Not a Keatsian Moment

Tonight I had my first ISDA debate of the season. I'm not sure where to really start. A lot went on in my mind and in the surroundings etc. Well. I spose I should start at the beginning. It was an away game at St Aloysius College, which - might I add - must be one loaded school considering it is right next to the harbour bridge at Milson's Point and by consequence they probably saved money on building a swimming pool, because if need be that the cadets learn swimming or lifesaving (is that even an aspect of cadets?) they can just jump into the harbour. Seriously, it'd build their resilience :)


But anyway, me and another girl from my team got there like 2 hours too early, so we killed time by wandering around by the sea, admiring the scenery and all that crap. Although it was still quite hot at 5 pm, being near the sea meant the breeze was nice. I always love being near water. It makes me feel calm. No actually not calm - that would be a word used by my loony English teach who continually has keatsian moments. Penisive is more what I meant. So yes, we took in our surroundings and chatted about different schools and how I wish I could experience another high school other than the only one I know. It was definitely a good unwinding session and I love being in the city or near the water, especially at night. So combining those 3 elements was great :)


We then practically hiked up a hill back to the school (see another reason why it's a good place for cadets) to find the bathrooms. Well actually, the girl from my team convinced me there'd be bathrooms down near the bridge, which obviously there weren't. So inevitably we had to walk through the cadets practicing whatever they practice to find a bathroom, which wasn't too hard, as I had told her from the start.


So from there we pretty much met up with our coach and had bits and pieces of a pep talk thrown at us - which was actually a good thing, seeing as I needed as much advice as I could get. Then it was back to the waiting game: the girl from my team was reading the goss section of the neswpaper with articles about all the trashy hollywood stars like Britney Spears and whoever else is pregnant or divorcing, our coach was doing the crossword, and I attempted to absorb anything I could from the World and Opinion sections of the paper. It goes without saying, I absorbed zilch. However I did start randomly picking out names of politicians or whoever they were ('important people') and my coach would say who they were. But now I only remember that Mr Scimone is some guy got to do with the council of Wollongong (I think) and that he was involved in sex scadals of some sort. Righto.


So finally, our 1st speaker arrived (I was 2nd, and the other girl was 3rd) and after about 15 more minutes of waiting we were told the topic. The topic was "that we should provide compensation to the stolen generations" (not sure of the exact wording). I knew it'd be something to do with that 'cause of the apology. We were negative. As soon as we got into the prep room we pretty much had arguments with eachother about what to say etc. It was pretty funny. Althought not at the time I spose, because we were all stressed. The other 2 girls in my team didn't want to say outright that we shouldn't compensate them but instead wanted to say that we'd provide them other forms of compensation than finanicial compensation (such as psychological compensation etc). I thought this was gonna be too close to the affirmative team's argument and we (as the negative team) should just oppose it entirely. But seeing as we couldn't spend the entire prep hour debating and then have no actual debate when the actual debate came around, I went along since I was the minority. We ended up losing 'cause our argument was almost the same as the affirmative's. And probably 'cause I only spoke for 5 minutes rather than 6 :)

The chair person was funny. He had a pompous accent and was very posh, hehe. And he pronounced my last name "gurgua" or something of the likes. Ha. it made me laugh.

After the debate their was supper and I was told I was too nice and should be more aggressive, which I agree with - but by the teacher that hasn't even seen me debate? Hmm. But my coach also agreed and said he would toughen me up. Very doubtful. Then everyone went home. My parents had come to pick me up and after asking if they found the school alright I found out that they paid a taxi 7 bucks so he could sho them the way. Haha. My parents are hopeless with places they don't know.

The ride home was also very pensive. You know when you are just overcome by wonder and awe and your imagination goes off an a bizarre tangent with all these weird thoughts and philosophical theories? It was like one of those nights when I'm out of Sydney and the sky isn't as polluted and you can see soo many stars, so I just stare up at them forever because the longer you look the more you see and the more you become amazed. Except that I didn't admire the stars once. It was awesome, I hadn't experience that sort of state of mind in a fair while. I mean I have philosophical musings on the bus sometimes if I'm alone, but not like this. I was listening to the radio on my phone and had the window down and the night air was cool and whipping my face gently. The weather has to be precisely not cold, nor humid, hot, or rainy and there must be a nice breeze for me to experience this pensive state. Neautral weather I call it - beacuse no matter if you're wearing an overcoat and jeans, or shorts and a singlet, you feel just right. It also helps if it is night and I'm in a car, with the window down and there is some source of amazement. See why I don't experience this state too often? The basic requirements are so specific and so difficult to come across in the one lot. We were still in the city and near water. In fact, we were going across the harbour bridge - which I rarely ever do, especially with my parents seeing as they hate the city considering the traffic and one way streets. I'd probably hate it too if I was the one driving, but I don't drive so I don't care. I felt so emancipated and on impulse decided to take photos on my phone through the car window of the harbour bridge as we were driving through it. It's not like I've never seen it before, but it's so much more astounding when your surrounded by it, than when your just looking from a distance (as everything is) or on an ugly postcard or whatever. The photos were crappy quality, but it didn't really bother me, it felt surreal. As we drove further away from the water, I looked at all the big important looking buildings and wondered what happened within each, what made each so important. I thought about all the complex structure and issues of Syndey, of Australia, of the world. How everything fits together. I thought about the thousands of issues of the world and wondered how it still keeps on running. How there isn't some major breakdown - some sort of blackout that affects everyone, or everyone attacking eachother for no reason whatsoever. I spose I why the whole world didn't just stop doing what they do. I wanted to learn about the world and become informed. I felt empowered, I felt like I could make a difference. (I know, forgive me, I personally hate psychobabble myself). But I wanted to embrace debating and learn as much as I can from it. Not to feel intimidated by the challenge, but to triumph over it. I really can't explain it any further, I don't have the ability to word the experience I had. Like I said, it was just way cool and surreal.

I came home exhausted and started this blog, but then went to bed and so now I'm finsihing it off now :)

And that's about it.