what would you give to feel young again?

whew, a rather placcid end to a rather hectic week. the following week's gonna be the final week of my stint as the coach for the dictators. looking back it at it all, i really dun know if i've been a good coach in helping the dictators improve themselves. i would love to believe that i've done a satisfactory job in helping the team become more competitive in what's an already competitive circuit, but at the end of the day at the end of my tenure, the single most important thing that i would like my dictators to realise, is that any improvement they made in their debating was never my credit but rather testament to the huge potential they have intrinsically. all i did was to simply motivate them to achieve what's all along within their reach. like i always tell them, they're so much better than their seniors were at sec 3. what really sets them apart from their seniors is in fact their attitude. it would really be a huge pity if they falter and look back at an under-accomplished debating career only becos' they failed to put in the neccessary effort. i've no idea how am i gonna do it, but the last thing i have to do before i leave is to drill this perservering attitude and sense of self-belief into them. i must say, it has truly been a dream coming true for me to lead my alma-mater into a debate competition as a coach. and for that i really wanna thank my juniors for making this possible. hanging around the dictators really make me feel young again, that long eluded sense of vitality and passion. they're not just juniors, but rather like younger siblings in an extended gong jiao family. how i wished i could follow them through their entire debate campaign. i dream of the day, when the cat high can once again grace the hallowed speakler dias of the julia gabriels grand final and finally stake its claim to the champions trophy, putting an end to 6 generations of heartbreak. and when that happens, i will be on the first flight back to singapore, to witness this magical moment. championship or not i'm still proud of my dictators and i will forever cherish this memory as a former coach of catholic high.


the motion for that fateful semi-final round


dictators - post semi-final exit. we may have lost a battle, but the war is far from over.


the impish andre kua enjoying an alcoholic cocktail courtesy of yours truly. i actually had to show the waiter my IC claiming that i was the one who ordered the alcholic drink when they made a fuss about how it's illegal to serve alchol to underaged kids. they actually gave andre the kids meal menu (who's 14 this yr btw) which sorta explains their outrage when they were told to serve the alcoholic cocktail to him. robin in the background looks unbeliveably *ahem* paedophallic. i fear for andre...


joel (of living with lydia fame)who'll be leaving us for the njc integrated programme. regardless of where he goes, he'll always be part of this 'dictatorship'



four generations of debaters: fengyao, robin and me. below: mark and amoz. the true strength of cat high debates lies not in our debating prowess, nor our trophy cabinet (which until this year was virtually non-existent), but rather in the fellowship and strong bond between seniors and juniors. this sense of kinship - above all championship trophies - is the true prize.

we had many friendly debates for the past week, against acsi, ri and a quadrangular involving nanyang, st nicks and scgs. what's worth mentioning is the quadrangular held in scgs, in particular the last debate of the day with the motion TH would legalise the gay marriages. there were 4 teams (including CH) so the 2 debates were held concurrently in 2 connected rooms. we're against st nicks while nanyang faced scgs in that final debate of the day. the air-con in our room stopped working then so we opened the connecting door to let some of the cool air flow into our stuff room. that's where we heard some very interesting arguments brought forth in the other debate. apparantly somewhere along the way, their debate digressed into somewhat a discussion on foofy's (our 3rd speaker) sexual orientation when one of the nanyang speakers declared that she would 'rather marry fengyao EVEN IF he's gay' or something to that effect. now an 'even if' argument is a classic debating technique used to facillitate clash with one's opponent's case, though i dun think i can say the same for this rather unique 'even if' argument. for that matter, the girls seem to think he's gay cos bryan (our sec 2 prodigy) sat on his lap. i would defend fengyao's dubious act no further than offering michael jackson's classic retort: simply that 'it was a lovely gesture'...
interestingly, fengyao's pretty hot stuff in the debate circuit. some girls from another girls' sch (which i will not mention for propriety's sake) called his handphone ostensibly to discuss discrepancies in the tabulation of lunch money when the crux of the question they directed seemed to be less of the money but rather 'when will we see you again'. apparantly it was one of their senior who made the call on behalf of a junior who carries a torch for foofy who vehemently denies in the background wanting the overcharged lunch money back, admist a loud chorus of sheepish girly giggles when foofy answered the call. sigh.. the ludicrity of teenage crushes. the debate circuit was so boring and un-scandalous during my time. alas those pristine days....haha. i thought of a new nickname for foofy, and he shall henceforth be known as HDB or Hearthrob of DeBates. it was fucking funny when kenneth kang in a eureka moment declared his theory about fengyao's popularity hinging on the fact that his team mates (kenneth himself and shaun goh) are 'weird, retarded and ugly' hence being in comparison, foofy's team mates accentuates his charm. to which shaun goh immediately retorts to kenneth 'i'm weird and retarded BUT NOT ugly...YOU are ugly'. this, is cat high 2005 for you. they're the maddest and most retarded bunch of debaters ever in the history of cat high since me and xander's batch and thinking of it i think they might well have beaten us to this dubious title. sigh...i'm sure gonna miss them.
back to foofy, in fact, he's so popular that i actually have 3 google referals to my blog from google searches involving 'fengyao' 'debates' and 'blogs' in various permutations. perhaps someone who carries a torch for foofy is now scrutinising this blog in hope of more personal details of their crush. well all i can say is that, fret not, fengyao's as likely to be gay as michael jackson is straight.

just got back my results for sememster 1. it was a pleasant pleasant surprise. 3 distinctions and a higher distinction. i really couldn't ask for more. while i'm slightly disappointed about my political science grade, where i got 79 missing a higher distinction by just a single mark, it's more than compensated by my macroeconomics and financial accounting where i got 70 for both - right on the borderline of a distinction grade. it expected to do worse than that, especially with my fracas in the final paper for financial accounting. it was a close shave, and i'm determined not to leave things to chance again. the war is over - for now. the procrastination armed forces has been defeated. readcon 1.