Friday, November 12, 2010
Last Update?
Alright, so I will make it up to you all for the missed entry yesterday by giving you a LOOOONG entry.
First off the Semi finalists were Canada East vs Turkey 1, and South Korea 1 vs Czech Republic 1.
I judged the S.Korea vs Czech Republic debate and it actually made me find faith in debate again. It was good. THBT the western world has an obligation to pressure China in improving human rights (or something along those lines)
In the end... Canada East and Czech Republic 1 ended up in the finals.
And to make it brief, Canada East won 4 to 3. Yay.
THW make the EU a permanent member in the UN Security Council instead of France & UK (something along those lines)
Then Canada East and Canada West collectively took 8 of the 10 speaker awards...
ANYWAYS. The girls themselves have some stuff to say, so here it is, unedited and unfiltered.
We are coming home in the next 24 hours so ya, come greet the team if you like.
(From Allison)
Guten morgen, folks,
I’m not leaving. I thought I’d lead with this fact, since it will be the underlying theme of this blog post. My case line one might say. Or one might not say, since we didn’t break into quarters due to a substantial amount of dropped ballots. That’s just one little element, though, and not part of the reason I’ve sworn not to leave Germany on Saturday morning.
Firstly, I love this country. Their hills are more gorgeous, they have green, and trees, and leaves bigger than my head. Their streets have cobblestones and their buildings aren’t afraid to show their past. There is a soft pretzel stand on every corner, and their gluten free bread doesn’t come frozen. Their people are nicer, better looking and generally a joy to be around. I’d list names, but there are too many.
Max Born will be my school on Monday, after I don’t leave Germany. I will attend classes with Ewin and Dominic and Marko and Adrian and Julian and all will be well in my life.
I’m not leaving.
The debate aspect of this trip has been phenomenal. I have the best teachers in the world, though. Jill, Taylor and Rachel are incredibly supportive of my noobness in this jurisdiction. Spending an entire week with them has been a blast. Between being lost at night in the rain, and taking pictures under profane graffiti, I’ve fallen in love with these women. I guess Jason can be included in that generalization too.
Speaking of Jason, he can eat a pile of pretzels like no other. 10, 15? I don’t know. I lost count.
(From Jill, Rachel and Taylor)
Guten Tag amigos,
Its Rachel here, after Jillian’s inspired greeting, and the three of us, as in Taylor, Jill and myself are going to be writing you a combined blog. Aren’t you lucky. So we’ve had a ton of fun here in Germany and just as a warning, we may not be coming home. But don’t worry, we’ll be sending you weekly doses of German chocolate and pretzels! That way we won’t be the only Canadians with German paunches. Also, we are coming back native speakers of the language since everybody here assumes we speak German and continues to speak to us in a foreign language. We decided to live up to expectations so we learnt how thanks to German children’s novels.
Anyways, we’ve also collectively decided that the landscape here is way more beautiful than that of Calgary and we, Taylor and me (Jill), are going to stay longer just so we can play a game of soccer (or should I say football) on the lush green football pitches. The transit system is also about one thousand times better than ours back home. And we would know, half of our time here has been spent on the S-bahn and in the various train/tram stations. We’re practically locals by now, since we know our way around so well. Nawt.
So now here we are, on our way to Hauptbahnhof once again, sleeping on each other’s shoulders the entire way there after surviving yet another adventurous, rape-dark night. Don’t worry; you will get the entire hysterical version of that story once we have landed our sad little selves back in Calgary. For now, basically all I can say (as the third speaker on side proposition, Rachel) is that I am extremely exhausted and that’s why this entire paragraph is going to make little to no sense. Okay time for someone else to write.
Thanks Rachel for that little debate thing thrown in there. Firstly we didn’t even win or anything at debate so I am sworn off until Oxford. Secondly I have yet to try 3rd speaker and want to try. And finally, we aren’t the proposition crazy because this blog is about going home and we are opposed to that. I hope this paragraph has made it evident that we need sleep. Not breaking to quarters due to dropped ballots, combined with max 6 hours of sleep every night has led to some pretty prime levels of unprecedented emotional and physical exhaustion. So Jill, take the wheel on this one.
Thank you, Mother Taylor. Since for those of you who don’t know Taylor has drastically changed her views here in Germany. But mainly in Salt Lake. Anyways, rather than just blabbing on about nothing, I will instead tell you about how we’ve met so many amazing people in Germany. Everyone has been so welcoming and hospitable. Especially the creepy man in the train station who said something to me, I’m sure it was a very friendly comment; I just don’t understand the language. Although in this case maybe it’s a good thing. Besides all the kind people and good food, we’ve also come to realize that Germany may be months behind in music and movies but they are way ahead in style. I mean seriously, we should send boys from Calgary to Germany so they can learn that it is possible to wear your jeans higher than your knees.
Yes, for all of you that don’t know I am a recent convert. After witnessing the beauty that is the Mormon way, I decided it’s the only way to move forward in my life. Especially after the debating situacion. My people are only competitive when it comes to recruiting. And when naming the new prophet. But other then that, I really am safe from competition as well as individual thought. Thank the lord.
First off the Semi finalists were Canada East vs Turkey 1, and South Korea 1 vs Czech Republic 1.
I judged the S.Korea vs Czech Republic debate and it actually made me find faith in debate again. It was good. THBT the western world has an obligation to pressure China in improving human rights (or something along those lines)
In the end... Canada East and Czech Republic 1 ended up in the finals.
And to make it brief, Canada East won 4 to 3. Yay.
THW make the EU a permanent member in the UN Security Council instead of France & UK (something along those lines)
Then Canada East and Canada West collectively took 8 of the 10 speaker awards...
ANYWAYS. The girls themselves have some stuff to say, so here it is, unedited and unfiltered.
We are coming home in the next 24 hours so ya, come greet the team if you like.
(From Allison)
Guten morgen, folks,
I’m not leaving. I thought I’d lead with this fact, since it will be the underlying theme of this blog post. My case line one might say. Or one might not say, since we didn’t break into quarters due to a substantial amount of dropped ballots. That’s just one little element, though, and not part of the reason I’ve sworn not to leave Germany on Saturday morning.
Firstly, I love this country. Their hills are more gorgeous, they have green, and trees, and leaves bigger than my head. Their streets have cobblestones and their buildings aren’t afraid to show their past. There is a soft pretzel stand on every corner, and their gluten free bread doesn’t come frozen. Their people are nicer, better looking and generally a joy to be around. I’d list names, but there are too many.
Max Born will be my school on Monday, after I don’t leave Germany. I will attend classes with Ewin and Dominic and Marko and Adrian and Julian and all will be well in my life.
I’m not leaving.
The debate aspect of this trip has been phenomenal. I have the best teachers in the world, though. Jill, Taylor and Rachel are incredibly supportive of my noobness in this jurisdiction. Spending an entire week with them has been a blast. Between being lost at night in the rain, and taking pictures under profane graffiti, I’ve fallen in love with these women. I guess Jason can be included in that generalization too.
Speaking of Jason, he can eat a pile of pretzels like no other. 10, 15? I don’t know. I lost count.
(From Jill, Rachel and Taylor)
Guten Tag amigos,
Its Rachel here, after Jillian’s inspired greeting, and the three of us, as in Taylor, Jill and myself are going to be writing you a combined blog. Aren’t you lucky. So we’ve had a ton of fun here in Germany and just as a warning, we may not be coming home. But don’t worry, we’ll be sending you weekly doses of German chocolate and pretzels! That way we won’t be the only Canadians with German paunches. Also, we are coming back native speakers of the language since everybody here assumes we speak German and continues to speak to us in a foreign language. We decided to live up to expectations so we learnt how thanks to German children’s novels.
Anyways, we’ve also collectively decided that the landscape here is way more beautiful than that of Calgary and we, Taylor and me (Jill), are going to stay longer just so we can play a game of soccer (or should I say football) on the lush green football pitches. The transit system is also about one thousand times better than ours back home. And we would know, half of our time here has been spent on the S-bahn and in the various train/tram stations. We’re practically locals by now, since we know our way around so well. Nawt.
So now here we are, on our way to Hauptbahnhof once again, sleeping on each other’s shoulders the entire way there after surviving yet another adventurous, rape-dark night. Don’t worry; you will get the entire hysterical version of that story once we have landed our sad little selves back in Calgary. For now, basically all I can say (as the third speaker on side proposition, Rachel) is that I am extremely exhausted and that’s why this entire paragraph is going to make little to no sense. Okay time for someone else to write.
Thanks Rachel for that little debate thing thrown in there. Firstly we didn’t even win or anything at debate so I am sworn off until Oxford. Secondly I have yet to try 3rd speaker and want to try. And finally, we aren’t the proposition crazy because this blog is about going home and we are opposed to that. I hope this paragraph has made it evident that we need sleep. Not breaking to quarters due to dropped ballots, combined with max 6 hours of sleep every night has led to some pretty prime levels of unprecedented emotional and physical exhaustion. So Jill, take the wheel on this one.
Thank you, Mother Taylor. Since for those of you who don’t know Taylor has drastically changed her views here in Germany. But mainly in Salt Lake. Anyways, rather than just blabbing on about nothing, I will instead tell you about how we’ve met so many amazing people in Germany. Everyone has been so welcoming and hospitable. Especially the creepy man in the train station who said something to me, I’m sure it was a very friendly comment; I just don’t understand the language. Although in this case maybe it’s a good thing. Besides all the kind people and good food, we’ve also come to realize that Germany may be months behind in music and movies but they are way ahead in style. I mean seriously, we should send boys from Calgary to Germany so they can learn that it is possible to wear your jeans higher than your knees.
Yes, for all of you that don’t know I am a recent convert. After witnessing the beauty that is the Mormon way, I decided it’s the only way to move forward in my life. Especially after the debating situacion. My people are only competitive when it comes to recruiting. And when naming the new prophet. But other then that, I really am safe from competition as well as individual thought. Thank the lord.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
6 wins. 2 losses. 14 ballots (of 24).
The girls were not impressed.
The constant harassment from the off judge kept dropping ballots on the team.
Considering that most of the rounds were won by 10 or even a 20 point difference between the teams, the split votes giving it to the other team by 0.5 points is JUST RIDICULOUS.
In the end, 8 teams made it to quarterfinals.
Canada East
Canada West
South Korea 1
Sweden
Turkey 1
Czech Republic 1
Parler Gymnasium
South Korea 2
The girls were not impressed.
That ends our debate journey.
I would quote the things that the team has said on the matter, but perhaps that's better left off a public blog.
In any case we will send you more updates tomorrow.
The girls were not impressed.
The constant harassment from the off judge kept dropping ballots on the team.
Considering that most of the rounds were won by 10 or even a 20 point difference between the teams, the split votes giving it to the other team by 0.5 points is JUST RIDICULOUS.
In the end, 8 teams made it to quarterfinals.
Canada East
Canada West
South Korea 1
Sweden
Turkey 1
Czech Republic 1
Parler Gymnasium
South Korea 2
The girls were not impressed.
That ends our debate journey.
I would quote the things that the team has said on the matter, but perhaps that's better left off a public blog.
In any case we will send you more updates tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Tuesday Update
Woah, is it Tuesday already?
The girls said this morning "it feels like we've already been here for such a long time"
I know that feeling. This tournament has an amazing ability to make debaters feel comfortable.
Anyways, up to today our record was 3 wins, 2 losses, 8 of 15 ballots.
Of course this meant every win today was pretty important.
The team pulled through against two national teams and we now stand at 5 wins, 2 losses and 12 ballots out of 21. The team has been getting it tough with some of the judges picking on them for not the best reasons. But hey, that's always the case at this tournament.
So, round 6 was impromptu against Turkey 1 (a strong team I'd say)
Calgary opposing the motion TH regrets that Columbus set sail
(awkward I know... the girls prepared for a debate on colonialism, whereas the prop prepared a debate about how bad America was.)
Round 7, prepared motion against Belarus (another national team.. joy)
Calgary opposing the prepared motion, THW abolish aid to third world countries.
Tomorrow is both Round 8 (prepared) and the announcement of quarterfinalists.
The debate the team has will be an easy one, so with 6 wins, 2 losses and who knows how many ballots... I am betting that Calgary will be able to make the quarter final cut.
My entries are a little dry, I am more or less reiterating facts.
But I think the girls are a bit busy socializing, and making friends to be blogging.
-Jason
The girls said this morning "it feels like we've already been here for such a long time"
I know that feeling. This tournament has an amazing ability to make debaters feel comfortable.
Anyways, up to today our record was 3 wins, 2 losses, 8 of 15 ballots.
Of course this meant every win today was pretty important.
The team pulled through against two national teams and we now stand at 5 wins, 2 losses and 12 ballots out of 21. The team has been getting it tough with some of the judges picking on them for not the best reasons. But hey, that's always the case at this tournament.
So, round 6 was impromptu against Turkey 1 (a strong team I'd say)
Calgary opposing the motion TH regrets that Columbus set sail
(awkward I know... the girls prepared for a debate on colonialism, whereas the prop prepared a debate about how bad America was.)
Round 7, prepared motion against Belarus (another national team.. joy)
Calgary opposing the prepared motion, THW abolish aid to third world countries.
Tomorrow is both Round 8 (prepared) and the announcement of quarterfinalists.
The debate the team has will be an easy one, so with 6 wins, 2 losses and who knows how many ballots... I am betting that Calgary will be able to make the quarter final cut.
My entries are a little dry, I am more or less reiterating facts.
But I think the girls are a bit busy socializing, and making friends to be blogging.
-Jason
Monday, November 8, 2010
Monday update
Hello everyone!
So another day of debate has gone by and the girls are doing a great job.
We spent most of the morning traveling to our venue (as well as some prep of course) and spent a busy afternoon debating.
The school by the way was really nice. Apparently it's a private boarding school for some of Germany's finest.
Anyways.
Round 4 - Impromptu vs Canada East.
THW legalise assisted suicide.
Calgary was on opp and from what I hear we put up one amazing fight.
Yes a loss for the team, but in my opinion woke up Team Canada (since we were the first team which they had to really compete hard against)
Round 5 - THW repatriate cultural artefacts
Calgary proposing! against Dresden a German school.
And we split.
For the win.
Now the girls were UNIMPRESSED by the loss of the ballot (and I can see why) but I keep telling them to focus on the next few debates, as we still have a very high chance of making it to quaterfinals.
Hm, I could write more, but I believe Alison volunteered to write us an entry.
So... perhaps look out for more fun details there.
I will seek to get some sleep (judging debates is hard you know!)
-Jason
So another day of debate has gone by and the girls are doing a great job.
We spent most of the morning traveling to our venue (as well as some prep of course) and spent a busy afternoon debating.
The school by the way was really nice. Apparently it's a private boarding school for some of Germany's finest.
Anyways.
Round 4 - Impromptu vs Canada East.
THW legalise assisted suicide.
Calgary was on opp and from what I hear we put up one amazing fight.
Yes a loss for the team, but in my opinion woke up Team Canada (since we were the first team which they had to really compete hard against)
Round 5 - THW repatriate cultural artefacts
Calgary proposing! against Dresden a German school.
And we split.
For the win.
Now the girls were UNIMPRESSED by the loss of the ballot (and I can see why) but I keep telling them to focus on the next few debates, as we still have a very high chance of making it to quaterfinals.
Hm, I could write more, but I believe Alison volunteered to write us an entry.
So... perhaps look out for more fun details there.
I will seek to get some sleep (judging debates is hard you know!)
-Jason
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Nov5-7th update.
Hello everyone!
We apologize for the delay in our updates.
Friday-Saturday we spent a very long time travelling. By the time we got into Stuttgart, it was at 2pm. BUT due to some lost passports and lost luggage we were only able to see our billets and get to our homes around 4:30pm.
Oh ya. The change from hotel to homestay really caught everyone off guard, but the girls are really enjoying their stays. The German hospitality is something that is unparalleled.
We did get together in the evening at one of the billet's houses and finished preparation for our cases. It was a good two hours spent bonding over case building, and also teasing Allison.
Sorry Allison, but we tease you because the team likes you.
Today is Sunday of course, and a very very very long day of debate ensued.
First round, it was an impromptu against Max Born Gymanisum, the TOP debating school in Germany (think of it as the West point grey of BC or Aberhart of Alberta). The girls unfortunately lost on a split vote, because there was some misunderstanding of the topic.
The topic by the way was THW raise the retirement age to 70. (Interesting eh?) They were proposing.
The two prepared topics on the other hand came to us.
Second round was against the Czech Repulic, this time opposing on the topic THW give foreigners domiciled in a country the right to vote in that country's general elections.
Third round, against Ferdinand Porsche Gymnasium and the team had a dominating victory proposing the topic THW scrap the euro (Yes the girls convinced a bunch of European judges that they should get rid of the euro! A great feat!)
We got the opportunity to go to dinner with some teams, including Max Born and Team Russia.
It is great to see that Calgary is already THE MOST popular team here.
The fact that the girls are so friendly and charming has everyone impressed.
That's about it for the time being.
We are all pretty tired, and we have a nice and early morning tomorrow (most of us will have to be awake at 6 or 7) and we have to spend the morning preparing.. (oh fun.) but regardless, it is already turning out to be a wonderful tournament. Hope everyone at home is rooting for us!
PS - We face Team Canada East tomorrow morning =O
The best part of this debate, is that we really don't have anything to lose.
We apologize for the delay in our updates.
Friday-Saturday we spent a very long time travelling. By the time we got into Stuttgart, it was at 2pm. BUT due to some lost passports and lost luggage we were only able to see our billets and get to our homes around 4:30pm.
Oh ya. The change from hotel to homestay really caught everyone off guard, but the girls are really enjoying their stays. The German hospitality is something that is unparalleled.
We did get together in the evening at one of the billet's houses and finished preparation for our cases. It was a good two hours spent bonding over case building, and also teasing Allison.
Sorry Allison, but we tease you because the team likes you.
Today is Sunday of course, and a very very very long day of debate ensued.
First round, it was an impromptu against Max Born Gymanisum, the TOP debating school in Germany (think of it as the West point grey of BC or Aberhart of Alberta). The girls unfortunately lost on a split vote, because there was some misunderstanding of the topic.
The topic by the way was THW raise the retirement age to 70. (Interesting eh?) They were proposing.
The two prepared topics on the other hand came to us.
Second round was against the Czech Repulic, this time opposing on the topic THW give foreigners domiciled in a country the right to vote in that country's general elections.
Third round, against Ferdinand Porsche Gymnasium and the team had a dominating victory proposing the topic THW scrap the euro (Yes the girls convinced a bunch of European judges that they should get rid of the euro! A great feat!)
We got the opportunity to go to dinner with some teams, including Max Born and Team Russia.
It is great to see that Calgary is already THE MOST popular team here.
The fact that the girls are so friendly and charming has everyone impressed.
That's about it for the time being.
We are all pretty tired, and we have a nice and early morning tomorrow (most of us will have to be awake at 6 or 7) and we have to spend the morning preparing.. (oh fun.) but regardless, it is already turning out to be a wonderful tournament. Hope everyone at home is rooting for us!
PS - We face Team Canada East tomorrow morning =O
The best part of this debate, is that we really don't have anything to lose.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Pre-departure!
Hello everyone!
Team Calgary will be updating this blog for their duration at the European Opens 2010!
Please leave us comments and support us in our ventures!
Team Calgary will be updating this blog for their duration at the European Opens 2010!
Please leave us comments and support us in our ventures!
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