"Actually, we don't even need to judge them. We already favour the Proposition. I also judged their class in the preliminary round. They were good.....I like them".
In case she hadn't noticed, adjudicators are not supposed to take sides. I'm not sure about the student adjudicator, Sophia, though. I really couldn't believe my ears. I know I wasn't the only one to hear her statement. My English teacher, in charge of the whole debate event, caught those words too. She of course told her to be fair and "give us a chance to speak". Now, what does that tell our Opposition side? Don't hope for too much.
It started off with their "Prime Minister", (first Proposition speaker), Josephine. Just as I had predicted, she mentioned about the "messy" statement. "......were given too much freedom until they got themselves involved in murder, rape.......", to which I promptly rebutted that the freedom given is not beyond the law and that their facts were wrong. I don't think the adjudicators got my point, though.
Pn Tan's handphone rang halfway through my speech and of course I couldn't stop. That'll be nuts. The worse thing was that I was pointing out about the paradox of freedom at that time. Crap, that point was meant to cancel out almost all the Proposition's points. It works something like "the freedom given that makes you "happy" actually traps you in your mind and you become hostage to the habits you cannot break". So, that pretty much sums up everything on our side. Whoever it was who had the guts to call her was really at the wrong place at the wrong time. It basically screwed up the debate.
Anyway, Natasha's brother who sat behind the adjudicators, said we did a good job as I got "really good comments and marks". Looks like signalling the "great" sign was such a good idea. Maybe it inflated our egos? Couldn't be (for my case, that is). I heard the judge said she wasn't on our side, so......yeah. Not sure if the rest heard, though.
Both second speakers Natasha and Jeremy kept their cool. No drama here, except that I think this was where things started to go very wrong for us. We 3 speakers agreed that no one got our rebuttal (I hope you did), so Natasha had to re-emphasise our point. I think this was one of the choices which might change the course of the debate. Natasha was slightly overtime. And apparently (I think NO one was paying attention to dear Opposition), this time, everyone had the "lost" look on their faces when Natasha reinforced our rebuttal. She paraphrased my sentences, so I think they were lost on the fact that they "couldn't find any relation whatsoever" between what we both said.
Both 3rd speakers had weak spots. Kelly spoke of irrelevant points whereby youths are "free to eat whatever they want to". I'm not sure how this relates to the bigger picture of freedom, but it's clearly got the thumbs up from the judges. Sha Lynn laughed in her speech, but I don't think that was such a bad thing. She also experienced a nervous breakdown but reactions were different this time.
She's well-known for her sense of humour and distinctive voice, so when she broke down, instead of banging our heads in frustration (Opposition's reactions) or staring smugly at each other (Proposition), we all nearly bursted laughing together with her. It would have been a good thing too, since she would have "touched the hearts of the audience". But screw everyone's half-half reaction. I was grinning and banging my head at the same time, not knowing what to do (What the heck was I doing???). Judges had amused expressions and the Proposition was laughing along with her, out of sarcasm or genuine joy, I do not know.
The major screw-up came during the Reply speech. Another bad decision was when all 3 of us Opposition speakers agreed on re-emphasising our rebuttal. I could say I was really shaking this time. Even the papers I was holding were quavering. I just couldn't control my hands. Suddenly, my mind went blank. Thoughts of "we're going to lose" raced through my mind. Everything went haywire and unorganised. I stated my rebuttal and put in one sentence which would eventually prove that these adjudicators were really not listening to us, maybe because of the psychological effects on "bias-ness". Our rebuttal would cancel off all the Proposition's points and they had to pay attention to what I was going to say. Well, FINALLY, they did.
When the judges commented about us, guess what they said? We lost out on being unorganized, having "abstract points", lacking statistical analysis and "adding a new point in our Reply Speech". I could have fainted on the spot. Being unorganised is something truthful and we know that. Our POINTS??? God, the only reason the points were abstract was so that they couldn't rebutt us easily. And they COULDN'T, that's the thing!!! Gosh, after a conversation with Timekeeper Darren, I realised that our points were simple, easy to understand but hard to rebutt. Hey, if Darren can get it, why can't our senior and a teacher get it? He could even understand our rebuttal! The statistical analysis thing was so fake and I couldn't sworn I'd kill myself because I found out about this global website which showed that only 18% of youths around the world think that they have too much freedom. Unfortunately, I made the stupid mistake of not incorporating it in our speeches.
Okay, support those comments all you want, but our NEW POINT in the Reply Speech??????? You've got to be kidding me!! It's not a new point, it was repeated THREE FREAKING TIMES. What does that come to show? Not paying attention!!!
Overall, I think I screwed up the most eventhough my speech was considerably "good". Amazingly, we could've won and I might stand a chance as best speaker again if my Reply Speech wasn't a mess and the adjudicators could understand my simple, meaningful rebutt. Yes, 3 Cengal deserved to win. I won't deny that. I'm just denying my decision-making abilities. And that's the main reason I broke down after most debators left, not because Cengal won against us.
If only my Reply Speech wasn't a mess, if only I had inserted the statistical analysis in our speeches, if only I could break my words down into simpler English so that others can understand what I was trying to convey.
Now, I probably won't get a chance to debate next year since my father thinks I'm wasting my time debating and my mum thinks my head is shrinking. So......there might not even be a next year in my case. I live for debating and I just love rebutts, provided that people understand my foreign babbles.
Oh well, I love geese and ducks (excuse the random statement). They're a great example of my unpredictable character. Happy all the time and get all emotional suddenly. The great thing is that, after the emotional breakdown, we "flap our wings violently" and then "continue swimming" as if nothing happened.
Time for brain-cleaning now. (I don't "brainwash". It's implies using chemicals to clean your brain).
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