advice to bryan/ random indulgence in nostalgia
i was browsing around aimlessly when i surfstopped at bryan's blog. apparantly the dictators failed to break at the hwa chong invitationals championships this time round and he's feeling pretty upset about it. and he probably has every right to feel so. back last year when i was coaching them and as such having followed the sec sch debating circuit, i can objectively say that he is by far in my opinion the among the top 3 secondary three school debaters of his year, and arguably the second brightest sec 3 debater, just marginally behind sam cheam. despite his somewhat retarded rants, bryan is perhaps the most precociously developed talent in the history of gong jiao debating and with proper guidance, together with sam cheam and awyong, we're looking at what's probably gonna be three-fifths of the singapore world schools' team in 3 years time. i'm am no outsider to debating disappointments myself and i find it ironic for me to motivate and advice bryan if you were to just read my previous post-australs entry about a month ago. but anway, i had my fair share of languishing in secondary school debating mediocrity back in my first 3 years at gong jiao, and with that i really hope to encourage bryan for there's no greater pity than to see someone so talented in what he does, turning his back on that very gift in embitterment. i'm too lazy to type so here's the comment i dropped at his blog:
'... i can totally empathise with how u feel. back in my lower sec days, when debating was still in the archaic 4 on 4 style, where motions were bloody crappy, we were the whipping boys of the debates circuit, avoiding defeat every year in only 1 of the 8 debates we were involved in for the british council debates. adjudication was even more dodgy. why do i say that? cos' back in 1998, in a debate against ACSi, after an hour and a half of deliberation by the 2 (yes, 2 not 3) adjudicators who were in fact teachers from each school, the debate was declared as a draw! this has to be the most classic moment in the history of singapore sec sch competitive debating cos' i dun believe any other debate at a competitive level has EVER ended with a draw. u can therefore see how far debating has progressed since. we had huge reservations about our own abilities, and each subsequent debate seemed nothing more than ego battery. but despite all odds, we desperately yearned to achieve something in our final year in CH. and with nothing more than sheer determination and faith in ourselves, we managed to break into the grand final and away from the label as the also-rans. cat high debating has never looked back ever since. and i can proudly say, that you guys, the 2005/06 dictators are indeed the living legacy of this institution. while there'll always be the intrinsic fear of not being able to measure up to our own expectations, the postivity of it all is that it is the bold and ambitious who are often disappointed by the temporal inability to achieve perfection, for it is also something that the also-rans who are willing to settle for much lesser things, can never appreciate. all i can say is that, keep the faith, have an industrious attitude befitting that of someone who deserves to win, and regardless of results, u can justify to the restless inner being in you, that you are a chum-peon ('champion' pronounced ala dictator fashion) in your own right.'
to say that the first three years of my secondary debating career was spent in mediocrity is simply an understatement. (well, in fact, make that my entire debating career for that matter). cat high was indeed the proverbial whipping boys from 1996-1998. here's the record:
1996: 1 win outta 3. only win against victoria school
1997: 5 defeats outta 6 (3 rounds per team) including my fateful competitive debut against nanyang girls' where we proposed the unbelievable motion 'That songs sound better in showers'. The only reason we avoided a total whitewash was the fact that dunman high who we were supposed to debate at the last round inexplicably withdrew from the round and we gleefully just assumed that they chickened out.
1998: 5 defeats outta 6 and 1 draw !?! (refer to above). this was the year where ridiculous motions are THE new black. here're some from the top of my head: 'That Men with Moustaches have evil intentions', 'That i would rather be a sparrow than a snail', 'That snail mail is better than email'
what's more interesting was that we did have 2 guys who were in name our 'debate coaches', greg and neil who has since craved a career in journalism and writing books about ang mohs living in singapore (yes, he is that Today/Newpaper watever journalist neil humphreys) from some speech teaching centre called Juliet McCully or something. but what greg and neil taught us had next to nothing to do with argumentation, since they basically just focus on the way to project our voices, inntonation, how to put the correct stresses on which syllable of a word yada yada yada. so it probably wasn't any surprise why we had such a woeful record.
the turning point came in secondary 4, which was also the defining year for secondary school debating as well as catholic high's debating society. 1999 was the inaugural year for the new Julia Gabriels' secondary schools debating championships where rules for debating governing that of the defenitions and other technicalities was formally institutionalised and the World Schools' format of debating was adopted. No more ridiculous debates about men with moustaches or sparrows and snails. it was also the year where against all odds, the cat high also-rans broke free of the shackles of mediocrity to make it to the grand final. it was really a fairy tale in more than one ways. firstly, we broke into the semi finals by the skin of our teeth, defeating RI (our bishan local nemesis) in their own school, and CHIJ TP and losing the 'derby - of - school - shorts' to chinese high. with 2 wins outta 3, we made the break as the 4th (and final teams) to the semi-finals (back then there were no quarter finals). only to be informed that we were in fact the 5th placed team and that we broke because of a mathematical error. so we had to see off the challenge of another IJ team (the rightful semi-finalists) and then exact sweet revenge on chinese high in the semi-final before succumbing to RGS in the grand final. not too bad for a school who quadrupled its cummulative number of competitive wins over the past 3 (maybe more) years in just one season. and for that, our teacher in charged Miss Teo - better known as the Faith Teo who writes for Newpaper nowadays (it's interesting how people who had anything to do with cat high debates eventually turn to journalism) - and our esteemed coach and senior Benedict were truly the inspiration behind this fairly tale after all the nights we spent prepping cases in school up till 11 pm at night. which also brings me to the second reason why 1999 was the year of the fairy tale. it was the year where Ben met Faith through debate coaching, where the 1 hr prep time taken for us prep cases provided a decent excuse for them to retire to god-knows-where in the school compound to frolick hahaha. it was probably a realisation of fantasies for both of them since Ben was then in the army therefore wore his uniform to training sessions and well Faith was a teacher, and when u add up the female's uniform fetish with every guy's fetish for school teachers (probably the result of an unhealthy dose of japanese role playing porn the internet generation is fed on), u have a romance. and before u dismiss this as just some kinky random whim and not a fairy tale of sorts, well as of 1st of Jan this year, Ben and Faith are blissfully married.
so random indulgences in nostalgia aside, what i really hope to tell bryan is that, persevere and put in the hardwork - there's no alternative to the path of glory. while there're many factors beyond our control, strive for the best, and we can look back at the past with the fondest of memories and not the embitterment of underachievement. we have a good team this year, with bryan, andre, zeyi and ang tze kai (yet another sec 2 prodigy). i'm not too sure about andre and zeyi but i really hope their attitude and mentality towards debating has improved since i last saw them. with sheer hard work and due dilligence, i cannot and refuse to believe that the only acceptable conclusion for the individual fairy tales of these 4 young men neccessarily has to end in underachievement. Who Dares Wins. Dare to dream.
'... i can totally empathise with how u feel. back in my lower sec days, when debating was still in the archaic 4 on 4 style, where motions were bloody crappy, we were the whipping boys of the debates circuit, avoiding defeat every year in only 1 of the 8 debates we were involved in for the british council debates. adjudication was even more dodgy. why do i say that? cos' back in 1998, in a debate against ACSi, after an hour and a half of deliberation by the 2 (yes, 2 not 3) adjudicators who were in fact teachers from each school, the debate was declared as a draw! this has to be the most classic moment in the history of singapore sec sch competitive debating cos' i dun believe any other debate at a competitive level has EVER ended with a draw. u can therefore see how far debating has progressed since. we had huge reservations about our own abilities, and each subsequent debate seemed nothing more than ego battery. but despite all odds, we desperately yearned to achieve something in our final year in CH. and with nothing more than sheer determination and faith in ourselves, we managed to break into the grand final and away from the label as the also-rans. cat high debating has never looked back ever since. and i can proudly say, that you guys, the 2005/06 dictators are indeed the living legacy of this institution. while there'll always be the intrinsic fear of not being able to measure up to our own expectations, the postivity of it all is that it is the bold and ambitious who are often disappointed by the temporal inability to achieve perfection, for it is also something that the also-rans who are willing to settle for much lesser things, can never appreciate. all i can say is that, keep the faith, have an industrious attitude befitting that of someone who deserves to win, and regardless of results, u can justify to the restless inner being in you, that you are a chum-peon ('champion' pronounced ala dictator fashion) in your own right.'
to say that the first three years of my secondary debating career was spent in mediocrity is simply an understatement. (well, in fact, make that my entire debating career for that matter). cat high was indeed the proverbial whipping boys from 1996-1998. here's the record:
1996: 1 win outta 3. only win against victoria school
1997: 5 defeats outta 6 (3 rounds per team) including my fateful competitive debut against nanyang girls' where we proposed the unbelievable motion 'That songs sound better in showers'. The only reason we avoided a total whitewash was the fact that dunman high who we were supposed to debate at the last round inexplicably withdrew from the round and we gleefully just assumed that they chickened out.
1998: 5 defeats outta 6 and 1 draw !?! (refer to above). this was the year where ridiculous motions are THE new black. here're some from the top of my head: 'That Men with Moustaches have evil intentions', 'That i would rather be a sparrow than a snail', 'That snail mail is better than email'
what's more interesting was that we did have 2 guys who were in name our 'debate coaches', greg and neil who has since craved a career in journalism and writing books about ang mohs living in singapore (yes, he is that Today/Newpaper watever journalist neil humphreys) from some speech teaching centre called Juliet McCully or something. but what greg and neil taught us had next to nothing to do with argumentation, since they basically just focus on the way to project our voices, inntonation, how to put the correct stresses on which syllable of a word yada yada yada. so it probably wasn't any surprise why we had such a woeful record.
the turning point came in secondary 4, which was also the defining year for secondary school debating as well as catholic high's debating society. 1999 was the inaugural year for the new Julia Gabriels' secondary schools debating championships where rules for debating governing that of the defenitions and other technicalities was formally institutionalised and the World Schools' format of debating was adopted. No more ridiculous debates about men with moustaches or sparrows and snails. it was also the year where against all odds, the cat high also-rans broke free of the shackles of mediocrity to make it to the grand final. it was really a fairy tale in more than one ways. firstly, we broke into the semi finals by the skin of our teeth, defeating RI (our bishan local nemesis) in their own school, and CHIJ TP and losing the 'derby - of - school - shorts' to chinese high. with 2 wins outta 3, we made the break as the 4th (and final teams) to the semi-finals (back then there were no quarter finals). only to be informed that we were in fact the 5th placed team and that we broke because of a mathematical error. so we had to see off the challenge of another IJ team (the rightful semi-finalists) and then exact sweet revenge on chinese high in the semi-final before succumbing to RGS in the grand final. not too bad for a school who quadrupled its cummulative number of competitive wins over the past 3 (maybe more) years in just one season. and for that, our teacher in charged Miss Teo - better known as the Faith Teo who writes for Newpaper nowadays (it's interesting how people who had anything to do with cat high debates eventually turn to journalism) - and our esteemed coach and senior Benedict were truly the inspiration behind this fairly tale after all the nights we spent prepping cases in school up till 11 pm at night. which also brings me to the second reason why 1999 was the year of the fairy tale. it was the year where Ben met Faith through debate coaching, where the 1 hr prep time taken for us prep cases provided a decent excuse for them to retire to god-knows-where in the school compound to frolick hahaha. it was probably a realisation of fantasies for both of them since Ben was then in the army therefore wore his uniform to training sessions and well Faith was a teacher, and when u add up the female's uniform fetish with every guy's fetish for school teachers (probably the result of an unhealthy dose of japanese role playing porn the internet generation is fed on), u have a romance. and before u dismiss this as just some kinky random whim and not a fairy tale of sorts, well as of 1st of Jan this year, Ben and Faith are blissfully married.
so random indulgences in nostalgia aside, what i really hope to tell bryan is that, persevere and put in the hardwork - there's no alternative to the path of glory. while there're many factors beyond our control, strive for the best, and we can look back at the past with the fondest of memories and not the embitterment of underachievement. we have a good team this year, with bryan, andre, zeyi and ang tze kai (yet another sec 2 prodigy). i'm not too sure about andre and zeyi but i really hope their attitude and mentality towards debating has improved since i last saw them. with sheer hard work and due dilligence, i cannot and refuse to believe that the only acceptable conclusion for the individual fairy tales of these 4 young men neccessarily has to end in underachievement. Who Dares Wins. Dare to dream.
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