A read for Lady Gaga, but it wasn't ...

I had wished I was reading about Lady Gaga, the gossips and updates about her very interesting life and music, her fashion, or her controversial sexual preference. But I was not. Instead, I found myself reading, scanning and analyzing the notes that I scribbled hastily for every 7 minutes speech, for six speakers, plus 4 minutes reply speeches from each opposing sides, forcing me to believe on their cause, and in a short 10 minutes, I must be able to identify the winner, enter grades for each speaker on the tabulation sheet, calculate and identify the margin of the win. And when the decision is made within that strictly 10 minutes, the speakers come in, and then I'd find myself justifying my reason why I gave the win to whom and how everyone could improve for the next rounds. Thus, I wasn't in some fancy restaurant nibbling some delicious cake and sipping some heavenly shake with a Lady Gaga magazine in hand, I was, in fact, adjudicating a Thailand National Inter-Varsity Debate Tournament sponsored by the European Union.

photo: weheartit

I listened to a total of 754 minutes speeches from the Preliminary up to the Breaking Rounds. It was exhausting, tiring, but at the same time fulfilling. I never saw my own debaters debate. It was because as an adjudicator, I must adjudicate only matches that I have no conflict of interest. But even without me around during their matches, they performed very well.

It was my first time to adjudicate a debate tournament and a National level at that. I always preferred to send someone else to adjudicate and serve as representative on behalf of my debate teams. I preferred to stay around seeing my debaters debate and coach them. But this time, I was left with no choice. No adjudicators were available from our institution. I had to step up. I registered myself as an adjudicator and took the adjudication test. When the result came, I topped the test. There were a total of 66 adjudicators from a total of 43 institutions participating in the tournament. I ended up as a Shadow Core adjudicator, deciding for the scores of other adjudicators either to lift up or mark down.

Thus the reason of my absence. For a week my beloved blogs were left deserted. But I'm back and I promised myself to blog with a vengeance.