When I went to Leeds one time, to visit Lovely Boyfriend Type Thing, I ended up in a shop of knitting materials with his mother. I left with my purse considerably lighter, and I had impulse-bought a Very Large ball of jade yarn, and a pattern for a ladies sweater.
I attempted the sweater pattern shortly after, and then gave up. I'm used to doing scarves and hats - you see progress much quicker with those. Each row took too long to knit, and the shaping was a bit confusing for me. In hindsight, it was a little too much for me to take on, given my attention span at all. However, I have retained the pattern (somewhere!) and I will dig it out one day.
Many moons after the Pattern Fail, I found a much simpler unisex pattern for a sweater vest on the blagoblag. Much less shaping, no sleeves and very little assembly afterwards. It looked good. I begun it.
Five weeks later, the end of term arrived. I'd done the back of the sweater vest. By this point, I'd realised that I could make this for my little brother, so I asked my mom for some measurements, which she gave me after two weeks of waiting.
Term ended less than a week ago. In those few days, I have achieved what it took nearly four weeks to do. I am eight inches, a neckline and some stitching away from pure and utter victory against this 400g behemoth ball of yarn.
However, as with all worthy challenges, there are obstacles. I'm going away on Friday until Sunday; I'll be in London. I'm also away next Monday until Wednesday; I'll be with Lovely Boyfriend. Chrimble Day is next Friday. So, there's not a great deal of time left.
I've been knitting for a very long time. It feels like a bit of a marathon. I've got so far though, it seems a shame to give up, which is why I cannot give up, and must keep going. I must keep knitting...
... until my eyes bleed.
(Well, maybe not that far.)
Thursday, December 17, 2009
That's not what the NHS is for!
You see quite a lot of these stories in the news, especially on slow news days. They are invariably of the sort:
"Little Jack needs 3 million dollars for high-tech brain surgery that will give him four extra years of life. Oh, why won't the NHS fund this? Jimmy is a human being, and therefore deserves all the life that we can give him."
The NHS works like this, as far as I can tell:
Once upon a time, things were a lot like the US, in terms of health care. If you were reasonably okay for money and you got sick, you could easily be bankrupted. If you were poor, you couldn't afford treatment, unless you were very lucky, and able to find treatment in one of the few establishments helping people with no money. If you were rich, life was as good as can be. At some point, the UK thought, "This isn't really quite right," and decided that everyone deserves a free minimum standard of health care for two reasons - one, because it makes us productive and generates wealth, creates equality of value of life, rich or poor, etc, and two, because it's a Nice Thing to do.
The key word here is "minimum standard". The reason for this is that the NHS has finite resources and oh-so-finite money supplies. If they could give absolutely everyone who needed it a liver and a bed, they would. But they can't.
A key example of people forgetting the NHS's purpose is that liver drug. You know, the one that gives advanced liver cancer patients an extra 12 months or so.
First of all, how much good is this to the patient? 12 months of lying in bed, too weak to do much more than that. I may be exaggerating, I may not be, but quality of life is an important factor in these sorts of life-prolonging-not-actually-curing sorts of drugs.
To be heartless for a second, if their quality of life is poor, then they can't exactly come back to join society, work, pay taxes and contribute back to the State that has given them the money to get better. However, the State isn't always heartless. It recognises that it's okay to let people not of immediate utility to use resources. Still, it's something to think of.
More pressing is the amount of money this treatment costs. How many organ transplants, hip replacements, open heart surgeries, stitches and eye drops can we fund with the amount we'd spend on one person having an extra 12 months of (not necessarily quality) life? I don't know the answer to this question. The question is merely here to highlight that there is SO MUCH that the NHS has decided is part of a minimum standard of care. With all these things that are deemed to be essential, we don't have a great deal of money left over for things which are borderline.
By having a "minimum standard" existing, it means that certain treatments are not considered essential enough for the State to fund. That's why you can't get your boobs Jordanized for free. However, life is pretty precious. It's so precious that something about "right to life" is one of those human rights thingies. That's what makes this so hard to judge. Is prolonging life worth any cost? Some may say yes. (These people clearly have never been Chancellor of the Exchequer, balancing the books of the whole nation, not just the ill bit.)
I've not ever had a relative denied treatment on the NHS because they deemed it to be too dear, or too risky, or too *something*, so, I guess I'd be far more emotional and irrational talking about this if I was invested.
Still, I feel that no matter where you draw the line with free healthcare, someone will always be on the wrong side of that line, and they will always be upset. And that is how the world works, kids.
So, when you are on the wrong side of the line, go ahead and raise money, ask politicians nicely, get funding from some creepy rich business tycoon, but don't go to the Daily Mail and say "The NHS should fund this all for me because, because, because!" That's not what's it's there for. Sorry.
"Little Jack needs 3 million dollars for high-tech brain surgery that will give him four extra years of life. Oh, why won't the NHS fund this? Jimmy is a human being, and therefore deserves all the life that we can give him."
The NHS works like this, as far as I can tell:
Once upon a time, things were a lot like the US, in terms of health care. If you were reasonably okay for money and you got sick, you could easily be bankrupted. If you were poor, you couldn't afford treatment, unless you were very lucky, and able to find treatment in one of the few establishments helping people with no money. If you were rich, life was as good as can be. At some point, the UK thought, "This isn't really quite right," and decided that everyone deserves a free minimum standard of health care for two reasons - one, because it makes us productive and generates wealth, creates equality of value of life, rich or poor, etc, and two, because it's a Nice Thing to do.
The key word here is "minimum standard". The reason for this is that the NHS has finite resources and oh-so-finite money supplies. If they could give absolutely everyone who needed it a liver and a bed, they would. But they can't.
A key example of people forgetting the NHS's purpose is that liver drug. You know, the one that gives advanced liver cancer patients an extra 12 months or so.
First of all, how much good is this to the patient? 12 months of lying in bed, too weak to do much more than that. I may be exaggerating, I may not be, but quality of life is an important factor in these sorts of life-prolonging-not-actually-curing sorts of drugs.
To be heartless for a second, if their quality of life is poor, then they can't exactly come back to join society, work, pay taxes and contribute back to the State that has given them the money to get better. However, the State isn't always heartless. It recognises that it's okay to let people not of immediate utility to use resources. Still, it's something to think of.
More pressing is the amount of money this treatment costs. How many organ transplants, hip replacements, open heart surgeries, stitches and eye drops can we fund with the amount we'd spend on one person having an extra 12 months of (not necessarily quality) life? I don't know the answer to this question. The question is merely here to highlight that there is SO MUCH that the NHS has decided is part of a minimum standard of care. With all these things that are deemed to be essential, we don't have a great deal of money left over for things which are borderline.
By having a "minimum standard" existing, it means that certain treatments are not considered essential enough for the State to fund. That's why you can't get your boobs Jordanized for free. However, life is pretty precious. It's so precious that something about "right to life" is one of those human rights thingies. That's what makes this so hard to judge. Is prolonging life worth any cost? Some may say yes. (These people clearly have never been Chancellor of the Exchequer, balancing the books of the whole nation, not just the ill bit.)
I've not ever had a relative denied treatment on the NHS because they deemed it to be too dear, or too risky, or too *something*, so, I guess I'd be far more emotional and irrational talking about this if I was invested.
Still, I feel that no matter where you draw the line with free healthcare, someone will always be on the wrong side of that line, and they will always be upset. And that is how the world works, kids.
So, when you are on the wrong side of the line, go ahead and raise money, ask politicians nicely, get funding from some creepy rich business tycoon, but don't go to the Daily Mail and say "The NHS should fund this all for me because, because, because!" That's not what's it's there for. Sorry.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Dolls and Dolls.
We did the production of Guys and Dolls at school once, and I was working on sounds.
At the start of Act II, the Hot Box dancer girls perform the song "Take Back Your Mink". I remember everyone in the sound and light box would get everything done beforehand so that they could just watch and admire. There's a bit where they rip their skirts off and it's really quite hot, in a lightly titillating way. (It's set in the first half of the 20th Century, so you can't expect much more.)
At the time, I wasn't sure if I even liked girls any more, in a general way. I liked my friend, C, but that was arguably more of a obsession than an attraction. The first time I saw the dancers rehearse that song, I was just as slack-jawed as any of the other techie guys. I think that C just happened to be in the lineup too, but she was just a part of this impossibly gorgeous mass of young women dancing and singing and looking amazing.
Every time I watch Guys and Dolls on DVD, I see that song and remember that crazy thrill of not knowing how I felt, but at the same time, knowing exactly how I felt. Ah, those good old days.
At the start of Act II, the Hot Box dancer girls perform the song "Take Back Your Mink". I remember everyone in the sound and light box would get everything done beforehand so that they could just watch and admire. There's a bit where they rip their skirts off and it's really quite hot, in a lightly titillating way. (It's set in the first half of the 20th Century, so you can't expect much more.)
At the time, I wasn't sure if I even liked girls any more, in a general way. I liked my friend, C, but that was arguably more of a obsession than an attraction. The first time I saw the dancers rehearse that song, I was just as slack-jawed as any of the other techie guys. I think that C just happened to be in the lineup too, but she was just a part of this impossibly gorgeous mass of young women dancing and singing and looking amazing.
Every time I watch Guys and Dolls on DVD, I see that song and remember that crazy thrill of not knowing how I felt, but at the same time, knowing exactly how I felt. Ah, those good old days.
Sad, and lucky.
Today, the things that make me feel sad and lucky are related to intelligence and homophobia.
I feel lucky that I am intelligent enough to have an interesting debate with people without relying on my own uninformed bigoted views. I'm able to change my mind almost entirely once proved wrong. I've never been a personal victim of homophobia (although my family's done a fairly good job of trying to rectify that...)
I feel sad that people are still homophobic, uneducated and unwilling to accept that some things are okay.
I was on Have Your Say today. I know, I know, what a horrible place to go. I read spEak You're bRanes, it's full of awful things that Daily Mail readers and interblag idiots like to say when they're not actually in front of people. So, after reading some angry statuses on Facebook about a particular debate on HYS, entitled "Should Uganda debate gay execution?" which had previously been called "Should homosexuals be executed?", to which the answer is YES, kill all the queers because they are awful. (The real answer is no, because queer people are people before being queer.)
There was a lot of "This is a ridiculous debate" comments, which was good. One went a little far, and suggested we pull aid out of Africa for having policies like that. There was a little bit of homophobic stuff on the board, but there were quite a few rejected comments, which suggests that people may have tried to post more.
My favourite comment of all suggested that homosexuality was the reason that Rome fell. Epic, epic win and fail.
I feel lucky that I am intelligent enough to have an interesting debate with people without relying on my own uninformed bigoted views. I'm able to change my mind almost entirely once proved wrong. I've never been a personal victim of homophobia (although my family's done a fairly good job of trying to rectify that...)
I feel sad that people are still homophobic, uneducated and unwilling to accept that some things are okay.
I was on Have Your Say today. I know, I know, what a horrible place to go. I read spEak You're bRanes, it's full of awful things that Daily Mail readers and interblag idiots like to say when they're not actually in front of people. So, after reading some angry statuses on Facebook about a particular debate on HYS, entitled "Should Uganda debate gay execution?" which had previously been called "Should homosexuals be executed?", to which the answer is YES, kill all the queers because they are awful. (The real answer is no, because queer people are people before being queer.)
There was a lot of "This is a ridiculous debate" comments, which was good. One went a little far, and suggested we pull aid out of Africa for having policies like that. There was a little bit of homophobic stuff on the board, but there were quite a few rejected comments, which suggests that people may have tried to post more.
My favourite comment of all suggested that homosexuality was the reason that Rome fell. Epic, epic win and fail.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Tales of Cambridge
So, the plan was that I'd go to Cambridge, judge, and then gain brownie points in order to speak somewhere I'd like (perhaps Cardiff, or even Euros next year). I waited at the arranged spot, and a fresher turns up, who I will call N. I've not seen N before, although he managed to get a chairing spot his very first time judging (it doesn't matter that it was a bin room).
You see, he wasn't supposed to be coming. It was supposed to be G and C, two experienced debaters, but C had to do work on Friday night, and G overwhelmed himself with coursework. So, N stepped in, and good little lady L would be joining us at Cambridge (she was in London, for some reason, and would make her own way there).
I told him the plan: he and L would speak, I would judge, all would be well. T comes to pick us up in his stylish automobile, we pick Z up from the train station, and away we go.
About five minutes before rounds are due to start, L has not arrived. After much frantic calling and texting, she eventually says she'll be late, arriving at about seven, which is too late to speak, but okay for judging.
So. I am not judging. I am speaking at Cambridge. A prestigious event. Universities sending their best teams from around the world. Speaking with a fresher partner I didn't get to know beforehand. Nervous, much?
I resign myself to it. I figure I should just treat this as a session. Even if we get to the bins, we're bound to win at least one room, or come second or something.
Round One: THW reduce welfare payments to parents whose children break the law.
Position: 2nd Opp
Result: 4th
The SOAS team who eventually broke to the final were 1st Opp. They stole all the material and left us with nothing to work with. I thought we might have at least scraped the 3rd, but oh well. The team that did come 3rd didn't do anything but 4th the rest of the competition, so we really ought to have beaten them in that room. But, it happens sometimes.
Here, we ate a quick dinner. Chicken and stuffing panini. N's face was a little long, but I took it on the chin (as always).
Round Two: THB that it should be illegal to incite others to boycott an election.
Position: 2nd Prop
Result: 2nd
Success! 1st Prop talked a lot about boycotting, which isn't really the key here. It's incitement. That's the world. So, we talked about that. The three judge panel were split on my summary. Two of them thought it was massively kick-ass, but one (the chair!) thought it was less so. So, we could have got the first, but I was still pleased that we'd recovered from the previous room.
Then it was chilling out time, and then onto our crash to sleep.
Bright and early the next morning, we wandered through Cambridge, getting pretty lost and eventually arriving at the Union, where muffins and croissants were the breakfast options (like!)
Round Three: THW replay international sporting events if an extreme umpiring error affects the result.
Position: 1st Prop
Result: 4th
It's a motion that's easily countered by "What about live video replays?" so we had not a lot of hope to begin with. Through some stroke of fortune, one of the Euros finalists had managed to get a 4th and 2nd coming into the third round too, so we ended up meeting in this room. He tore N's speech apart, then when I did mine, I got his name wrong... He was partnering someone who could have easily been his (more excitable) twin, so, of course, having a 50/50 chance, I got the name wrong. How embarrassing.
Up to this point, we were told where we'd come in the debate. To create tension for the potential breaking teams, the judges would not tell us in the rooms anything - not even personal feedback. However, due to the glory of The Tab (results sheet), I was able to find out afterwards.
Round Four: THBT the USA should pay war reparations to Vietnam.
Position: 1st Opp
Result: 1st
When a motion says "This House Believes That", it's supposed to be arguing on principals. Are the USA responsible for Vietnam? Will war reparations help Vietnam? As Opp, you're generally supposed to counter those principles with other principles, or just take theirs to pieces. What we decided to do was talk about practicalities of paying the money. Which I thought was a dumb idea, except it worked. It's a little like saying that everyone should give to charity, but if you're so poor that giving to charity would cause a greater harm than the one you'd solve with the money, then you shouldn't give to charity. I also talked about "money not fixing culture" and "punishing the young for crimes of the old". They seemed to like it anyway.
So, convinced we'd lost the last room in a blazing flame of glorious awfulness, I was just hoping for a motion I could just bash around the room. And then it arrived. It's as if all the debating god just shone their love upon me.
Round Five: THW allow children over the age of 13 to obtain gender-reassignment surgery without parental consent.
Position: 2nd Prop
Result: 1st
This was a topic about which I knew both facts and heard experiences. I knew the challenge would be transferring all of this into a debate-analysis speech, and I did this. I shot down the transphobes at 1st Opp, I spoke beautifully analysed truths, and I just felt damned glorious giving that speech. I came out of that room knowing it'd gone well, knowing I'd won. I was just beaming.
So, getting the tab back, I was expecting to have won the last room. I was stunned to find we'd won the fourth too, and we ended up 50th on tab, out of 108 teams.
Best of all, I was the highest speaker on tab for our institution! Glory and fame was mine (for the next four days or so), but still. It shows how far I've come since that day when Ed destroyed me in the prostitution room in fresher year and I just cried for hours.
Life was as good as it possibly could be.
You see, he wasn't supposed to be coming. It was supposed to be G and C, two experienced debaters, but C had to do work on Friday night, and G overwhelmed himself with coursework. So, N stepped in, and good little lady L would be joining us at Cambridge (she was in London, for some reason, and would make her own way there).
I told him the plan: he and L would speak, I would judge, all would be well. T comes to pick us up in his stylish automobile, we pick Z up from the train station, and away we go.
About five minutes before rounds are due to start, L has not arrived. After much frantic calling and texting, she eventually says she'll be late, arriving at about seven, which is too late to speak, but okay for judging.
So. I am not judging. I am speaking at Cambridge. A prestigious event. Universities sending their best teams from around the world. Speaking with a fresher partner I didn't get to know beforehand. Nervous, much?
I resign myself to it. I figure I should just treat this as a session. Even if we get to the bins, we're bound to win at least one room, or come second or something.
Round One: THW reduce welfare payments to parents whose children break the law.
Position: 2nd Opp
Result: 4th
The SOAS team who eventually broke to the final were 1st Opp. They stole all the material and left us with nothing to work with. I thought we might have at least scraped the 3rd, but oh well. The team that did come 3rd didn't do anything but 4th the rest of the competition, so we really ought to have beaten them in that room. But, it happens sometimes.
Here, we ate a quick dinner. Chicken and stuffing panini. N's face was a little long, but I took it on the chin (as always).
Round Two: THB that it should be illegal to incite others to boycott an election.
Position: 2nd Prop
Result: 2nd
Success! 1st Prop talked a lot about boycotting, which isn't really the key here. It's incitement. That's the world. So, we talked about that. The three judge panel were split on my summary. Two of them thought it was massively kick-ass, but one (the chair!) thought it was less so. So, we could have got the first, but I was still pleased that we'd recovered from the previous room.
Then it was chilling out time, and then onto our crash to sleep.
Bright and early the next morning, we wandered through Cambridge, getting pretty lost and eventually arriving at the Union, where muffins and croissants were the breakfast options (like!)
Round Three: THW replay international sporting events if an extreme umpiring error affects the result.
Position: 1st Prop
Result: 4th
It's a motion that's easily countered by "What about live video replays?" so we had not a lot of hope to begin with. Through some stroke of fortune, one of the Euros finalists had managed to get a 4th and 2nd coming into the third round too, so we ended up meeting in this room. He tore N's speech apart, then when I did mine, I got his name wrong... He was partnering someone who could have easily been his (more excitable) twin, so, of course, having a 50/50 chance, I got the name wrong. How embarrassing.
Up to this point, we were told where we'd come in the debate. To create tension for the potential breaking teams, the judges would not tell us in the rooms anything - not even personal feedback. However, due to the glory of The Tab (results sheet), I was able to find out afterwards.
Round Four: THBT the USA should pay war reparations to Vietnam.
Position: 1st Opp
Result: 1st
When a motion says "This House Believes That", it's supposed to be arguing on principals. Are the USA responsible for Vietnam? Will war reparations help Vietnam? As Opp, you're generally supposed to counter those principles with other principles, or just take theirs to pieces. What we decided to do was talk about practicalities of paying the money. Which I thought was a dumb idea, except it worked. It's a little like saying that everyone should give to charity, but if you're so poor that giving to charity would cause a greater harm than the one you'd solve with the money, then you shouldn't give to charity. I also talked about "money not fixing culture" and "punishing the young for crimes of the old". They seemed to like it anyway.
So, convinced we'd lost the last room in a blazing flame of glorious awfulness, I was just hoping for a motion I could just bash around the room. And then it arrived. It's as if all the debating god just shone their love upon me.
Round Five: THW allow children over the age of 13 to obtain gender-reassignment surgery without parental consent.
Position: 2nd Prop
Result: 1st
This was a topic about which I knew both facts and heard experiences. I knew the challenge would be transferring all of this into a debate-analysis speech, and I did this. I shot down the transphobes at 1st Opp, I spoke beautifully analysed truths, and I just felt damned glorious giving that speech. I came out of that room knowing it'd gone well, knowing I'd won. I was just beaming.
So, getting the tab back, I was expecting to have won the last room. I was stunned to find we'd won the fourth too, and we ended up 50th on tab, out of 108 teams.
Best of all, I was the highest speaker on tab for our institution! Glory and fame was mine (for the next four days or so), but still. It shows how far I've come since that day when Ed destroyed me in the prostitution room in fresher year and I just cried for hours.
Life was as good as it possibly could be.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Debate nerdery, at its finest.
So, just over a week ago, I went to an IV - this stands for inter-varsity, and it's what we call debating competitions. The fine institution of Cambridge was hosting this. They changed from open motions to closed. Let me explain to you what this means, for you non-debaters and noobs out there.
When we debate, we have two teams pretending to be the government in power, and two pretending to be the opposition. We speak alternately - prop, opp, prop, opp - until everyone has spoken once. We debate about motions, things that should be either put into law, or considered as a moral standpoint. The first speaker proposing the motion has to set up the debate. They clarify key words, if necessary, and then outline a procedure if they want to implement some sort of scheme related to the motion.
This is the type of motion you see in closed motion debates.
This House Would Legalise Drugs.
This House Believes That The USA Should Pay War Reparations to Vietnam.
The motion is clearly telling you the debate is about drugs, or Vietnam, and that is what you debate. If you're not debating that, you will not win. If the first proposition team decide they want to debate about monkeys and housepets, they will lose.
Open motions are another kettle of fish. You get almost non-sensical motions, such as:
This House Would Fear The Reaper.
This House Would Raise The Roof.
You're not supposed to literally debate reapers or roofs. If you are the first proposition team, you will have come to the competition with your favourite motion to propose. The motion is purposely vague so that the debate is basically about whatever the first proposition want it to be. In this case, if they want a debate about monkeys and housepets, as long as they can tenuously create a link between their motion and the "motion" set before them, they are good to go. (Of course, if it's a silly idea, the opposition should tear them to shreds, and the proposition will lose.)
For both styles, you are told what side of the debate you are on, and you have fifteen minutes from the announcement of the motions to prepare for the debate.
In closed motions debate, everyone has fifteen minutes to say, "This motions is about Vietnam and reparations, okay. Let's think about those things." In particular, opposition know what they are facing and can prepare ideas that will most likely be relevant in the context of what the first team say.
In open motions, the first proposition team have fifteen minutes to perfect their brainchild. The other three teams have fifteen minutes to grab some coffee, take a slash, flirt with the judges, and wonder what the frak they are going to eventually debate about.
What this means is that, in open motions, the first speaker for the opposition has the length of time that the first proposition speech takes up to prepare.
Some love the thrill of not being prepared and just running on adrenaline. Others dislike the inevitable drop in quality of debate (although some open rooms get fabulously zany).
So, some people liked the change to closed, others did not.
The general consensus was that Cambridge did it to improve the image of the IV from "fun open tournament" to "Worlds prep", where Worlds is the World University Debating Championships and is considered to be A Big Deal to debate folks like myself.
Coming in the next installment... how your intrepid author got a room with a Euros finalist, ignored the advances of a soon-to-be lawyer and got medical advice from a drunken med student.
When we debate, we have two teams pretending to be the government in power, and two pretending to be the opposition. We speak alternately - prop, opp, prop, opp - until everyone has spoken once. We debate about motions, things that should be either put into law, or considered as a moral standpoint. The first speaker proposing the motion has to set up the debate. They clarify key words, if necessary, and then outline a procedure if they want to implement some sort of scheme related to the motion.
This is the type of motion you see in closed motion debates.
This House Would Legalise Drugs.
This House Believes That The USA Should Pay War Reparations to Vietnam.
The motion is clearly telling you the debate is about drugs, or Vietnam, and that is what you debate. If you're not debating that, you will not win. If the first proposition team decide they want to debate about monkeys and housepets, they will lose.
Open motions are another kettle of fish. You get almost non-sensical motions, such as:
This House Would Fear The Reaper.
This House Would Raise The Roof.
You're not supposed to literally debate reapers or roofs. If you are the first proposition team, you will have come to the competition with your favourite motion to propose. The motion is purposely vague so that the debate is basically about whatever the first proposition want it to be. In this case, if they want a debate about monkeys and housepets, as long as they can tenuously create a link between their motion and the "motion" set before them, they are good to go. (Of course, if it's a silly idea, the opposition should tear them to shreds, and the proposition will lose.)
For both styles, you are told what side of the debate you are on, and you have fifteen minutes from the announcement of the motions to prepare for the debate.
In closed motions debate, everyone has fifteen minutes to say, "This motions is about Vietnam and reparations, okay. Let's think about those things." In particular, opposition know what they are facing and can prepare ideas that will most likely be relevant in the context of what the first team say.
In open motions, the first proposition team have fifteen minutes to perfect their brainchild. The other three teams have fifteen minutes to grab some coffee, take a slash, flirt with the judges, and wonder what the frak they are going to eventually debate about.
What this means is that, in open motions, the first speaker for the opposition has the length of time that the first proposition speech takes up to prepare.
Some love the thrill of not being prepared and just running on adrenaline. Others dislike the inevitable drop in quality of debate (although some open rooms get fabulously zany).
So, some people liked the change to closed, others did not.
The general consensus was that Cambridge did it to improve the image of the IV from "fun open tournament" to "Worlds prep", where Worlds is the World University Debating Championships and is considered to be A Big Deal to debate folks like myself.
Coming in the next installment... how your intrepid author got a room with a Euros finalist, ignored the advances of a soon-to-be lawyer and got medical advice from a drunken med student.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Oh, the things people say about you...
So, there was some Exec Drama. Resignations potentially flying, communication breakdown until ours ears bled, lack of cohesion. So, one emergency exec meeting later, and some of the air has been cleared.
Ents are resigning (again). It's a shared position between two guys, and constitutionally, if one half resigns, they both resign, since we elected them on the basis they'd both be there. So, one half resigned, the other followed. They'll work until a replacement is found, sort out a handover, and then that'll be it.
Anyway, part of the meeting was a Snap Cup. I've never done this before! We wrote anoymously about everyone in the exec, what we liked about them, and what they can improve on.
I thought I'd share what people said about me with you. I found it really interesting, because I feel like I've grown as a person over the past couple of years, and it's nice to know what's working.
Here's the good stuff!
I know that I'm not the same as the majority of students right now. I'm not clubbing anymore, I'm drinking much less, and I'm getting very sensible sleep right now (not just sensible amounts, but sensible times too!), so that does make my list of "Stuff I Like To Do" quite different from others. I would never say "No clubbing because I don't like it" because I'm not the whole society. But, I'd like to think that there were a few people a bit more like me, just wanting some chilled out activity fun sober socials.
To sum up, I have a quote from one of my favourite lecturers, Jose...
Life is as good as it can be.
Ents are resigning (again). It's a shared position between two guys, and constitutionally, if one half resigns, they both resign, since we elected them on the basis they'd both be there. So, one half resigned, the other followed. They'll work until a replacement is found, sort out a handover, and then that'll be it.
Anyway, part of the meeting was a Snap Cup. I've never done this before! We wrote anoymously about everyone in the exec, what we liked about them, and what they can improve on.
I thought I'd share what people said about me with you. I found it really interesting, because I feel like I've grown as a person over the past couple of years, and it's nice to know what's working.
Here's the good stuff!
- Showing commitment by organising socials
- Pushing the sober socials ideas
- Saying good stuff in meetings.
- Contributing to the society
- Being nice to everyone
- My unique (and refreshing!) perspective on life
- Being affable and charismatic (I had to ask what affable meant!)
- Being generally amusing
- Being "blunt, honest, fair, women-focused". (I liked this one the best)
- Adhering to rules and regulations without thinking about the effects my remarks have
- Speaking up in exec meetings
- Not being present enough (I guess this would be socials)
- Accepting that everyone's in the society for different reasons
- Letting others help me.
I know that I'm not the same as the majority of students right now. I'm not clubbing anymore, I'm drinking much less, and I'm getting very sensible sleep right now (not just sensible amounts, but sensible times too!), so that does make my list of "Stuff I Like To Do" quite different from others. I would never say "No clubbing because I don't like it" because I'm not the whole society. But, I'd like to think that there were a few people a bit more like me, just wanting some chilled out activity fun sober socials.
To sum up, I have a quote from one of my favourite lecturers, Jose...
Life is as good as it can be.
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