Day of Debate (with novices...ugh)

I had my rhetoric presentation yesterday. It was rather interesting. I had been given thirty minutes, and was fully prepared to use every ounce of time. However, my prof kept interjecting over me. To make matters worse, he would say things that I had on my next slide. Grrr. To be expected I guess, he is an expert on Berlusconi. Kids in my class afterwords were shocked at how calm I was, and that I actually used all my time. An audience of ten is nothing after an audience of over two-hundred. To be fair, if I was giving a thirty minute presentation in not my native tongue, I would have been way more panicky.

In the evening I had a fantastic mandatory meeting that I had to go to. My program was having "re-orientation." Basically, they went over all the rules they told us our first week here. They also talked, at nauseam, about culture shock and reverse culture shock. Well, I have news for them. Its not all that shocking over here. Laundry takes a year and half to do (yes mother, I know I am speaking in hyperbole *sigh*), but that is about it. Nearly everywhere they speak English. Then they fed us nasty pizza. Icky caf food. So glad I opted to cook my own meals this semester.

Today we had an awesome debate on the use of cluster weapons in my law class. I was arguing that the US could use them. I sort of confused my prof and the class by using debate lingo, whoops. I said we (my team) was arguing the negative, all I got was blank stares. Then I said, the opposite of the resolution, again, blank stares. In a last ditch attempt I said, we are arguing that the US can legally use cluster weapons, then they got it. The whole time this was happening, I was picturing how Claire (a debater friend of mine) would have reacted to this. The answer, not well. Those arguing the affirmative (US can't use cluster weapons) brought up an invalid argument concerning a treaty that the US should be abiding by. I sort of lit into them. It was a treaty that we had not ratified, therefore, the US is not in violation of international law. I continued that there was no universally accepted definition of cluster munitions and until one was arrived at this debate could not truly take place. First rule of debate, define your terms. Second rule, know your facts. They did not. Fail.

The rest of the afternoon I spent reading and researching. Yeah for productivity.

For dinner I felt like a taste of home so I whipped up a burger. I adorned it with spinach, tomatoes, onions, pepper-jack cheese (a most scrumptious find), and mayo and mustard. Things I lacked, a legitimate bun. Despite that, I feel like it was delicious, and dare I say better than the Burger-Meister-Meister-Burger's (aka. lil' Jim.....now that he is 24 and officially old that name seems ill-suited). Yes, yes that was a throw down. We shall have a grill-off upon my return to the states (which a friend informed me is only fifty days away...*gasp*).

Parentals get here in a week. Yippee!!! I am so excited to eat the peanut butter and oatmeal they will bring me..... wait.... I mean, I am so excited to see them and show them around town! Yeah, the second one, definitely *nervous laugh*.