IronMen; Popular Culture Zeitgeist; The British Parliament

So this past weekend was the UNSW IV - an open motion intervarsity debating tournament hosted by the excellent peeps at the UNSW Debating Society.

I ended up short a teammate on the weekend (which is a bit of a shit considering the fact that British Parliamentary (BP) style debating is in teams of two), so in a fit of hardcore motherfuckery I decided to just go it solo.

Round 1 I ended up filling in on a University of Sydney (USU) team, debating the motion This house believes that Atheists should organise. We were CG and got the third, arguing that the whole idea of the Atheist movement was that they could go out on their own and figure out for themselves what they believe. The adjudicator was my older sister, so I have a feeling there may have been some unfortunate anti-bias in play there.
Unfortunately, since I was just filling in on a team, my team (team Because Boat Race) didn't get the point credited. This didn't make any difference later on in the tournament as will be seen later, but was still an irritation.

Round 2 I was iron-manning (the term for when one person does an entire team worth of debating) CO that This house would fake it. I got the third again in a heinously misdefined debate. But this is what happens when you let UWS define a motion. Dear sweet squiggly Jesus, they messed that one up.
Since it was such a clusterfuck of a debate, I decided to shrug and make my extension about the sex industry.
 On the topic of UWS, before each round they would psych each other up with a bit of chanting. The words 'not a TAFE' were mentioned. Oh yes, that happenned.

Round 3 I iron-manned again. By this point I was on (officially) one point after two rounds, which is dismal as all get-out, and so I was in the depths of the bin rooms. To add insult to injury, the topic was that This house would let Gotham burn. Needless to say, I had not seen any of the Batman films. Unsurprisingly, given the calibre of the room (two UWS teams along with some random first years from Monash - a bit of a surprise seeing as Monash is usually rather legit at debating) I got the first, which was basically the story of this meme:

Of course I did a damn sight better than speaks of 68. I got speaker points of 77 and 76 respectively (on a side note, thanks to Kristyn for being a touch nicer than I think my speeches warranted). I also got awkwardly hit on by a guy from UWS, so it was a win all round.

Day two and round 4 I had a substitute teammate: Adam M, who was supposed to be debating with Sarah F (one of my teammates from nationals) who was sick on the weekend. We were OO on the motion that This house would take no prisoners. We got the second, and must have done alright with regard to speaks, because round five was the round of death.

It was the round of death because despite the fact that my team only had three rounds of points, we were at the top of the 6 point bracket (nice work on the speaks, Adela), and were thus pulled up into the 7 point bracket. Which was really really bad. For me. Because I was against a whole bunch of scary excellent debaters who had all been debating for ages and had all garnered much success during their debating careers. We're talking top speakers at Worlds kind of success.
Add into this the fact that I was OG and thus actually had to set up the debate, and the fact that I was again iron-manning. I may or may not have spent the first 10 minutes of the 15 minute prep pacing around the room, swearing to myself.
The motion was that This house celebrates the rise of Fifty Shades of Grey. It didn't go well. At all.
I cringe at the memory.
Although I do thank Parker, from team Scary Cabal of Old People (not the actual team name, but that's what it was in reality) for asking a point of clarification. Because when your case is built on a foundation of smoke and mirrors and you're not entirely sure what it is you're arguing, a nice point of clarification can help sort shit out. Of course I still donutted hard.

By the time the semis and the final were on, I was so exhausted I thought it would be a good idea to do a Physics quiz (rookie error; I was clearly not a rational actor at the time). Of course, I can be smug in the knowledge that on aggregate speaker points, I was the best speaker of the tournament.

Is this because I did three more speeches than everyone else? Perhaps.

I regret nothing.

Engineering, and other masculine pursuits

So today was my fourth day of engineering.

I started off with a maths lecture (Calculus 1100 - 1200, Algebra 1200 - 1300), after which I had an hour before Engineering Design and Innovation (ENGG1000 henceforth). Math was quite enjoyable (I know, surprise), and I've been getting some quotes for The Week, which I should be restarting rather soon.

During Monday's ENGG1000 lecture they had told us that MechSoc and ElSoc were having a BBQ and touch footy from 1200 to 1400, and being a sucker for friendly sporting activities, I went.

Of course, being an engineering event, I was the only girl playing. No matter. The gents were delightfully chivalrous insofar as there was no stacks on.

I then had to ditch early because I had to get from the Physics Lawn to Mathews, which for those of you who don't attend or have great cartographic knowledge of UNSW, is a pretty darn unpleasant walk.

Today's ENGG1000 class was an impromptu design task, wherein we were in groups of five or six and had limited supplies with which to create a build which would launch a projectile 2500mm over a 400mm wall. To say that our build was utilitarian would be reasonably charitable.

It was however quite efficient. Not bad for half an hour's work.

Note the deliciously post-ironic smiley face on the arm. That's the kind of thing to strike the fear into the Palestinians.

Hanging out at TAFE institutes, or, That which I do in my spare time.

So, I realise I haven't blogged in more or less forever, and in my defence that's been because of life. To begin with, due to the fact that my latin class (see my numerous posts titled 'The Week') have all graduated, my life is markedly less entertaining. This fact, combined with the fact that this year I finally finished the HSC (on a side note, A JIHAD ON THE BOARD OF STUDIES) meant that when I did actually do something worth blogging about, I was too busy to actually blog.

Anyway, yesterday was the day of the Art exam, the final exam of a mutual friend of myself and Isy. Isy and I decided that it would be marvellous fun if we were to surprise the aforementioned mutual friend, Angus, by turning up at the end of his exam. The busride back to the city and the time following offered up this conversational gem:

To begin with, Isy and I were discussing our respective post-HSC viewing lists, and I mentioned Torchwood: Miracle Day.
Isy: I heard that its only redeeming feature is all the gay sex.
Angus: Are you talking about Glee?

Of course, he had a point. The gays are the only reason I still watch Glee.

I also took my Brownie for a spin - Reginald now has two pictures sitting on film, waiting to be developed. I've also been working with some 1990s filmstock cameras I found at home. But, of course, the reels aren't done, so no photos until then.

But it'll happen. And when it does, they'll be here along with captions.

Stay classy.

A Night to Remember (Or, That Awkward Moment When the Encores go for Longer than the Second Half)

So yesterday, I had some free tickets to see the Placido Domingo/Katherine Jenkins concert.

It was pleasant. It was a popera concert, and before you freak out too much, it was nothing like a concert of He-Who-Must-Not-Even-Be-Alluded-To-Let-Alone-Named (do yourself a favour and don't click the link).

There was some solid opera (for example it was 50 years to the day since Placido Domingo performed his first aria from Tosca, and then he performed it again and it was all terribly cute), and then there was some less solid opera. For example there was some West-Side Story.

But whatever works to keep the plebeians happy.

And whilst on the subject of keeping the plebeians happy, Katherine Jenkins. She had no fewer than four costume changes during the show. I cannot help but think that her gowns budget must be PHOENOMENAL.

My main beef stems from the encores. The concert had finished, and then Placido Domingo did an encore of some kind of spanish opera thingy. And then Katherine Jenkins sang Time to Say Goodbye, a song which she owns like her prison bitch, might I add. Then the orchestra played an overture. Then, since Placido Domingo was the headlining act, he sang again. But this time it was Besame Mucho - a tango standard. I was somewhat confused by that choice of closing piece.

I wasn't confused for long. Because on came Katherine Jenkins again. And she sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow. After Time to Say Goodbye, you can imagine how much of an anticlimax that was. And then of course the headlining act came back on for another song (we were back to opera by now). I though surely, we're done now.

Lol jks, we weren't. There was another duet, by which time I was expecting a nice rendition of Nessun Dorma to follow to round out the night.

There wasn't. They were actually legit done.

The encores ran for longer than the second half. Surely there's a law against that kind of thing.

Looking around the sitting room.

Speedy disclaimer - you may have to physically click on the photos in order to view them.

There's a little nook between the window and the door, next to one of the sofas. In that nook, there's a chair, and a tuba. Music books are stacked against the wall, and there's some sheet music peeking out of the top of the tuba's bell. A cat is sitting in the open tuba case, looking altogether too much at home. The sofa has its back to a curved bank of windows. Sometimes a sousaphone hides in the space between the sofas and the windows, but not today.



If you look past Sophia being a fool, you can see the chair and some of the music.

The sofa is a mahogany colour which matches the bookcases (from IKEA) housing the encyclopaedia collection. You can see them in the background if you look past Monica being an even bigger fool.



Then there are the bookcases. There are four all up, going from the windows to the miniature alcohol collection. On top of the first, is a big old boom box, as well as a box of badges.

Inside the box of badges are all kinds of cool things, like this shovel:



And all these badges from gigs and rallies my dad went to:



There's a tape collection, filled with all kinds of art rock (anyone for 'Peter and the Wolf' read by David Bowie?), the bookshelves, the atlases and history books, the 1957 Encyclopaedia Britannica and a reproduction of the 1779 original Britannica. Books of the year, Funk and Wagnalls' encyclopaedia, Encyclopaedia Judaica and more art books. A vase from the Chinese government. Various nicknacks from trips overseas.



A set of porcelain bells, also from the Chinese government, stemming from back when dad did tax law consulting work with the World Bank.



Perpendicular to the third bookcase is the other sofa. It faces the other, and between the two is a table adorned with all the books we've been given, but never really read. Here we have (l-r) Monica, Sarah, Elsa and Mersini, reading them because we were in the middle of a power outage. On the far left, you can see part of a quilt, and in the background, the dining room. Taking up the fourth bookcase are the dictionaries. From an 1800s encyclopaedic monster to the bilingual ones in various and numerous languages, as well as (my favourite) the compact Oxford English Dictionary, printed four pages per view, and sold with an accompanying magnifying glass. you can just glimpse them past Mersini.

Then there's the miniature alcohol collection. Dad would bring them back from trips overseas, and some of them are quite unique.





Leaning against the unit housing the miniatures is dad's suitcase, which has sat there for the past eleven years. It still has the dried out pens and business cards which were in it when it was first laid to rest there, once it became apparent that it wasn't going to be used any more.



There's a light above the table. I hung a disco ball from it as a joke, and it stayed as a cutesie fixture.



Next to the tuba, on the other side of the entrance from the front of the house, is the piano, and a wingbacked armchair which is the perfect size for curling up with a decent book. Against the back wall is a violin and it's accoutrements, and next to the sofa is a bassoon and its trappings.

A teddy bear sits on the bottom octave of the piano, overseeing its realm.

Why I am the Best Older Sister EVER

I spent a good hour and a half illegally appropriating photos of Deborah at nationals for Gymnastics.
Then I made a facebook photo album.
Because I am officially THE BEST SISTER IN EXISTENCE.

That and the fact that Deb is a bit of a ninja. Who planks like a boss. A boss whose pre-eminence floats all across the land of Mordor.

You can find that album here.

Bitch went there...

I'm on tumblr now.

Who'd have thunk.

adelatur.tumblr.com