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.
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.
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