Saturday, November 17, 2007

Saturday!

Cool day. Went to Glasgow for a debates competition. Placed 2nd in "we should we ban domestic flights" (ppl here seem obsessed with the idea that they are a serious detrement to the environment), 3rd in "we should cut all military funding to Pakistan until they hold democratic elections" (I was a bit pissed off about this one because we made really good arguments, despite the fact that I knew nothing about the current situation in Pakistan, but other teams confirmed that the judge was trying to screw St Andrews over) and 1st in "we should only allowed skilled imigrants". 1 point shy of getting into the finals, but St Andrews won, so it was all good.

Glasgow was cool, especially today, because Scotland played Italy in a historic match, as this is the first time they've gotten this far toward the world cup in a long time. They lost, but as early as 10 AM (when we arrived), the streets were flooded with people in kilts wearing Scotland flags as capes with painted faces--already shitfaced. The train back (busses had stopped running) was full of disheartened fans after Scotland lost.

Debates is something I don't know if I'll be able to continue into next year, simply because I imagine the motions get really repetive after a while, but as long as I'm learning something new I'm happy. And St Andrews sends people to Euro's debates in all sorts of exotic places and pays for food/accomidation, so why not!

2 comments:

swallace said...

Debates sound like great fun. Some of the topics are the same as American issues (immigration ... from reading some of the UK papers I suspect even the pros/cons are the same), while others are so far from the American consciousness that I can't imagine them here in the near-term (airplanes and global warming). An EU perspective through debate club would be even more eye opening!

Lisa said...

Hey Bri...
Can you send me your e-mail address?