Day 5

Yesterday, in we won the first two debate rounds, we picked up all judges ballots (6-0). The first team we faced was from the UK, the second was from Azerbaijan. It is interesting to note that the second debate was a little more difficult because of the accents of the other team.

Today, in the first two rounds (limited prep-the topic is released 45min before and you must come up with arguments without a computer, no printed material could be brought into the debate, you could however write the arguments on paper) we lost both, but it was a split ballot on both (1-2)/ The first debate was against Lithuania. We believe that the judges had difficulty understanding us because we might have been talking to fast, which is difficult not to do since we would have to slow up more than normal since a lot of judges are non-native speakers of English. The topic of that debate was: Granting citizenship should be dependent on passing a language test. For this topic we were on the affirmative.
The second debate was against Bulgaria. We split the ballot here as well. It was a tough side to argue. The topic was: Migrants who have lived in a country for a minimum of 5 years should be allowed to vote in a national election.  Again, it is sometimes difficult to understand other people because of accents.

The last round was the prepared topic two: All states should immediately ratify the UNMWC (Migrant Workers Convention) Results are unknown as of yet, since it is a closed round-no feedback.
The conditions at the Doğa College are pretty bad, usually inside it is anywhere from 85+, it can be worse during meals. The building doesn't have AC and just today they were beginning to bring in fans.
During rounds the temperature is even worse because the doors and windows usually are closed to keep noise and distractions out.

The first day of debates (Wednesday, July 20) was especially difficult. We learned after our first research lab that computers were not supposed to be used and evidence had to be printed. We found out two hours before the debate. Depending on the load, documents could take up to two hours to print. We spent most of lunch scrambling to get our documents which were printing sporadically. Thankfully, as we were going to our round, the rest of our evidence was printed and we were able to use it in our round.

Today our excursion was out to Bağdat Caddesi (Avenue). There are many high-end American stores and fast food places like McDonalds (which is actually a nicer restaurant), KFC and Burger King (also nice restaurants.) I bought some Godiva chocolate (3 bars of chocolate and one case of chocolate pearls-40 lira)


-7/21/11
Nicholas Tolksdorf