Well, I actually posted something here before, but I went to reread it and I took it down. Sounded waaayyy too whiny... I must've been insane when I wrote it. Anyway, I (foolishly?) volunteered to judge the debate quarter's on Fri, and once again (AGAIN!) ended up in C-div. Oh well, I expected it anyway.
So we reported at the usual time, and were early for once. Ironically, they locked the briefing room. I guess they always expect us adjuds to be late :>. Well, I ended up with only 1 debate, so I went to watch my 'beloved' sec school. I won't badmouth them or anything (here anyway), but a: I didn't expect them to make it this far, and b: I STILL cannot understand how they made it. It was real disappointing when Adel didn't get best spker. If I was judging, I'd go by the 'She who saved the team shalt get best speaker' logic. But I can see why they gave it to the other speaker. *Sigh* According to my scores (Tan and I were judging it just for fun) , it was a clear win by a 4-5 mark margin. (It was closer for Tan though.) *Another sigh* I'm pretty sure the coach now hates us.
Blearh! Enough about that school. Something rather interesting happened. For the first time in this competition, I wasn't chief, YX was. As a side-note, I've ended up being chief for all the Prelim rounds, and I really hated it. Hm... maybe not HATED, but I didn't really like it. I still feel that I lack exp, and that I'd rather learn from someone else. After all, I could be making the same mistakes throughout all the rounds. But it was an exciting, albeit stressful experience. So, I was looking forward to seeing YX deliver the oral adjudication.
And...*drumroll* It was a split! And I dissent! For the first time! Against YX of all people! Some details first: Prop was Hg, Opp was Mf. And the motion was: security concerns being more impt than individual rights.
Prop
1) Pretty good case-setup: "We believe that both sc and ir can work in tandem with one another. However, when it comes to the clash, we believe that sc should take priority over ir."
2) Then a clarification: "We'd like to exclude all cases where there is no clash..." followed by a decent justification.
3) The headache: "include only 1st world countries... mature democracies." Justifcation: "People in the 3rd world have no rights."
4) Substantive: Govt signed a social contract, has to maintain social fabric. Basically went on to talk about both working in tandem, with no clear reason why one should take precedence. No relevant examples. (Come to think of it.. I don't think there were implicit reasons too)
5) Didn't know what the 2nd speaker was talking about. Still don't.
6) Decent 3rd, not brilliant though. Decent reply, some new rebuttals brought up.
Opp
1) Quibbled with 1st VS 3rd world issue. This went throughout the whole debate with no reason whatsoever. And both sides didn't give good justifications, and didn't use it in their cases, so it didn't influence verdict.
2) Baseline: Equal imptance.
3) 1st spker: Briefly mentioned similarity of cases. Decent case about dictatorship/terrorism. Basically ranted about consequences of sacrificing one for the other. Lacked links.
4) 2nd: ranted on (and on and on and on...) about Sri Lankan TT, Ireland ocnflict etc. I HATE SS E.G.S! Nothing else.
5) Great job as 3rd by pointing out that both sides were running // cases., other than 'damn.'
6) Reply org'd by sides, not issues.
Best spker unanimously to 2nd Prop. Even though her case was irrelevant, I blamed the whole team, not the speaker. And she did spot the main issues of the Opp, though she didn't manage
to rebut them.
The verdict? I gave it to Opp (.5 margin) , YX (.5 margin) and CT (5 margin?!?!) to Prop. The arguments: YX felt that Opp lacked rebuttals, and thus didn't fulfil duty. CT had no decent justification. (I have no idea what that guy was doing.) I felt that you couldn't really expect the Opp to do a good job rebutting, when both sides were running essentially the same case. And I blamed the Prop for it: they kept talking about 'when there's a clash...' but there was no mention of it in their case, and I felt they didn't prove the motion. So Prop ran a bad case, leaving the Opp with nothing. It was hence unreasonable to expect good rebuttals from Opp, since they'd be essentially contradicting their own case. And it was unfair of Prop to exclude it in clarification, then use it for their case. Prop also didn't have fantastic rebuttals. But... I can also understand why YX gave it to the Prop by a .5 mark margin. All in all, it was a really close debate. (Close sucky one, that is.)
In retrospect, I just felt pretty bad for Mf school...because I truly understand how they felt. In sec 3, I had a debate against some school with a 'plant hypothesis theory.' They had a disastrous and illogical case, but we lost as we didn't do a good job rebutting (we were Opp.) It was just so ludicrous and irrelevant that we simply couldn't find anything to rebut. Oh well....Tough luck for Mf. However, I watched both teams before in separate debates. On the whole, I believe that Hs is the more consistent and stronger team as compared to Mf. But during this round, Hs underperformed. So I'm now having what Adel would term 'a moral dilemma.' While Hs is stronger and deserves to advance in the competition (and would actually have a fighting chance against either Tkss or St.M), I believed Mf should have won that round. *Sigh again*
YX's oral adjudication had a few learning points, but I have no idea how to put them down here. It's basically the usual stuff about S St and C, but the way he said it was different. After the oa, during the team/judge 'private' time, after covering the usual about why one side was better than other and 1st/3rd world nonsense, I told them about the wrong reply format. And their teacher said: "But every judge in the previous rounds told us to do it that way!" What I wanted to say: "You're lying. I'd say that to you only I were insane and/or possessed. So it couldn't be every judge." And I had to resist the temptation to ask 'Which judge?' YX, who was hovering nearby waiting for his 'turn', came to the rescue by babbling something about how the teacher must've misunderstood (in a really nice way of course.) Looks like I need to learn tact from him too. It's true that some reply speakers do it in that format, but they're in A div! They're sophisticated! In C div, if I actually come across a speaker that makes sense, is relevant, and does a good summary, I'd be ecstatic! It's the 'learn to crawl before you walk' theory. I promised MG not to undermine the other judges, but SOME judges have... misguided? (that's the nicest word I can think of) opinions.
This marks the end of my debating/judging careeer for this year. (I'll probably not volunteer for the semis.) I'll miss it, but I am getting a little sick of it all the same. So this will give me a nice long break to decide whether to judge next year.
Upcoming events:
1) Piano competition in June
2) Concert in July
3) Some VS concert (haven't seen the piece yet *gasp*. Also have no idea when is it.)
