When I thought I would have some free space of time after the midterm examination on my second term in the university, I was wrong. I was pushed to catch my breath quicker and earlier. As soon as coming home of representing the university for Model United Nations, the first and only thing came in mind was to become delegate for, I know this is very cliche stuff of mine, debating. My plan was to prepare myself a lot to be able to endure bloodshed internal selection for a prestigious debating tourney later in June. I had regretted a lot for missing chances to participate in previous available tournaments, thus what I only wanted was to brawl. But fate glistened me a light. The tourney division of the university debating society announced that there would be a selection held for straight three tournaments. The first one was the national-level government-run tournament which is so prestigious thus included in annual top three tourneys, so let's just scrap it. The other ones were a national tournament for novice-category debaters held on May in Yogyakarta and a so-called international tournament held on the beginning of June in Jakarta. I was initially planning for the latter. But the alleged fact that seniors would join the selection brought me a sudden hesitation to apply for that. Even though I had known that was a wrong way of thinking, in the end I did not regret rescinding.
So, the only choice was to pursue the novice one. Novice means the tournament was only available for those who had less than 2 years of varsity debating experience and no record of breaking in any national English debating event. Since there was apparently a few number of novice debaters left, which sadly that included me, I thought it was not that hard to top the selection. The only issue was about going to Yogyakarta. I knew if I told my parents they would say that I had just left campus lectures for considerable amounts of attendances, I had also just gone to another continent and then I would go to another city; but I told them anyway. My desire to come back debating was improbable to resist. And they surprisingly gave me the permit.

Here we go. I passed the selection and was put in the team A. There were two other teams in the delegation, which were indeed team B and C. Once becoming the delegate, we were obligated to join the intensive training. That was what I really expected too. My university debating association is one of the greatest and most reputable institutions in Indonesian debating world. Therefore, the objective of whatever tournament participation is none other than to be the champion. I did not mind to commit with that; I also wanted to win even though it was my first varsity debating tourney.
And intensive training means bunches of loads of assignments!! We were given per team assignments and required to collect them in certain limit of time. This was bad because not only my weekdays lectures were already hectic, but I also still needed to complete my pending lecture assignments, exams, and quizzes which I had skipped for the previous conference delegation. But I was sure that these all were to improve my skills. Since then I became a nerd, a debate nerd more precisely. Every day then I entered the class, I tried to find the most corner seat in the back, plugged my laptop in, ignored everything my lecturer said, and worked my debate assignments. If the assignments were done, I made to research for articles, news, or any information necessary to debate. Besides, I managed to be a private teacher. Some other day my campus friend came to me asking for private English lessons. The English subject in campus had a presentation for the final task and she wanted me to help her succeed; and I would get paid. I needed money to go to Yogya and I did not want to ask my parents for that thus I accepted the offer. That means I sacrificed part of my time too for that job. I almost had no time for myself to study. The chestnut promises every college student makes after the midterm or final examination which says, "After this I will study harder. I will study more seriously next term. I will review chapters not only for the examinations" - were completely gone, again.

After several series of sparring and a camp, we were ready to fight. Before that, we needed to prepare for non-competition stuffs. I and my teammate were coincidentally economical. We decided to go to Yogya by economy-class train. We also planned to stay at our friend's home stay instead of hotel. Amidst my eventful time, I spared some to observe that. I came to some stations, Gambir and Tanah Abang, to find information. You have to know that going in public transportation, as in KRL, in Greater Jakarta were often distressful. I eventually learned that to purchase economy-class train ticket, we could only begin to buy on exactly a week before the departure date, because it was the moment when it began to be sold. Confused, huh? I was. The point is that it is different with business- or executive- class in which we can order for long-term departure. The station officers told me that I needed to stand by as early as possible because economy-class ticket was very quickly sold. This was worsen by the fact that our departure date coincided a sequence of holidays (read: 'cuti bersama'). Geez. Another day, I and my teammate managed to come to the station early to purchase the ticket. You know what does 'early' mean? That means we left to the station on 5.00 on the morning!!! And when we arrived there were already a LOT of people standing in line. Some moments waiting, I needed to go back to campus. I was so sorry to leave my teammate alone queuing for the ticket because I could not possibly skip that morning lecture. My absence quota for the subject was only left to excuse for the competition. My lecturer for the particular subject was kind-of killer, If I exceeded the quota not only would I be disqualified, but I would get an automatic E grade for the subject. On 9 o'clock, my teammate texted me that he got the ticket. We were relieved. But it was not ticket to Yogya because it was sold-out; on 7 o'clock 16th May 2012, we would go to Kutoarjo town and were planned to arrive on 15.00 to have a transit, and we would buy another ticket there for one-hour trip to Yogya, which the train was planned to depart on 15.15. That was actually our alternative plan. We learned that from our friend, but none of us ever went through this before. In the name of adventure, we gave it a try.

We finally left for Yogyakarta on two days before the competition began. Due to miscommunication, I and my teammate departed separately from the rest of delegation, we departed earlier. But everything worked as it was planned. We arrived at Kutoarjo on 15.00, got off the train, bought another ticket, and departed to Yogya on 15.15. We arrived at Lempuyangan Station of Yogyakarta on around 16.00 and were picked by my teammate's friend whose home stay would be our place to stay. He is a student in UGM. And this is the mirthful part. My teammate's friend actually lived in a mosque!! Hahaha. So did we really stay in the mosque? There was a room in the second floor of the mosque, in which my teammate's friend lived as the mosque's caretaker. If you ever watched Islamic-themed Lorong Waktu movie, you may know. And yup, we stayed there.
We had not bought the ticket to go home. So the next day, I contacted a former high-school friend of mine, who is a student in UGM too, to accompany me seeking the ticket. My teammate did not come with me as he wanted to attend some religious recitation, with his friend. That morning, we initially went to Lempuyangan station again just to find out all return-date tickets were already sold-out. Showing a confused face, a parking man outside brought me to a ticket scalper (in bahasa: calo) in a coffee shop nearby. He offered me the ticket price of which tripled the original!! I, and my teammate I contacted at the moment, were okay with that, but there was another thing. This is hard to explain. I would like to buy the ticket for two persons, for me and my teammate. But his ticket was for three persons. So he could not give me the ticket right away because he should sell to another one person. He said I could just give him the money amounted the ticket half-price as down-payment, and I could go back later exactly an hour before my departure time to get the ticket. He gave me my phone number. I was damned confused then. The fact I had never done this before, having the fear of being deceived, calculating the possibility of losing both the money and ticket; and also ending up not going home, I postponed the transaction. After that I asked my friend to direct to Giwangan bus terminal to seek bus ticket. Note that he is not Yogya citizen, we were in motorbike holding a mobile GPS to track down the right track. The moment I wanted to purchase economy-class bus ticket in the terminal, I had a bad feeling. I remembered my dad's words to be careful in choosing bus. The bus brands terrified me, rendered me imagining a drunk bus driver drives the bus recklessly. Since I did not want to end up being in the newspaper headline, I canceled again. The prices were not so different to train, though. Given no other choice, we got back to coffee shop near the train station again, took every risk, I paid the ticket from the scalper. I told my teammate that I got the ticket, without telling the ticket was not yet at hand, at least until the tournament was over.
Quite relieved with the ticket thingy, we contacted another high-school friend who was going to theater for a movie. We directly went there, eventually spent the day watching The Avenger.
That night, we moved out from the mosque. We moved to my teammate's another friend's home stay in UNY complex. Our tournament was held in UNY, so it was for the sake of proximity. After dealing with the lodging four of us -me, my teammate, my teammate's friend and my teammate's another friend- went to Malioboro and Alun-alun Kidul, some of Yogya's remarks. What we did in there was depicted in pictures as follow.

#clockwise: scene of Yogya street; me in becak; wedang ronde; and my teammate

Friday, 18th May 2012, the competition began. Namely National Newbie Debating Competition (NNDC) held by Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta (UNY).  After Friday prayer, we directed to tournament spot in UNY. We turned to meet our delegation friends and one of our coaches. And this was it. The aura of debaters coming, the micro-phonic sound of guidance seminar, the motion launches, the smell of debating competition which I had been missing a lot. The competition used British Parliamentary format, in which one team composes of two persons, and there are four teams fighting in every round. You might search further in Google because I am not going to explain about it. There would be two out of five preliminary rounds in the first day.
There went the first round. We debated about 'abolishing hate crime legislation'. It turned out to be very confusing debate, because three initial teams defined the motion differently. We acted as the last team speaking also turned out to bring our own definition, to which we tried to be the most comprehensible definition. We gained the first place in the debate. The other UI teams also got 3 VPs (Victory Points, first place gets 3, second place 2, third place 1, fourth place 0). The next round we met our fellow team C in the chamber debating upon whether or not 'superheroes should be sent to jail'. We did mistake by falling into a definitional trap set up by our own friends. We only got third place and called it a day. After that, I and my teammate did not go to my teammate's home stay in which we were supposed to stay. We joined the delegation who would stay in another UI friend of ours. He came from Yogya so we stayed in his house.
The next day went the other three rounds. We faced our friends again in the third round, this time were team B. Arguing about 'the increase of Indonesian military spending', gratefully we got the first position. In the fourth round, we met team C again and I don't know why that time we felt so afraid. UI C already clean-swept all three rounds gaining already 9 VPs. The motion in the round was about banning 'digital rights management', which we completely did not understand. We got third position again. Facing the last preliminary round, we still had only 8 VPs. We were feared of not breaking into the eliminary rounds. Until the 15-minutes case-building time of fifth round, the shades of losing was still struck on my mind. I kept thinking about getting the first position was the only choice unless we would be kicked out, which turned to hinder my performance. The last round was a silent round, which meant no one would be told who got what position in the room.
During the breaking announcement, my heart beat so fast. I imagined the trip to Yogya ended uselessly if we did not break. The first standing team went obviously to team C with 14 VPs. They failed to swept clean all rounds as they only got second position in the last round. The second breaking team was Airlangga University. The third one was UI A!!! Woohhooooo, I was so excitedly relieved. We managed to top the last round and finally gained 11 VPs. Our fellow team B broke number eight. We went home for rest to prepare for the next rounds.
That night we did evaluation. We felt that we could not work that way. In that moment we figured out that debating is not about winning. We realized that mentality was a great influence of our performances, whenever we thought about winning, the result showed otherwise. We promised to change the mindset for the following rounds.
Sunday, when everybody else had holiday or went to church, we debated. We were ready for today's finale rounds. In eliminary rounds, only two top teams from each room would proceed to the next round. The quarterfinal draw brought unfortunate team B and C to be in the same chamber. The motion for this round was that World Bank donor countries should nominate the president candidates from only developing nations. We brought our newborn to the debate. The round felt so easy this time. Not about easy to win because we did not care about winning anymore, but easy in terms of we felt so relaxed and enjoyable in debating. There just flowed like water. The result was satisfying. My team reigned the room, the other fellow teams also proceeded to the semifinal. Team B and C met again in the semifinal because they came from the same room previously. What about my team? With the current mindset, we should not be worried. hehe. In semifinal we debated upon ASEAN moratorium on hiring migrant domestic workers. Again, we really enjoyed the debate and did not give a crap about the result. I and my teammate instead wished for our fellow teams, because it was terribly difficult to proceed together.
Time for the good news announcement. All UI teams managed to go to the grand final. Another team was UNS (Universitas Sebelas Maret Surakarta). We were so incredibly excited. We paid our promise to our own selves and coaches to get all of us in the final. Okay. Time to face the last civil war and end the tournament in a very utmost way. But here was the intricate. The ballot put my team to speak as Opening Government, means that we were the first to speak. For the whole tournament we had never got this position. The position is really prone to panic and I was... panicking. The motion was 'this house regrets the decline of American supremacy and the advent of a multipolar world'. During the case-building, not only was I confused by the motion due to the panic, but unnecessary things also revolved in mind. My mindset was scattered again. I thought about I should not fail because I had come so far. I thought I should win so that the prize could overcome my financial costs. I thought being the team A mean we should be the champion. Everything. When the round started, I tried to say a catchy opening remark. But whether or not it went, my whole argumentation... sucked. If you understand debating, perhaps you know that I did not bring any case at all. I think I would be remembered as the 'throwing-examples prime minister'. Blah. Whatever. After I sat down, I realized that I screwed the debate. I thought the debate in the grand final was not so good. And I guessed that was my fault. I gave up. I just hoped that our team did not fall into the fourth position. What about my teammate? He was not less regretting. He knew that I was prone to panic but he also refused to take over my position. We took this as a very lesson.

The winning announcement. We secured the third position!!! I was, for the umpteenth time, relived coming out as second runner-up. The UNS got fourth. And from the close voting, UI B came as first runner-up and UI C as the champion of NNDC 2012!!! Woohooo, we were not less excited. The result was also both pairs of team C got the first and second best speaker, I and my teammate got co-third best speaker. These all were satisfying. And apparently, we were officially not novice anymore.

#(left to right): team C, team B, me, one Deputy Chief Adjudicator, and my teammate

After the end of the tournament, we wanted a relaxation. So we went to the Alun-alun Kidul together. What about the trophies? We brought them around. We knew by doing that would attract people, but there was no other possible option. We went around until we got exhausted, then went to our friend's house to a rest. The tournament finished so remarkably.

#riding a decorated odong-odong

The next day, some of us went home separately earlier. We saw each other off. Some of us went around Yogya the last one time to find souvenirs or simply took photographs. We went back to my teammate's home stay to pick our stuffs. That afternoon, we went to the train station. I told my teammate about the ticket-scalper thingy and he was not so surprised. In fact, the scalper did not deceive me. We finished the transaction, we got our ticket and went home. Our train was scheduled to leave on 17.00 and arrive on 2 on the morning. We ended up sleeping alternately in Pasar Senen station on that dawn, waiting for KRL heading to Depok which was available only from 6 AM. We went back to Depok, I was so tired thus skipped the lecture class that morning, and that marked the end of another journey.




#clockwise: NNDC delegation and one coach; in front of UNY; in my UI friend's house; souvenir shop

#red ass statue

Dream comes true. That is the simplest explanation from what I experienced on my second term in the university. I became one of twelve delegates to represent University of Indonesia for Harvard World Model United Nations (MUN) in Vancouver, Canada on March 9th – 24th 2012. Harvard World MUN is an international MUN conference held by Harvard University, takes place in different host city every year. Last year it was in Singapore, this year is in Vancouver, and next year it will be in Melbourne. Every year it attracts and collects 2.000 college and university students from more than 60 countries. Since I joined UI MUN Club, a students’ activity unit that gathers all MUN enthusiasts, I made to have privilege to participate in any MUNs held in various parts of the world. To become one of the delegates, I needed to join an internal selection specifically for World MUN in the university on around November 2011 and Alhamdulillah I qualified. Did the university pay for our trip? Yes somewhat it did, but in a very little amount. We needed to seek corporate sponsors instead. We only represented our university, not representing Indonesia; as there were other universities from Indonesia coming to Vancouver as well such as UNPAD, Parahyangan, Paramadina, and IPB.  Twelve of us accompanied by a faculty advisor went to Vancouver with Eva Air, a Taiwanese airline, and spent about six hours to reach Taiwan to transit, and another ten hours trip from Taiwan to Vancouver. What I was afraid of long journey with plane was the air pressure, because sometimes I have disturbing air pressure if I take airplane from Jakarta to Medan or vice versa. But there was no such air pressure this time. The plane was nice, the plane meals were specifically delicious, there were digital entertainments, and the whole journey became indeed remarkable. This was the first time I represent my university for an extracurricular event; this was my first time going abroad, and this was my first Model United Nations.
Vancouver is a city in the British Columbia province of Canada. Vancouver is a coastal seaport city located precisely next to North Shore Mountains. Many just-like-other-metropolitan tall buildings, a wide sea, and a slouch of snow-capped mountains become the dominant cityscape in the area. One typical issue of coming to the subtropical country is indeed the temperature. It was almost always one digit everyday, ranging from 2 degrees until 12 degrees Celsius. But people in there said it was just warm already!! Other region in Canada like Montreal could experience even until -40 degrees Celsius. Brrr. That’s why we always had to put our jacket, mantle, and gloves on. During two weeks visit, we stayed in a hotel for nine days and in a guest house for the last five days. Both accommodations were provided by Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia (KJRI), who had become very kind and contributive for our jaunt in Vancouver.

#an overall hand-taken depiction of Vancouver, not as good as in Google Images

Model United Nations, or simply abbreviated as MUN, is an academic conference that simulates the agenda and decision-process making quorum of United Nations. Simply put, we act as a diplomat. In each simulation, we always represent a country and then address international issues from the perspective of that country. For this World MUN, the committee determined our delegation from UI to mostly represent Latvia. Some of us represented Singapore and Switzerland. Does that mean there was one representing Indonesia? That’s true, one might have represented Indonesia. And every university delegation was divided into some different committees discussing different issues. I was put in a double-delegation committee, with a friend of mine as partner, in Special Political and Decolonization Committee (SPECPOL). The others were in Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Social Cultural and Humanitarian Affairs (SOCHUM), Disarmament and International Security (DISEC), etc

#situation in some committee

#my delegation friend holds a placard

And what we discussed in my committee was a very cliché yet intriguing topic. The topic was about Israeli-Palestinian conflict!!! You can imagine how electrifying that was. For five days, we acted as a Latvian diplomat, trying to address the problem of Israeli-Palestinian according to the country’s foreign policy. The sad fact was that we could not really denounce Israel because the real Latvia does not. Hahaha. The aim of the simulation was to result a resolution. The resolution would contain every detail point of solutions to overcome the problem, just like the real resolution. Besides giving persuasive formal speeches, the core of MUN was lobbying and negotiations. There came hot debates because every representative would like to solve the problem based on their country’s interest.  The first time I tried to approach people I felt so terribly nervous. People from foreign countries were soooooo huge!!! But I tired to collect my courage up. Even though this was my first MUN, it does not necessarily mean that we did not want to win. We wanted to grab the awards and the honorable mentions. For five days, we convinced other representatives for what our country wanted; we gave our ideas for the best solution; debated, negotiated, and lobbied everyone; and assured that we were part of the resolutions. But unfortunately, we did not win. From all committees, none of the awards we gained. Neither did other Indonesian universities. Delegates ended up grabbing the awards were those coming from Australia, Belgium, United States, United Kingdom, and Venezuela. This year was not a good achievement for Indonesia in World MUN.

#the delegate of Israel

 
 #with huge foreigners


Let alone the conference-related thingy, we are done with them. We had tried to perform the best though. You may assume that after this what we did was a total walk-around. That is true. But there is another great thing we had. Aforesaid I told that Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia (KJRI) had been very contributive for us. Aside aiding us accommodation and transportation, we really had a very nice time-off with them. The best thing of simulating (learning to be) diplomat is that we met the real diplomats too!! During formal lunch invitation, casual dinners, or in-town journeys we learned many things about being diplomats. So basically consulate general is just like the embassy. We ever learned about this in PPKn subject. The difference is that the embassy acts as the country representative abroad dealing with political diplomacy. While consulate general’s working area encompasses only more about human –citizens of Indonesia in here, economic, and culture. If embassy is led by an ambassador, consulate general has a consul. To be a diplomat who represents Indonesia in a foreign country was not easy. Ministry of Foreign Affairs holds a test selecting hundreds of people each year. If we pass, we still need to qualify some brief international affair-related education and several years of training. The interesting part when you become a high-level diplomat is that you can live in various countries throughout your life. One diplomat’s son, who made to hang out with us, had lived in United Kingdom, Tunisia, and United States before came to Canada. But everything has downsides. Diplomats may only stay in a country represented for only four years. If the term ends, they need to move out. Imagine you and your family move everything–including your house, school, and furniture, whatsoever- then adapt to new environment, weather of a different country every four years? Geez… That’s what happened with our friend there. Even though the countries were more developed, the best moments that he had, the best gracious people he ever met and the best soil he ever belonged to was only, none other than Indonesia. He only had a four-year chance living in Indonesia and he had missed it so bad.

#with Consulate General Mr. Bambang Hendrasto

#Indonesian contingent                    #official lunch with KJRI

After the conference, we only visited some places nearby. We did not go to remarkable places in Canada like Ottawa, Toronto, or Niagara Falls for instances due to time and budget constraint. But spots we visited were not less remarkable. A prominent place we visited was the University of British Columbia (UBC), the co-host of the conference. UBC is one of the most reputable universities in Canada and worldwide. One interesting place inside UBC complex we came to visit was the Wreck Beach. It is one quite famous beach in Vancouver. And you know what? Wreck Beach is a nude beach. That means it is a beach in which visitors are free to be naked. Something you can only find in such liberal country. But it was winter then. So… no surprise. Hahaha.

Besides, mostly we walked around the city. We visited some venues like Stanley Park, English Bay, Public Library, Granville Island, etc. Becoming pedestrian is very comfortable in this city. There is neither crowded nor noisy traffic. People are friendly and nice too. Whenever we seemed lost, by looking confoundedly at map, there were always people tried to guide and tell us the right direction. The Economist ranks Vancouver no. 1 for the most liveable and comfortable city in the world and I found it not an exaggeration. All of us dreamed to come back here again someday. May that come come true.



#UBC bookstore                             #Wreck Beach: No, we're not naked...


#one spot in Stanley Park                   #inside Vancouver Public Library

Okay. Going to a subtropical country in winter is merely incomplete without snow. Vancouver is a rainy city with mildly chill weather. It could be snowy, but it is a rare occasion. There are some alternative remarks to see snow; we decided to go to the Grouse Mountain. Even running and catching-and-throwing snowballs already made us so exciting. The temperature in the snowy area was much colder. It reached -5 degrees Celsius allegedly. Since renting ski contrivances was very costly, we managed to have fun with snow in an economical way. We played the so-called ‘toboggan’.  It is basically a plastic board used to slide through the snow. We had soooo much fun.




#snooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww

After all, I just had another most wonderful two-week in my lifetime. Yup, I really wanted to go abroad. But I had never really imagined that I would step my shoes there so early. When I initially came to UI, there were talk-shows. In the talk-shows, it was showcased those UI students who managed to grab achievements abroad. The moment I saw it, I came to talk to myself. I said that being in this university was a ticket to go somewhere else. And with the very utter sense of gratitude, I got it.
Back then when I was in a celebration event of the high-school graduation, I borrowed a suit of blazer from my grandfather to fulfill the dress-code. The moment I wore it, I knew that such kind of dress was not supposed to take for granted. I promised myself that the next time I wear it; I should wear it in a more remarkable event. And one year later, I brought my grandpa’s suit to Canada.
I believe that this was just a beginning. Whatever happens, we all have power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing.











*The posting written in this blog is only an outline. View the complete story here.