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