Upon demand request from Andrew, here I am posting about National Novice 2011:D Since I’m the freest nowadays anyway... Honestly, none of us ever ever (at least I didn’t) thought winning this at all, what more when we are so rusty! Yes, National Novice was the first tournament after 8 months???
But before I begin, I must express my gratitude to Zean Shiung, Prasanth and Shaun for being willing to help us prepare before the tournament. Particularly Zean Shiung, the list of things to be researched on really helped!!! :D Last but not the least, our very dear and much appreciated, Keefe :D, a senior/trainer/coach/opponent that is the reason why we can be where we are today. WE ALL LOVE YOU SO MUCH KEEFE!!!!! J
Ok, let’s get to business. HELP University College was represented by 3 teams where HELP 1 comprised of Ian Loo Han Rong, Carmen Chua & Victoria Ngow, HELP 2 included Sophia, Abhilaash & I while HELP 3 consisted of Kailaish, Jasmesh & Shu Li. Our very professional adjudication team made up of Elena Ong, Leannza Chia, Adelyn Teoh & Ayzvara. :D Now, let’s see how HELP 2 rocked the floor!
Round 1: Education.
Up against Sri Ayesha on the motion THW teach talented students separately from their peers and we were opposition (at 10pm on a Friday night after an hour of prep time, nope it wasn’t fun). Timothy Andrew was the adjudicator. This one was definitely not our best, for it was messy and ranged from average to below average. I was dismissive at certain parts & failed to attack their mechanism properly. We barely scraped passed this one but alas, we did. J
Round 2: Democary
We, on side government, faced SMKDU 1 on the motion THW make compulsory voting. Tasneem judged this round! We were improving slightly but not enough. There was one thing that Tasneem pointed out and we totally never thought it! Voting to not vote. It could have made our case a whole lot stronger (but we did pull through :D ) Get Malaysians to be more involved in the politics and at the same time, not just simply voting for any tom, dick & harry. By then, we were quite frustrated by ourselves. Yes, stupid us....
Round 3: Geo-politics
Facing only secondary schools in the 2 rounds earlier, we felt a bit nervous being opposition, facing another university for this round, USM 1 on the motion THW invade North Korea. Adrian was the chair this time. Now the first thing I did was to attack their mechanism! YES I LEARNT! LOL... but yea, I spent a little too much time rebutting and didn’t analyse my argument on bad precedence properly :P nonetheless, we made it through J
Round 4: Women & Men
We got into ROOM 3 against PUTRA 1 being government on the motion THBT if a biological father is willing & able to raise the future child, he should have the right to prevent abortion. Darryl was the chair. We lost this one. We didn’t have a proper case even after the debate started. The major screw up I did was defining what is “able” in my PM speech. And PUTRA 1 questioned what sort of willing is this that we are proposing. But sophie pulled it back for me! She explained that we drew a parallel example to custody and however capable a father needs to be in order to win the custody, this is what he needs to be when preventing the abortion. Moreover, what other sorts of willing are there? Forced willing? We lacked analysis in how losing the foetus = to losing a family member and we were quite offensive in our cases against females (though there were soph n i on gov and all three guys on opp!) It was a 2-1 split on a close margin with the chair dissenting. We were a bit dejected :/
Round 5:So Malaysia Lah!
We opposed THW impose minimum wage in Malaysia against SDAR 2. It was our bubble round so it was PRETTY SCARY. It was do or die. For the first 20 minutes of out the prep time, we were quite blank and it was only the last 10 mins that we started forming a proper case. Groobie was the chair this round and it was a 2-1 split! It was a silent round so we only found out the next morning! And I pretty worn out that night to even care actually....
Octofinals: National Security
On the motion THW not prosecute child soldiers for the atrocities they committed during times of war, we were opposition against INTEC 2. This round made all of us pretty jumpy actually. Not only because they defined ‘atrocities’ as protecting family and country from enemy and thus, making the whole debate into a definition challenge, ALL 3 SPEAKERS kept on repeating & saying that we needed help simply because we come from HELP.... so yes, abhi retaliated in saying that INTEC= IN Total Extreme Confusion. But it was “a bit” potong because abhi didn’t say it properly! It took the crowd 2 mins to get the joke before they started to laugh. Although we pointed out the truism, we didn’t question enough links... but well, here come quarters!
Quarterfinals: Medical Ethics
We went up against PUTRA 1 again on the motion THW force feed aneroxics. But this time, we were opposition. We fought! We were determined to not let them win us for another round. Yes, a lot of competitiveness seeping in. I don’t remember much about this round actually. Probably because I was quite blur after so many rounds already...
Semifinals: Sexual Deviances (HELP 1 was in the other semis against SWAT!)
This round we were government and it was fun! Probably it’s because I learnt a lot of new (& sick) stuff. Up against TCSJ 1 on the (longest ever) motion THBT sex education classes in schools should include but not be limited to: sexual orientation, anal sex, mutual gratification & masturbation. Yeap, we talked about G-spot (something new that I learnt), orgasm (I knew that already) and a whole lot more. They came up saying that sex education will only teach young kids these things. So we pointed out that they very fact that all of us here knows about all these despite not having sex education shows that sex education may not be the source after all. One of the speakers quoted that he learnt all those from his parents. Super cool parents I must say...
Finals: THBT the state should compensate people who are wrongfully convicted of a crime against SWAT = KEEFE!
This was what we never ever expected.
1) Getting in to the finals
2) Facing the one who trained us, KEEFE!
3) Winning it.
The most ironic thing is that we still didn’t know who exactly will be in our team till the last minute. And yet, we won National Novice 2011. It felt like a dream holding all those trophies. Like what leannza said, it was a trophy feast! With 4 of us (Abhi, me, ian & soph) getting 3rd, 6th, 8th & 10th best speaker respectively + finals best speaker + each of our own champion trophies + the HUGE champion trophy that is supposed to have HELP’s name engraved into it, all of them seem quite non-existent till I saw them on my table the next morning. This victory was by far the “cleanest” one we ever had. Yes, we did have a few misdeeds back then when John & Andrew were with us :P
But the most important thing was that this victory will not be possible without John, Andrew or Keefe because they built the base for us to step on. They were the reason why we could have succeeded. Without them, most probably, we will still be struggling to understand what harms principle is. Thanks John, Andrew, Keefe. We owe you guys big time. And, this brings me to my question. WHEN ARE YOU GUYS COMING BACK??? Don’t you dare come back after Keefe fly off. Yes keefe, when will you be leaving for Aussie? :D
