it’s over! It’s Over! IT’S OVER! IT’S OVER!!!!!
The UCL inter-varsity debating tournament 2001 was on Friday and Saturday, convened and organized by Nick and me. And I’m relieved and overjoyed to report that it seems to have been a success. This time, we were working under far more difficult circumstances than we had been when organizing our first debating tournament in October last year. Dire financial crisis in our debating society meant we had the grand total of 95 pounds to run the tournament on, plus whatever we got from entry fees. We told the debating community about this, said we wouldn’t be able to offer the lavish prize money and free drinks that other tournaments offer, and asked if they’d still be willing to come. Support was significant enough for us to decide to go ahead with it anyway, and now I’m so glad we did.
After running The President’s Cup exactly to schedule last year (quite an achievement in the British university debating circuit), we were determined that this one would be no less well organized. We did, however, end up running late in this one, much to our general dissatisfaction, but many delays were due to forces beyond our control like teams turning up late, and college staff booked and instructed well in advance failing to do what had been arranged. All the same, so many people made a point of telling us they had really enjoyed the tournament, and these are debaters who’d definitely have bitched loud and long if they weren’t satisfied with it.
Another thing I’m proud of was the quality of debating. We had a well contested and interesting final. I’d come up with the motion This House Would Make Amends For Africa. The first proposition team made a courageous and well-argued case in support of reversing the current situation of withholding aid from African countries which allow the practice of female genital mutilation, and eventually won the tournament. We’d tried to achieve a wide variety of motions in the earlier rounds of the tournament, so we had motions ranging from This House Would Tackle The Mad Cow to This House Would Give Saddam A Stroke, as well as the UCL innovation of generally themed debates where anything goes as long as it sticks to the topic given (the environment, this time), and another innovation of our own, where we told the debaters we knew how much everyone liked bitching about motions, and so we’d give them the opportunity to submit their own motions for the third round, one of which would be chosen.
We wanted our tournament to be well-run, well-debated and well-enjoyed. It looks like we succeeded on all three counts. :)
I should, however, add one of my characteristic disclaimers here: despite all this, I still think it was far from perfect, and that there were areas where my organization could have been better. The fact that we had to work with a number of well-intentioned but generally useless morons who are unfortunately members of our committee made things difficult as well, and sometimes I probably let my frustration show a little. So, there’s still lots of room for improvement.
Following in our President’s Cup tradition, we went clubbing after the tournament, and revelled in being completely different people from how we’d had to be during the tournament. JP, Nick’s flatmate, had free passes to the Glasshouse, so that’s where we went. The stresses of the past few days had taken their toll on Nick and me, such that we didn’t really feel up to dancing much, but we were, nevertheless, amused at watching JP’s effervescent antics as we chilled on a couch. After a shivering post-club excursion to Farringdon for coffee at 6 am, we went back to their flat. It’s a pretty surreal experience when you’re lounging in a road-scrounged easy chair, with a huge Bruce Lee poster staring you in the face, Gomez on the speakers, Wall Street on the television, and the all-permeating smell of weed. I next woke up around 8 am in JP’s bed, with Nick scrunched up next to me, JP fast asleep in the easy chair, grey snow on the TV and silence on the speakers.
I notice the littlest, and strangest things when the radical break from routine means I’m not functioning on autopilot. The mingled odours of tobacco and weed on my clothes and hair, defiantly residual even as I walked through icily fresh morning air on my way home. Soggy fur on a dog after it had romped its way through dewy grass. The clack of my boots, too loud among the shuttered shops and empty cafe furniture of Woburn Walk in the morning. The incongruity of sitting in my hall having breakfast in a gold halter-necked top among pajamaed hallmates who would later change for mass, while I’d be changing for bed.
And now it’s 3 in the morning, and as I write this, a blank sheet of paper on the table masquerades as tutorial work for tomorrow.
The tournament’s over. The weekend’s over. Back to normal life.