Silliman’s probably one of the prettiest Universities I’ve ever been to so far. The sceneries in the campus are really something and the facilities are great as well. Actually, Dumaguete as a whole is a place you’d feast your eyes on. It’s a tiny little city but we enjoyed every second of our stay there last weekend because the view was really awesome. I haven’t actually had the chance to have a good look at the whole city and the school, but what I saw was pretty much enough reason for me to gush about the place.
One whole day of debating can drain you real good so right after the last round I escaped from the craziness of it all and went out with a friend who showed me around the city. At around midnight I was amazed at how The Boulevard looked so beautiful; it was like Manila Bay minus the pollution and the stench. The sea was going crazy but I was super thrilled to be sitting in front of the raging ocean. Its waves splashed so violently against the pavement and could’ve gotten us really wet, but seriously, I couldn’t care less, even if there was gonna be a tsunami I’d still sit there and stare. I was so fascinated at what I was seeing; it’s as if I was in a trance or something. The weather was also to be thanked for our pleasant stay there. Dumaguete’s normally a pretty hot place since its near the sea, but during the whole weekend the cold and windy conditions made it so nice for us to stroll around, although at night it froze our butts off.
One of my favourite places in the school would be this area they call the Amphitheatre. My team mates and I talked about how we wouldn’t mind having no social life in the campus at all if our school would be that beautiful. We’d do pretty fine sitting somewhere under the shade of a tree by our lonesome selves and just read a book. Life would be perfect.
The VCF in Dumaguete doesn’t differ much from Cebu’s. Everyone’s also yelling “C’mon now!!” and are too very fond of “over-fellowshipping”. Although their church is smaller than ours, I could see the passion in the leaders that I was sure their church would expand in no time at all. I was looking around the crowd during the service and I saw most of them if not all were very young and the majority were still students in Silliman. I think that’s just wonderful. I’ve heard so much about that church that I didn’t feel like a stranger there at all. Oh, and another thing, they served snacks after the service, while we on the other hand over here only do that with first-timers!
I Debate.
Debaters are very interesting people. The weirdest, funniest, most brilliant people I’ve ever met were the ones I was with in debating competitions. They have a way of complicating things, of making the mundane fascinating of dealing with issues in an in-depth and critical way. That’s how they are. That’s how we are. Naks naman! The Visayas University Debate Championships last weekend was the funnest I’ve had in all of the out of town debate contests I joined. Not only because I got to be around intelligent people but also because I was with the craziest bunch. My team mates were the best and we never had a dull moment together. There were seven of us from the UP-Cebu varsity, two debating teams and one adjudicator. And all of us had mental problems. We just couldn’t help laughing and goof around all the time, we had a way having fun even under pressure, even in the verge of losing a round.
I had a lot of regrets as to how I should’ve constructed my arguments. My team mates (Stef and Ardie) and I didn’t have team dynamics but we still worked well together even though we only knew of our team-ups at the last minute. Stef and I carried on with our tradition of passing notes that would boost each other’s morale, this time, Ardie became a part of the cheesy practice. Every time we were done with our speech, even though we did really badly, we’d get a note from the other that says, “You were amazing!” or “You rocked!” and believe me, it sure does help a lot! Hahaha…. Our first two rounds didn’t go well, and we lost them. Dang. We admit that we kinda sucked with our arguments on the first one against the USJR, but on the second round… Hmm..we kinda blamed Leloy for not giving a just adjudication. Our motion was, “This house would tax fat.” The Silliman team proposed that the government would tax goods that contain trans-fat. Being the opposition, we countered the idea of the additional taxation and then gave a counter-proposal. But I guess this doesn’t suit the fancy of an Atenista adj. UP adjudicators normally prefer to credit the content of the counter-proposal and disregard the technical flaws of our arguments. But oh well, that’s just how it goes. Leloy made us lose by default because “we focused so much on our counter proposal”. We couldn’t argue with him anymore since he’s the Leloy, I mean who are we to question such a higher being, tah! Whatever. The lost round made Stef and Ardie cuss until the end of the day. LOL.
I was really fine with losing, of not making it to the semi-finals, really I was. But when I watched the semi-final round between Silliman and our other team in UP, I wished soooo hard to be part of the debate! I was so restless in my seat because I couldn’t help but react at what was being said because I personally think it was just silly. The motion was about supporting organizations that advocate criminal acts. The UP team could only predict the parameters that the government side would set. Ate Jesa and the rest of the UP team thought of vigilantism, terrorism and what not. But the Silliman team narrowed down the “criminal acts” into polygamy of Muslims… in the United States!!!!! I was like…. What the???
Seriously, I mean huh???!!! I wanted to get out of my seat and just raise a freakin point of information, give a definitional challenge even!!! I was begging the debate gods to please let me speak out, I so wanted to speak out……….. Huhuhuhuhu…… L
Why on earth would we talk about polygamy of Muslims in the United States when it’s not an issue there AT ALL…. And to refer to polygamy as a criminal act is just plain silly. Muslims aren’t penalized for practicing polygamy because there’s a Sharia law to protect them from the law of the state. Geees…..
UP lost over that debate. And again, we contest to the adjudication of one of Asia’s top best speaker, Leloy. Hahaha…..
The championship round made everyone from Lantugi pissed off (uh-gain). The motion was something that everyone of us have pretty much familiarized ourselves with. It was on Philippines entering US’ war on terror (if I’m not mistaken). And good grief, in the three-hour bus ride we had on our way to Dumaguete, all I ever read about was on the Military Defence Treaty between the US and the Philippines…. Grrrr!!! HAPPY MODE.
Although debates can really raise your temper and frustrate the very life of you, it still is very rewarding. I love it. There’s much room for improvement in my part and I can’t wait for the next competition! We barely practiced prior to this one and I hope I wouldn’t embarrass myself on the next debate contest as much as I have last weekend. Hehehe….
