A Truly Auspicious Date

Assalamualaikum and a very good day to all.

Believe it or not, as of this moment, it is 08/08/08 today in Malaysia.
It is a truly auspicious date especially according to the Chinese.
I think I must mention this since the date is so appropriate.
-- Today is also my friend's (Ridz) birthday. So happy birthday to you Ridz.

I had my BEL120 class with my Civil Engineering part 1 today.
We had a debate practice.
The motion was: "This House Believes That Malaysia Can Survive Without Immigrant Workers."
The government's team was represented by Ain (Prime Minister), Rafiq (Deputy Prime Minister) and Wan Abdul Aziz (Government's Whip).
On the other hand, the opposition team was represented by Mira (Opposition Leader), Fikri (Deputy Opposition Leader) and Fathi (Opposition's Whip).

I must tell you that I am proud of them all for being able to handle the pressure of having to debate well. They understand the rules and regulations and also the flow of the debate. Bear in mind that these students have never been involved in any debate tournaments.

This was not our first. In fact, we had the pleasure of having two debates prior to today's debate. The motion for our first debate together was "Men are Better than Women" and the second one was "Humans are Better than Robots". As for the verdict, both debates end up with the jury accepting the motions.

Back to today's debate. I must applaud my students for their effort for today's debate. They had really done their homework. Especially to Fathi, who has managed to come up with interesting facts and figures which he derived from the trusty Internet.

Since, the motion is a bit more serious compared to the previous two, I decided to intervene into their last minute preparation. They were very receptive and willing to take my humble advice.

The debate went well, with me as the Chairman of the House and Balqis as the timekeeper. We also had 7 jury: Hana, Ika, Hazim, Aizat, and a few others who I forgot. Sorry. So, the jury has decided that the motion is accepted. So, the government's team won the debate. The best speaker is Wan Abdul Aziz.

We are going to have another debate next week. It will be held next Friday. The motion is yet to be informed.