I've been procrastinating on this long enough, so I might as well post it before I forget. :P There were 3 main tournaments during the year; namely, the All-Asians 2004 (held during May at Assumption University in Thailand), Australasians 2004 (held during July at University of Technology Sydney, Australia), and Worlds 2005 (held during December at Multimedia University, Malaysia).

I went to Asians as an adjudicator, and it was not a very remarkable tournament, except that I made the break as a reserve adjudicator (which is pretty remarkable considering my lack of experience before the tournament), and the NUS teams didn't do well. However, I did manage to make friends with several debaters and adjudicators from other countries, and we had a (relatively) nice drowning of sorrows.

Australs (as I'll refer to it hereafter) was something I would consider as a learning experience. My team was fortunate to have some good adjudicators and to debate against some good teams. However, we also got some decisions which we didn't understand, and ultimately we missed the ESL break by 2 points due to an error. It was, however, a blessing in disguise (albeit not a very happy one) as I was able to fly to Brisbane to stay with my relatives there for some time and go around the city. This should be useful knowledge in case I go to Brisbane for Australs 2005. :-)

Worlds was, to put it frankly, very underwhelming. At least to me, it was pretty obvious which teams and adjudicators would make the break even if they showed up for all their rounds hung over, and which teams (and adjudicators) were there just to make up the numbers and so that the organizers could claim that every continent was represented. When a tournament seems to have beer at nearly every event (whether social or otherwise), but somehow can't seem to provide food for the opening ceremony, you have to wonder just where their priorities lie.

Yes, I'm bitter about the fact that I was a trainee adjudicator for 6 rounds, a panelist in the 7th, and then bumped completely off the tab for the 8th and 9th rounds. To be fair though, by the time of the 8th round, I was feeling extremely sick with a full-blown migraine and throwing up, so it's probably a good thing I didn't have to judge anything anyway.

Let's see what 2005 brings to the table in terms of the quality of the tournaments. Asians 2005 will be in Kuala Lumpus, Australs 2005 in Brisbane, and Worlds 2006 in Dublin (which, last time I checked, is not near Finland, Sweden or Norway.)

I'll be going there for the World Universities Debating Championship 2005 organised by Multimedia University.

Over the next 10 days, I hope to post updates as and when possible, both on this blog and on my personal livejournal.

• We didn't break for the main draw or ESL (not unexpected, but that doesn't make it any less disappointing)


• I took a 1.5-day trip to Brisbane and met up with my aunt/uncle/cousins there, as well as someone I knew only through MSN (*waves to MS and throws a pink fluffy flying elephant in his direction* ^_^)


• Managed to crash drop in on the international coffee festival (though I think I got sick as a result of being in the rain too much on that day)


• I posted some pics that I've taken (without descriptions, because I'm too lazy): here