speaker role change and I thought it'd be wiser if I stayed back for the damage control. She took up the challenge and went out to fight off those morons like a true champion.

Alas, our lack of dynamicism and inexperience was far too great a hurdle to be overcome within the time frame of a speech. By the time it was Rueben's time to speak, we had already lost the debate despite him being the only one who understood what was goin' on. I enjoyed our semi-finals nonetheless.

The best part about this Nationals is not the results. It is about the trust that I have in my team mates. Andrea and Rueben practically carried my ass thru out the preliminary rounds. I was not debating good at all. The words weren't comin' and I was choking on 'em when they arrive. My speeches were all in a big mess. At times that most mattered, Andrea took up the gauntlet and took the pressure off me to lead the team's case. Rueben was in full throttle with his rebuttals and the quality of my first and third speakers made my fucked up speech look acceptable. When we qualified for the break as the 3rd best team overall, Rueben came up and gave me the assurance that he knew that I was just saving my best for the knock out rounds that would matter most. Like how Zidane peaked for France when he was was most needed. That assurance from my team mates meant a world to me at a time when I doubted myself and thought that I was causing the team to fall. Nonetheless, true enough, I'd think my best rounds came in the knock outs.

Team work is all about helping and trusting each other. My team mates didn't blame me when I was talking shit out there and didn't contribute jack shit to our case construction. And I didn't think our loss was due to a fault that was individual. It has always been a team effort from the get go. I am proud and very honored to be debating with these kids.

Winning is just a subset of those little wonderful discoveries along the way that makes the ride a memorable one.

posted by Kit
8:44 AM
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one KIT wonder