Istanbul #2

Day 2 - 20th July
We started our day off with walking to Doga College. The college is a 15 minute walk away from the hotel. Along the way, there are a couple of donut stalls and a few other shops. When we reached the campus, we had breakfast in the cafeteria. Studying in Doga College will definitely make you healthy and lose weight because at almost every meal, salad and fruits are served. After breakfast, we convened in the Conference Room (probably the best place in the whole Doga College to be in because it has air-cond!) to start off the day with a morning assembly.

During the morning assembly, the theme song of the 2011 IDEA Youth Forum in Istanbul was revealed. Mind you, it is an addictive song titled Istanbul by Sertab Erener which is relatively easy to learn after you listen to it everyday for a week. Didem, the host coordinator taught us how to sing the chorus of the song and soon, we were singing and dancing to it.

After a few other announcements for the day, the demo debate began. For us Malaysians who have never seen a Karl Popper (KP) debate before, it was a good insight to how the debate would be like. A unique thing about a KP debate is that it has cross-examination (which can be interesting or really scary depending on how you look at it). The demo debate was done by a few of the coaches and trainers and I believe that the whole debate has been uploaded online, so you can watch it on the IDEA website.

We had some preparation labs after the debate with trainers to help us out in the debate. Our trainers were Rose and Sergei and they helped us a lot in finding our footing as we didn't really know how to approach a KP debate. We also had to settle some last minute points (a character typical of Malaysians) before our first ever KP debate which was going to happen on the same day.

Next up was lunch, and then the pressure began. The KPDC started and our first round was against Botswana. Don't ask how it went because it was a disaster. Thankfully, we lost by a split decision so we didn't feel so demoralised. [A big thanks to the judge who voted in our favour! You know who you are ;)]

Then, we were up against Croatia and it was time to redeem ourselves. This round went better and we
won with a unanimous decision.

For both rounds, we were debating on the extended time preparation motion (meaning that we were supposed to have prepared since April for it) that "Nations of the world should increase the protection of economic and social rights of migrants."

We were so tired after debate that we just headed back to the hotel and had a good rest for the day.

PS: I've just came back from a long, tiring excursion around the historical peninsula so please excuse my incoherence if I am not making much sense in this post.

As always, pictures will be uploaded later!