Of Competition and Triumph

Been reflecting a little on the various events that have transpired over the past 3 weeks, and realising that they've been linked by a common theme. (Apologies for the lateness in actually publishing this post - I've been waiting for the photos from Phing's camera which I borrowed for the first event.)

What a month! Be warned, it is a very long post, so skip the bits where I start rambling away.

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~ COVENTRY ~

Date: 29 Feb - 2 March
Place: Coventry (Warwick University)
Status: a very long overdue reunion with some of my good friends from school
People: Cindy Ting, Meryl Lam, Fred Emmott, Nick Sutcliffe, Ruari Edwards
Event: University of Warwick Symphony Orchestra concert.
Soloist: Cindy Ting

For those who don't know, Cindy, Meryl and I were part of the Sherborne Schools' Joint Symphony Orchestra way back when we were in 6th form. The SO was a joint effort between the all-boys Sherborne School and our Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset. (Similarly, Fred, Nick, Ruari and I were part of the Wells Cathedral Symphony Orchestra when I was in Years 10-11.) And as with most school and university orchestras who have sufficient resources, every year there are concerto auditions for musicians to grab the chance to perform as a soloist with the orchestra in one of the concerts usually held throughout the year.

Cindy and I went for the concerto auditions in September 2004 under the guidance of our piano teacher, Martin Walker. I played the 2nd movement and part of the 3rd from Shostakovich's 2nd Piano Concerto, and Cindy performed Schumann's Introduction and Allegro Appassionato, a quasi-concerto stand-alone work. While yours truly received some favourable comments but ultimately did not win a concerto spot, Cindy shone through with her authoritative and elegaic take on Schumman's rather neglected work, and we performed her concert in March 2005 in none other that the famous St. John's, Smith Square, in London.

Words couldn't not rightly describe the intensity of the emotions and bonding between us during that year so full of joyous music-making. Suffice to say, learning a concerto is no mean task, and we stuck together through the whole journey. Unless you've experienced it yourself, I couldn't possibly convey to you the incredible fullness of connecting through the creation of music. It's not the same when you are the audience, merely absorbing the sounds coming from the orchestra or speakers in front of you. Immersing yourself in the whole creation process is a completely different experience, and the connection you make with the musicians around you, however brief, transcends the moment and stays with you for a lifetime.

Needless to say, when Cindy told me that once more, she will be performing the Schumann, this time with the UWSO, I couldn't have missed it for the world. After a ridiculously cold journey complete with train detour from Manchester, I arrived in Coventry and was picked up by Meryl and her boyfriend. Carefully bought the flower bouquets for later, and went to IKEA for a warming cup of (free!) hot chocolate. Met up with Cindy before the rehearsal started, and the first thing she says to me is, "You've grown!" - jokingly of course. Helped her sound-check in the venue hall, which, with its slightly out-of-tune piano, awkward stage arrangements and short length, was rather dissatisfactory. (A concert venue that's not long enough results in the sound from the stage bouncing front-to-back-to-front very quickly, giving off jarring echoes and poor clarity.)

But poor performance conditions aside, the whole evening was a nostalgic trip down memory lane for both of us, and I'd freely admit that we both got rather emotional at some point. Nobody broke down and cried, but there were definitely 2 pairs of misty eyes that evening. In all, just those 16 minutes when Cindy played her Schumann made the whole trip worthwhile, if not for the actual performance itself, then at least for the sense of closure and accomplishment I felt.

Post concert: a rather dishevelled me with the lovely soloist.

Holding up the back page of Cindy's Schumann score.
My comments and signature as the "Page Tuner" are in black in the middle of the page.
Yes, the one from 3 years ago! =D

The rest of the weekend consisted of some nice chill-out in a peaceful, green uni campus, a lively flat dinner, and a tour around the University of Warwick and Coventry town.

Cindy in front of her uni flat.

The superbly sinful hot chocolate at the Warwick Arts Centre cafe.

Equally superb but a thousand times more sinful "Thing".
Method: 2 slices thick white bread, peanut butter in between, deep fried in oil, slathered with butter and honey. Munch away.
Argh.

Cindy's Stitch fetish.

And lastly, the rather wonderful ruins of Coventry Cathedral:

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~ MALAYSIA ~

Date: 8 March
Place: all over Malaysia
Event: 12th General Election
People: Malaysians
Status: the people have spoken

Probably the most exciting and tense election in Malaysia's recent history. The very year in which I turn legal to vote, but unfortunately the registration was held before my 21st birthday. Darn! Anyway, it was still a pretty exhilarating time once the election date was announced, reading analyses from pro-government papers like The Star, prolific opposition blogs such as Screenshots and Malaysia Today, to articles in the international news-sphere of our election's hanky-panky phantom voters and politicians' gerrymandering. Late Saturday night, when the "experts'" analysis and commentaries started flooding in, I stumbled across a Reuters articles with a slide-show of the election proceedings. After numerous images of notorious politicians and voters from all walks of life, the last photo was a quiet one devoid of any signs of human activity.

(Copyright Reuters International)

After all the excitement, tension and relief of the previous hours, going through the intense emotions and swirling thoughts shared by most of my fellow Malaysians wherever they might be, the sight of a new sun dawning upon the heart of our country was a veritable tear-jerker. Aye, I choked up.

And who wouldn't? Whether pro-government or pro-opposition, passionate or apathetic, no one person involved with the progress of Malaysia and the fate of Malaysians could possibly remain unmoved by the thought of 27,496,000 Malaysians waking up to a whole new political landscape on the morning of 9th March 2008. The feeling must be somewhat akin to our forebears' emotions when Malaya declared her independence 50 years ago in 1957.

Only time will give judgment on the choices we Malaysians made that day. Stay tuned.

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~ MANCHESTER ~

Date: 15 March
Place: Council Chamber, UMSU
Event: inaugural UKEC Intra-Regional (North-West) Debate 2008
People: Rohit and Krishnan; miscellaneous
Status: pretty flabbergasted

Seeing the low levels of interest for this inaugural event, Vince made quite a few phone calls in an attempt to persuade more people to participate, and managed to rope in my interest more than a week before the debate. However, I didn't manage to find anyone else who was keen/available to participate, partly due to the last notice and the high turn-off point of having to wake up super early on the first Saturday of Easter Break.

On Friday morning I received a last-minute offer from Rohit and Krishnan to join their hastily-formed team. Vince decided to open up the competition to non-Malaysians as well, and they were roped in to fill the 4th team for Saturday. (Note: participation was so bad, that instead of the targeted 8 teams, UKEC would've only gotten 3 teams if not for us.) Went over to Whitworth Park early evening and we trashed out our basic argument, and decided on the order of speakers. 1st speaker: Krishna; 2nd speaker: Rohit; 3rd speaker: Yours Truly.

- 1st preliminary round: This house believes that commercialization has eroded sportsmanship. Opposition.

Having had an evening to prepare for the first round, we were reasonably confident and ready to tackle the debate head-on. Nearly had an emergency when Mr. "Let's-Meet-At-8am" Madathil stayed up until 3am watching some Indian movie called 'One-Dollar Curry' and couldn't wake up in time. Rohit had to go bang on his door at 9am and almost physically dress the fella up and drag him to the SU.

Being the first time I'd participated in a formal debate, I was understandably nervous when it was finally my turn to speak, and didn't do as well as intended. Nevertheless, we won! 178 to 158 points. Unbelievably, the score was out of 180. What a shock. What on earth did we say right??


- 2nd preliminary round: This house believes that everyone should be able to access your Facebook profile. Opposition.

In all fairness, the topic was obviously biased towards the Opposition. Government had hardly any space for argument at all, and honestly they did jolly well considering how difficult it was for them. Their main argument was that these so-called privacy settings only serve to give users a false sense of security, and opening up everybody's profile functions as a protective psychological warning for users.

Our argument was divided into 3 neat parts: the inherent human right of privacy; information security against predators, fraud and exploitation; the right to choose. Needless to say, we won by a considerable margin too.

The other 2 teams had the pretty fun topic of "This house believes that Wikipedia should be given equal importance as Encyclopedia Britannica", which seemed a more balanced debate than ours. The 2 teams with the highest cumulative marks from both rounds were to proceed to the finals. Rather pleasingly, but not surprisingly, our team emerged with the top score out of the 4. For the finals we were going up against the winners of the Wikipedia/Britannica round, Joshua's team whom we faced in Round 1.


- Finals round: This house believes that tradition hinders progress. Opposition.

At first glance, the topic seemed highly daunting as one's immediate impression would be that tradition does indeed hinder progress. Then we pushed way our self-doubt, the 3 big brains got cracking, and the battle plan was formulated.

Govt 1st Speaker, Arthur, started his "social" argument with how traditions such as female circumcision has impeded women's suffrage/progress, and the blossoming of LGBT rights in our modern society unshackled by tradition. I POI-ed both points with examples of circumcised women such as Iman and Waris Dirie who have become international icons and successful female entrepreneurs, and the prevalent tradition of homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome, the 2 founding empires of Western civilisation.

Opp 1st Speaker, Krishna, spoke of the founding of the UAE, and the incredible progress the nation has achieved despite (because of?) the highly traditional mind-set of the first president, Sheikh Zayed. G1 POI-ed by claiming that the UAE is very much the exception to the norm, and other tradition-bound countries in the Middle-East such as Yemen and Oman are still very backward.

G2, Lilian, tackled the arts aspect of progress, drawing on 2 examples: if society followed tradition, we would still be painting Madonnas like the Renaissance, instead of works such as Warhol's iconic multi-coloured Marilyn Monroe; and it is because society has broken free of tradition that literature such as Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code can be written, where before the Church would have persecuted their authors much like Nostradamus was for claiming the Earth is round.

O2, Rohit's argument was that India, commonly claimed to be the world's most religious country (by The Economist, etc), is also one of the fastest-progressing countries. Govt POI-ed by arguing that we were confusing religion with tradition, and that India is still held by by outdated practices such as caste barriers. Rohit defended by saying that India's religious practices are their traditions, and the analogy is a metaphorical representative of tradition. He went on to tie-in Krishna's UAE example by illustrating briefly the concept of Islamic finance - brilliant supportive example, don'tcha think? He finished off by contending that tradition evolves with time, and goes hand-in-hand with progress.

G3, Joshua, took the typical textbook route by expounding on how all our team's arguments so far were mere exceptions to the norm.

And finally, it was my turn to take the floor. I began by explaining how my speech's structure will be much like Joshua's, firstly by rebutting some of the Government's points, then adding my own examples, and closing off with a summary of my whole team's argument. I got a perverse satisfaction in knowing that, being the final speaker of the whole lot, I get the supreme upper-hand in having literally the last say, thus refuting all of Government's points and firmly driving home my team's argument.

1. G2's point about art is irrelevant and invalid. The reason why Madonnas were prevalent in the Renaissance was that Christianity was a huge aspect in their everyday lives, and the Madonna served as a constant point of reference and reverence. (1) Nothing to do with tradition. Secondly, where the Renaissance Italians worshiped the Madonna by creating images of her, arguably our modern society is a continuation of that by worshiping images of our modern idols/celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe. (2) G2's Warhol example illustrates how tradition has continued into our time, and encouraged "progress". p.s. With both examples, G2 seemed to be mixing up religion with tradition, so how dare they accuse us of getting confused?
2. G2's literature argument is irrelevant and invalid. (Poor Lilian! Going up against a History of Art/ClassCiv student. Sorry girl, my A Levels learning was at stake =P) The Chuch dislikes Harry Potter and DVC not out of tradition, but because content within these 2 works directly contravenes some of the very foundations of Christianity. Again, a theology-based argument, nothing to do with traditional religious practices.
   
3. Our examples are not exceptions to the norm. (1) Japan, arguably the world's most progressive country, has grown with an economic structure based around the 19th century concept of zaibatsu, ie family conglomerates. (2) Going along with China's stance that Tibet is part of China - Tibet is famously known for being an ultra-traditional society, but the standard of quality of living there is considerably higher than many urban areas in the rest of China.
4. Time does not stand still, and neither does tradition. Tradition and progress and not mutually exclusive. In fact, tradition is a new expression of progress, and to throw off tradition is to be stagnant.
   

Heckling for the first time, I banged my hand subtly on the table top, and uttered the opponent's death-blow: "To say that tradition hinders progress is to put a full-stop to our time, and to our future." You just had to be there. =P


When Vince went on-stage for his final announcement, he certainly dramatized the situation to the fullest extent! Grinning at the audience with the results in his hand, his first comment was "Ohhh it's very close!", then went on to invite the panel to distribute the certificates of participation, the award for Best Speaker for the preliminary rounds (congrats, Nicholas!), and the award for Best Speaker for final round (way to go, Rohit!). By the time he declared, "And now I would like to invite the runners-up to come to the front," my nails were gone and my hair had almost turned white from the gan jeong-ness. And then he said, "The runners-up for the *insert full title* debate...

"-Government."

I stood there for several moments before the realisation actually hit. And when it did, the flood of jubilation was incredible. Grabbing my teammates for a celebratory group hug, the adrenalin and pent-up tension drained away like an unplugged bathtub, and my whole body went weak from the relief and happiness.

Champion team.
from left: myself, Krishna, Rohit

(No amount of superb Photoshop is gonna save the photo. Sheesh.)

Yours truly receiving her trophy and certificate from one of the judges.

WOOHOO! My heartfelt thanks, you two.

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~ MANCHESTER, LATVIA? ~

Date: February - March 2008
Event: Peak Time Business Challenge 2008
People: Allen, Aditi, JJ, myself
Status: did not proceed beyond semi-finals

Aditi, Allen and myself randomly decided to participate in one of the current biggest business challenges available, and managed to rope JJ in as our 4th team member. Finals to be held in Riga, Latvia, with cash prizes of up to 5,000 euros!

First stage involved 5 rounds of an online hotel business simulation, directly competing against 7 other teams. All the teams started out equal in terms of financial and operational resources, with decision-making required in each round according to market outlook. Competing for highest market share and revenue, we were required to make decisions on factors such as staff wage, employees' numbers and capabilities, marketing budget, room rates for current, +1 and +2 periods (each period = 6 months), renovation and maintenance budget, dividends paid, loans and payback etc.

At the end of the 5 rounds, the top 3 teams from each group of 8 were selected to proceed to Stage 2, and we got through! And with the highest market share by a considerable way, no less! Out of the 4 teams from Manc Uni, we were 1 out of the 2 that succeeded. For Stage 2, each team was required to submit their recommendations and reasonings for a case study on automobile leasing, auctioning and sales, a brief group description, 1-page CV from each member, and a "creative" group photo.

My favourite photo among the whole lot. Lookin' good!

Even though, in the end, we were not among the top 20 teams shortlisted for the final round in Riga, the whole exercise was pretty interesting, informative, challenging and above all, good fun!

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It's been a great month for learning and challenges. So for whatever life serves up next, bring it on!