What is sleep? I don’t even know.
The flight to Thailand went exceptionally smoothly. I was out the door just as everyone was leaving
for breakfast so got quite a few happy birthdays and well wishes. Hire car driven to the airport and
through TSA without a hassle. Pittsburgh to Chicago, Chicago to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bangkok. Slept well on the flight at the right times, was feeling confident I’d be in top condition for the competition.
Until I reached Thailand.
So aside from getting totally lost within Bangkok airport – which customs exit do I take? Signage is
poor and confusing, had to ask for help about three times. The queue was long and slow and then I
had to find the AUAP pick-up that had been arranged. When I finally found them I was told that the
South Korean delegation was arriving in about an hour and we would be waiting for them – no big
deal, what’s an hour?
I regret that.
The plane was delayed and it actually took two hours for them to arrive. Then after much waiting
around we left the airport at 2am local time. It was a three hour bus trip. So I did not reach
accommodation until 5am, when we were informed that we needed to be dressed, fed and ready to
get on buses to the University at 7:30am.
Our hotel rooms itself were interesting. Mine was kind of carved out of a rock or something. Bit odd.
I attempted a 45 minute nap, already starting to feel nauseous, with zero success. My shower didn’t
have hot water either, but on the plus side there’s nothing like a freezing cold shower to wake you
up. I’m not sure how long I had been awake for at this point, but patchy plane sleep is no substitute
for a proper sleep.
At breakfast I finally caught up with Alex, the other University of Newcastle representative. He had
flown in about three hours before me so he wasn’t in the best condition either. We sat together on
the bus and tried our best to look alive.
The University campus itself is enormous, but there aren’t a lot of buildings – it is just really spread
out. Very strange, even coming from my experience of being at the University of Newcastle. There’s
not really a practical way to get around except for driving from building to building. The main area
where we were competing is also a hotel area where the delegates for the AUAP meeting itself were
staying. Bit fancier than our accommodation. It turns out there are competitors staying all over the
place, with some staying at a sport complex which includes a pool they can use after hours (the pool
at my hotel is broken sadly.)
We were sequestered in a room and given a briefing on how the day would run. We were not told an
order of speaking – it was randomly selected. Each speaker would be pulled from the room when
they were due to speak. You had a 5 minute prepared speech, then two two minute impromptu
questions. Speaking thirty seconds either side of the time limit would result in a three mark
deduction.
So that was a pain. I couldn’t take a nap anywhere because at a ten minute interval they could
potentially call my name. Or maybe they wouldn’t call me at all and I would be in one of the two
sessions tomorrow.
The day dragged on. The first session before morning tea passed without either myself or Alex
called. We bonded with a number of Thai contestants, the Chinese competitors and the South
Koreans. At morning tea we were given food bags that contained a donut and a can of coke. I stole
just about everyone’s cans, collecting about five. That caffeine and sugar was desperately needed as
I was starting to feel like throwing up I was so tired. Alex decided he’d had enough and took a nap in
the corner of the room.
We weren’t called prior to lunch either. Lunch was interesting; we sat around a table with a
selection of thai foods, mostly seafood, for us to serve ourselves. I wasn’t a fan of the food, but I ate
what I could, drank more coke and was starting to feel much better.
Almost straight after lunch Alex was called to speak and I was abandoned. It didn’t last long because
in a weird twist of random luck the two Australian’s were chosen to speak consecutively. I was glad I
was feeling better as I went up on stage. Prepared speech went off without a hitch and then my
impromptu questions were “Do you think it is possible to rehabilitate violent criminals?” and then,
because I had answered yes: “How do you think we can rehabilitate these criminals?” I answered
both questions to the best of my abilities but unfortunately I did not speak long enough on the
second question, falling three seconds short. My poor tired brain just gave up.
When I sat down with Alex things got interesting. It turns out that the impromptu questions are
different for each speaker. Alex was asked about the changing role of technology in society. He also
told me that his prepared speech ran too long and as such, we were in the same boat on deductions.
The rest of the day was very relaxing. I posted on Facebook my collection of coke cans, which piled
up further during afternoon tea when we received more doughnuts and drinks in bags. We watched
the other speakers from up the back. Some of them were amazing; one that stood out was from
Thailand. She sadly did not perform well on stage, stumbling through her prepared and then not
really saying anything in the impromptus but when I went up to speak with her she admitted she had
only been speaking English for three months. Needless to say Alex and I were blown away (because
neither of us can speak anything other than Aussie).
It’s hard to know where we sit in terms of the competition. Because this is the first time it has been
run, aside from the disorganisation, you don’t know what the judges are looking for. Plus Alex and I
have seen the same speakers, so we don’t know anything more than the other. What was most
shocking was there was no apparent matchup for the difficulty of the impromptu questions. One of
the Chinese girls spoke today and had a very strong prepared, but she struggled to answer her
impromptu on how television has changed in the past 50 years. We saw an Iranian woman who also
did an excellent job and she was asked whether tablets should replace textbooks. The two South
Korean competitors had excellent prepared but were hit with difficult impromptus on euthanasia,
and suicide and genetic engineering.
It’s been a long day and tomorrow is potentially a final round – no one really knows. All we know for
certain is that there are still more people to speak. I’m skipping breakfast tomorrow and just getting
some beloved sleep.
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