The Nighteyes Report- Interhouse Debates, Round Three

The events of last week which left all teams with a total of one loss and one win made this week the defining moment for every house, the part where who gets to go to the final and who gets sent packing is determined. And as expected, some hostilities between certain houses were sparked. Suspcious glances were thrown at any member of the opposing house coming towards any debate discussion site, and sometimes, it felt like the debaters were ready to throw knives at each other. Well any pent up tension was relased tonight, and the winners were chosen to wrack their brains on Friday while the losers were granted release from the stressing procedure of researching, discussing, writing cue cards, etc. etc so that they can spend more time worrying about tomorrow's International Food Festival and what they're going to wear.

Today's motion was 'This House Believes In Meritocracy', not exactly as bloody or sex-related as the previous two topics (though Shahrin managed to make it almost sex-related, more on that later), but an interesting one nonetheless. Due to complications, the Garnet-Diamond match was held in LT1 instead of the GH, and the Sapphire-Topaz match was held at LT2. In LT1, the house of Garnet, represented by Abby, Puntiha and Pai acted as the government, while the house of Diamond, sporting the same lineup from last week acted as the opposition. For the Sapphire-Topaz match on the other hand, Sapphire acted as the opposition while Topaz, again sporting all black attire acted as the government. Like Abby and Nicholas from the week before, Sapphire had resorted to placing a senior on the bench, Dann, while the Topazians were again represented by an all-junior lineup (Amirul, Feera, Amir).

On the whole, after three rounds of debating, most of the junior debaters seemed a bit more calm and composed than during the first week. Punitha wasn't as nervous as she was during her debut, and managed to shine alongside the TKC-ian stars while Hannah from the Sapphirean team managed to bag the Best Speaker title. After gruelling matches on both sides, in the end Garnet and Sapphire were announced as the winning teams for the night, with Abby and Hannah as best speakers, slated to meet in the final this Friday, which interestingly, is exactly like last year, where Garnet defeated Sapphire in the finals. Will history repeat itself? Guess we'll find out soon.

In the meantime, the Diamond-Garnet match was a truly enjoyable watch. There were slip ups, there were jokes, and one of the nights most memorable lines was said by Shahrin, who went,

'Malays need a crotch to fall back on'

Last time I checked, I still have mine. Sheesh. Oh well, I'm sure he meant to say CRUTCH. On the whole, as Abby said and I quote, 'The match wasn't a head-on match', as the Government argued on the principles of Meritocracy, the opposition was busy trying to point out that life isn't fair and never will be, since people are born differently. To this, Pai happily adds, 'If everyone were born the same, then it'd be 'attack of the clones'. Though some would say that it is illogical that Diamond should bring up birthrights, since that is an uncontrolled factor, Pang insists that their loss was 'A case of bad presentation'.

Either way, it was a relief to see that the debates haven't affected any friendships. Pang treated the entire Garnet team for drinks at the cafe immediately afterwards while Shahrin pretended to get himself drunk on root beer. Oh well, you can't blame him. He's a very very stressed person, being Secretary General and all, and he's got that big event coming up tomorrow.

Tomorrow should be quite interesting, at least if you look at the people who bothered to get 'exotic' foreign clothes to wear. It would go without saying that there should be at least some (if not a LOT) of people wearing plain formal attire, claiming that they're from some European country. Oh well, we'll just wait and see what tomorrow brings then.