Plaisir and Jouisance: Slovenia

The debating training Slovenia, is already about to end. It has gone so so fast! By now we have had 5 days of intense training (debating söögi alla - söögi peale, tõsiselt), with 3 different daily lectures plus exercises, plus two full debates every day. So 10 full debates with 5 days plus all the debating exercises!

With Qatar and Netherlands girls and Lebanon hat :)

For me, personally, it has passed with mixed emotions. The entire world is new to me, but not to most people here - most of us are really advanced debaters, who participate in national and international championships In total, I think, there are people from 13 different countries, so the debates are really interesting.

Finding myself in this entirely new world was in many ways a big shock for me. But I have made many discoveries, and grown more than in a lifetime. Or ok, maybe not more than in a lifetime, but at least more than on (m)any other consecutive 5 days in my life:

1. The debaters are really like a population group of their own!

getting henna tattoos :)

They all seem to know each other and are up to date with eachother's results from tournaments, their trainers, progress, partners etc. They even

have a whole language of their own and some strangest strange inside jokes (but I must admit, despite my initial beliefs, I have started to laugh with them)

2. I have learned so much about the world.

I know it's not a thing to admit, but really - I don’t know much about the world. I know one is ought to, but I don't. I think it is because for a large part of recent years I have lived without a

TV. I also don’t have a regular habit of reading the news (I promise, I will develop the habit now), and in general, I have just been so caught up in my own little world – working, moving to Netherlands, studying etc, that this is what goes on in my head, not the general problems of the world as a whole. Basically, shamed to admit, kind of what goes on in my blog is what I consider news :/ :D.

Debating about all these different motions with all the international people (i think we are in total from 13 different countries, including Netherlands, UK, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Qatar, and many more).

3. At times, debating is really uplifting, fun and you really feel like you're making the world a better place. At others, however, it makes me so so so upset. For example: if my lecturer says "I am going to teach you how to make your arguments more important. However, I have to stress that this has nothing to do with reality, but only with how to make your arguments sound more important" (at least he is one of honest ones who admits it). Really. We learn how to make all sorts of random arguments, which seem really relevant and important. Yet, even though they sound important, they stand for a case which we probably all know, would never help the world in any way (that's too strong of a statement, but luckily there isn't a judge in my blog.)

Of course I understand, that in debating, the winner is the team who can prove to the judge that we can come up with good argumentation for and against anything, which makes it a bit more acceptable, but still - I can totally see how politicians are made/trained, and how come they are so vague.

We are thought to always respond to the oppositions move, and say what ever, in order to win over them. We learn tricks like "oh if they start going on about the poor people, then you bring the children up" and then, by saving the children instead of poor people, we are likely to win (if the arguments are technically ok) and I guess that might be how to get a law passed in real world, and therefore, what the politicians do all the time.

4. There are debaters that know nothing of the world, but have learned really well how to make arguments on different levels and from different political, economical, religious, moral etc aspects. Then, there are debaters, who really have a lot of knowledge about what is going on in the world, what the discussion is about in reality!!! but who are bad at the strategy and techniques. And then, eventually, there are debaters who have the knowledge and the techniques, and these are the ones who are good at debating.

5. I hate when people scream!

I felt so cheated when I first arrived here! The moto of Wageningen debating club is "don't raise your voice, improve your argument". But they scream like crazy! Of course, it is not promoted, and also not all debaters do it, but yet, it is so disturbing. I often feel like there is only a little something holding a person back, and when that breaks, they will jump off the podium and come kill me for nothing. That's how emotional debating gets! And I get really disturbed by that and always start feeling somehow sad or bad and want them to stop - I always thought i am quite tough, but apparently not.

6. There is a whole new level of fast speaking - a debater level. I should maybe explain how the entire debate works, to make it more easily understandable, but basically, if a native English speaker who is also, what seems to be like "native" debater, speaks, it is...really, an entirely new level of speed! Maybe the guys who work at auctions practice at debating first.

It is maybe a strategically wrong place to start explaining how the debating works, here at the end, but I do it anyway.

The type of debating we do is called the British Parliamentary (BP) and goes like this:

In total there are 4 teams of 2 people, and a judge, who we are all trying to convince. Two teams - one "opening team" and one "closing team" are at the government side, and two on the opposition, and each speaker has their own role.

Firstly, each team gets to know what position they will be on. Then, the "motion" is released. The motion is whatever we are going to debate about, and in a form of "This house would/should/believes/ etc." For example "this house would ban all advertisements."

Then there is 15 minutes to prepare before the debate starts, where each team has to come up with good arguments.

At the debate each speaker has 7 minutes to speak, where first and last minute are "safe" but during the other 5 minutes, other teams can try to ask you questions, to show to the judge that your case and arguments are weak or not logical, and thereby they are better. It is good style to take at least 1 question, but still not to take too many, because then you don''t have time to explain your own case. (However, through out your speech, the others would normally be standing up shouting "Madam!" or "..Before you move on!" etc, where you just have to keep on speaking and wave them to sit down.)

First the opening government goes, starting with the prime minister. The pm explains the problem, defines it, and brings up ca 2 arguments for the motion. Then, it's the opposition's turn. They have to go with the prime ministers defintion, and just give their opinion on the governments arguments and present their own. Then, thirdly, its the deputy prime minister, who tries to rebuild their case by rebuting (=putting down) the oppositions arguments, and presenting some more of their own. And then, the deputy of opposition will finish the "first half" putting the government's arguments down again, presenting more of opposition arguments, and then making a little conclusion of the first half, while explaining, why the opposition has won.

Then the second half - closing government and opposition go. The first speaker of each team in the second half, has to "extend the discussion" by adding some arguments/dimensions which weren't mentioned or explained in the first half (so you have to have MANY arguments when preparing, so they wouldn't get used by the first half). And the last speaker of each team, called the "whip" speaker, has to conclude the entire debate, by giving the judge a good overview of what happened and which arguments were presented, and why obviously, your side (government or opposition) and especially your team (opening or closing) has won. The whip, however, is not allowed to bring any new material into the debate.

Then the judge gives points to each speaker for role fulfillment, speech, and some other things, I am not sure of. And then the winning team and the best speaker of the debate are announced.

So this kind of crazy structure! And then you can only imagine me at my first debate, having just arrived to this entirely new crazy-seeming world, still not being sure what to think of all thesis. Then finding out that I am the whip of the debate (=have to make the conclusion), everybody else is experienced debater, many of them are native English-speakers, and the motion is "This house regrets the rise of anti-hero in media".

The motion meant all kinds of "heroes" from batman to the guy making meth at Breaking Bad, where the "heroes" are someone who do something bad or illegal or violent, but we still like them.

As already mentioned - I dont know much about the world. So you can imagine how my conclusion went about a debate where everybody seemed to be able to speak faster than anyone I have ever met in my life, and where I (knowing nothing about most popular TV series) couldn't even differentiate between the various examples of heroes and and antiheroes and therefore not see what they are meant to be the examples of. Welcome to debating, huh! (at least it was easy to make a progression from that point on ;))

Well, anyway, as mentioned, the week has gone fast, has been busy, and I have developed in many ways. Tomorrow, we will move out of our fancy and lovely hotel, go to an excursion, and then to Ljubljana, to start with the tournament. Tomorrow evening, there are two first debates, then 3 debates on Saturday, and then the semifinals and finals on Sunday.

Everybody has to participate the first 5 debates, from where, according to the scores, some teams get on to debate on Sunday.

We'll see how it goes. However, I don't have too high expectations, taken everyone's level, and I will just go to do my best and see how far we get :). My patner, Nany, is really really good as well, so at least we have a chance of being successful :).

Then, on Sunday evening, we will be flying back home to Netherlands. I have really really enjoyed Slovenia, both the debating, but also the nature. We are up at the mountains and it is so so beautiful! With the cold and snow it feels so like home and like Christmas! And also the food is much more similar to good home Estonian food, than it is in for example Denmark or Netherlands. The other day I was having mulgikapsas ja tatatar! Just like heaven!

This kind of long debating post, and now, picture time! :)