Block!

Projects...sigh! As much as I love my course and the projects that I have to do, it does get on my nerves at times when I struggle like Atlas under a world which meant only projects for many weeks.
Right now, my mind is desperately crying to get away from my computer desk and get out. How much of it I can fulfil, I don't know. That's why a break - to blog.

Just can't help smiling thinking of the debates I took part in recently, one on my birthday when I almost made a fool of myself too.
Debates in school had been so dumb, with topics given a week in advance, and people coming in with prepared speeches in papers, and no on-the-spot questioning allowed. A really stupid policy; feel like going and telling my teachers it's not doing anything to make the students debaters.

Not that I love debating that much; I'm more of a public speaker, and do better with making eye contact with all the people in the room, and making an earnest attempt at connecting to them and make them accept and enjoy what I'm talking. Eye contact isn't really necessary in debates, and whenever I debate (that's rare!), I have some difficulty trying not to look at the person whose points I'm trying to rebut.

So when I saw a proper debate in university for the first time, I was awed: it would be too good for my course, I thought, with all the critical and on-the-spot thinking that it required. So I even enlisted for selections in the univ's team. Didn't make it, though. I made quite a mess of things in a debate with a motion on banning smoking in public places (ha! I don't even remember it properly!). I was stumped when the first speaker in the opposite team contextualised the topic such that I, the one to go after him, had nothing very valid to offer. I managed to spill some related words out of my mouth for two minutes and got back thoroughly irritated.
The next topic was funny: "This house would legalise prostitution". I heard it and laughed, which made the senior debate member whose team I was in, pretty pissed. "What's there to laugh about? You're not a kid!" Oh boy, I didn't laugh for the topic. I laughed because my dreams of getting into the squad were over.

Good thing I didn't get through, though. I can only shudder now thinking of what would have happened if I had gotten through: a very hectic course and regular debate sessions which required a good deal of reading up. Whew!

Now I just stick to attending the inter-school debate contests held annually. They turn out to be good fun, actually. I remember the first time I saw some people raise Points of Information (POIs) and tried hard to control my laughter. To put it simply, it's somewhat like how some singers (ideally with a harmonium in the front) put a hand to their ear and stretch the other hand (when they sing). :) POIs are when they have something to ask the speaker.
The way a POI is dismissed is by saying "not now madam/sir" or "later" or whatever the individual speaker wants to say that clearly says 'sit down.'

Some occasions when you think the speaker has made some sensible point, you say "hear, hear."
So my most recent debate was on my birthday. I, as usual, was talking with my intonations, moving back and forth and occasionally looking at the opposition member and then remembering not to.
One friend on the opposition side was irritating me because she had some POI to raise for almost every other sentence I spoke.
"Later, ma'am." I said "Later, ma'am" I had to keep repeating (ha! Doesn't that show what a good debater I am!?).

I was so busy waving my hand asking anyone who raised POIs to sit down, so much that I knew even before the person stood up with the pandit gesture. ;)
Looks like accidentally I dropped out some sensible sentence.
"hear, hear.." said the friend who kept raising POIs.
"Later, ma'am," I said immediately, mechanically.
P.S.: My team came third in that round. But I was really happy: for the first time in my debating history, I had spoken for the entire 7 minutes allotted and took a POI! :)