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nyankoframeThe journey to Malacca itself was, to use a phrase I used at that time, "wonderfully crazy". My partner and I left Clementi MRT at around 3:45 pm, and passed through Johor immigration around 4:45 pm while our bus to Malacca left Larkin (a bus terminal some distance from the checkpoint) at 5 pm. We were able to find a taxi driver who was willing to take us there for a flat unmetered fare of 15 ringgit (about $6.45) and got there just in time to catch the bus.
The trip itself was largely uneventful and we arrived in Malacca around 8 pm. We looked around for a place to buy our return tickets from while waiting to be picked up, and bought them for RM 14.50 per person (compared to the RM 16 we paid for our tickets from Larkin to Malacca). In hindsight, that was probably a very good idea, although it didn't really seem so at the time. We were originally put up in a hostel in which ten people would sleep per room, but we quickly realized that wasn't going to work out especially in the mornings and with only one shower and one toilet for the whole guys' area. Additionally, the idea of room parties really didn't appeal to me in that context. :P So we ended up staying in a hotel down the street that charged RM 50 per night for a 2-person room with an attached bathroom. It worked out to about RM 25 per person, and was actually slightly cheaper than the hostel as well.
The debates themselves were rather interesting, although not always in a good way.
The first debate was about banning online gambling, and we were in the closing opposition. It was a rather messy debate, and I felt that our third-place finish wasn't really deserved. Our opening opposition ran a pretty weak case that tried to nitpick at the opening government's case about the social harms of online gambling (which was admittedly rather sketchy too - and I can't believe they placed second behind the closing government) and we essentially attacked the government proposal on feasibility (how do you ban an online gambling website, especially when there are proxy networks and anonymous onion routing - think Tor (more information at overview). However, the closing government's extension, and the reason why they won the debate (!?), was on the insecurity of online gambling, where they pointed out that encryption algorithms could be reverse-engineered and that keystroke loggers could be installed on gamblers' computers to enable criminal syndicates to launder money.
The adjudication was, in my view, rather weird, but considering who the chair of the panel was (the chief adjudicator, who also happens to be someone whom I have encountered before and don't particularly like), I'm not terribly surprised...
We were in opening opposition for this round, and the opening government quite clearly (in my opinion) deserved to finish no higher than third (they finished 4th), because all their two speeches essentially consisted of was "NATO troops should be there because they can provide humanitarian aid". To be fair to them, though, I think this was probably their first competitive tournament and they might have been nervous or unprepared. We basically ran the counter-argument that NATO troops, being mostly from European countries, would exacerbate tensions in the region and wouldn't help the situation at all. Our counter-proposal was to establish a DMZ (demilitarized zone) on both the Lebanese and Israeli sides of the border, and to station the NATO troops on the Israeli side with troops from the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries) on the Lebanese side.
I think, personally, that our counter-proposal threw everyone off track - including our closing opposition. :P Their extension centered on the fact that NATO troops were mostly from Europe and as a result of the Holocaust, would tend to be sympathetic to Jewish people more so than the Lebanese/Arabs. After the debate they lightly berated us for stealing nearly all of their material and forcing them to come up with something else, but they still finished 2nd (and we won), so it was good for them in the end.
We were in opening opposition again for this round, and the opening government rather bizarrely decided to set this debate in the Middle East again and argued that Hamas shouldn't receive the $700 million (sic) in aid that it had been promised by Norway and the EU. The debate was quite messy, and it wasn't a bench win for the government with closing government first, closing opposition second and us third and opening government fourth.
The closing government's extension and the reason they won the debate was that they "proved" that aid wasn't an obligation and therefore First World governments were perfectly justified in attaching conditions to the aid they distributed. This was by far the worst of the three rounds and I wasn't inclined to discuss/rant/argue about it with my partner.
We were in closing government this time, and our opening government bizarrely set this debate in Ghana, and mentioned the culture of violence that prevailed there. And somehow, education would help to solve this problem... ? I think we weren't the only team that was rather confused in that debate. :P This one went rather badly too, because the whole debate spiraled down into a mess. At least we didn't finish fourth, though.
I don't remember much about the semi-finals, and we had to rush to Melaka Sentral (the bus terminal) to catch our bus, so we missed most of the finals.
The ride back to Larkin wasn't too bad (although we got onto our bus about 5 minutes before it left), but there was a massive jam on the way to the checkpoint, and it got so bad that I ended up walking from the stalled bus to the checkpoint. I got home around 12 am and was rather tired from running and walking so much.
Overall, it was a somewhat enjoyable experience, although I wished I'd been able to stay in Malacca longer so I could do some sight-seeing. And I would have planned for a less rushed journey there and back. :P
The trip itself was largely uneventful and we arrived in Malacca around 8 pm. We looked around for a place to buy our return tickets from while waiting to be picked up, and bought them for RM 14.50 per person (compared to the RM 16 we paid for our tickets from Larkin to Malacca). In hindsight, that was probably a very good idea, although it didn't really seem so at the time. We were originally put up in a hostel in which ten people would sleep per room, but we quickly realized that wasn't going to work out especially in the mornings and with only one shower and one toilet for the whole guys' area. Additionally, the idea of room parties really didn't appeal to me in that context. :P So we ended up staying in a hotel down the street that charged RM 50 per night for a 2-person room with an attached bathroom. It worked out to about RM 25 per person, and was actually slightly cheaper than the hostel as well.
The debates themselves were rather interesting, although not always in a good way.
The first debate was about banning online gambling, and we were in the closing opposition. It was a rather messy debate, and I felt that our third-place finish wasn't really deserved. Our opening opposition ran a pretty weak case that tried to nitpick at the opening government's case about the social harms of online gambling (which was admittedly rather sketchy too - and I can't believe they placed second behind the closing government) and we essentially attacked the government proposal on feasibility (how do you ban an online gambling website, especially when there are proxy networks and anonymous onion routing - think Tor (more information at overview). However, the closing government's extension, and the reason why they won the debate (!?), was on the insecurity of online gambling, where they pointed out that encryption algorithms could be reverse-engineered and that keystroke loggers could be installed on gamblers' computers to enable criminal syndicates to launder money.
The adjudication was, in my view, rather weird, but considering who the chair of the panel was (the chief adjudicator, who also happens to be someone whom I have encountered before and don't particularly like), I'm not terribly surprised...
We were in opening opposition for this round, and the opening government quite clearly (in my opinion) deserved to finish no higher than third (they finished 4th), because all their two speeches essentially consisted of was "NATO troops should be there because they can provide humanitarian aid". To be fair to them, though, I think this was probably their first competitive tournament and they might have been nervous or unprepared. We basically ran the counter-argument that NATO troops, being mostly from European countries, would exacerbate tensions in the region and wouldn't help the situation at all. Our counter-proposal was to establish a DMZ (demilitarized zone) on both the Lebanese and Israeli sides of the border, and to station the NATO troops on the Israeli side with troops from the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries) on the Lebanese side.
I think, personally, that our counter-proposal threw everyone off track - including our closing opposition. :P Their extension centered on the fact that NATO troops were mostly from Europe and as a result of the Holocaust, would tend to be sympathetic to Jewish people more so than the Lebanese/Arabs. After the debate they lightly berated us for stealing nearly all of their material and forcing them to come up with something else, but they still finished 2nd (and we won), so it was good for them in the end.
We were in opening opposition again for this round, and the opening government rather bizarrely decided to set this debate in the Middle East again and argued that Hamas shouldn't receive the $700 million (sic) in aid that it had been promised by Norway and the EU. The debate was quite messy, and it wasn't a bench win for the government with closing government first, closing opposition second and us third and opening government fourth.
The closing government's extension and the reason they won the debate was that they "proved" that aid wasn't an obligation and therefore First World governments were perfectly justified in attaching conditions to the aid they distributed. This was by far the worst of the three rounds and I wasn't inclined to discuss/rant/argue about it with my partner.
We were in closing government this time, and our opening government bizarrely set this debate in Ghana, and mentioned the culture of violence that prevailed there. And somehow, education would help to solve this problem... ? I think we weren't the only team that was rather confused in that debate. :P This one went rather badly too, because the whole debate spiraled down into a mess. At least we didn't finish fourth, though.
I don't remember much about the semi-finals, and we had to rush to Melaka Sentral (the bus terminal) to catch our bus, so we missed most of the finals.
The ride back to Larkin wasn't too bad (although we got onto our bus about 5 minutes before it left), but there was a massive jam on the way to the checkpoint, and it got so bad that I ended up walking from the stalled bus to the checkpoint. I got home around 12 am and was rather tired from running and walking so much.
Overall, it was a somewhat enjoyable experience, although I wished I'd been able to stay in Malacca longer so I could do some sight-seeing. And I would have planned for a less rushed journey there and back. :P
