“Oh, hey, there you are,” said a Nigerian beauty with a head covered in dreads.

“Hey, Lunga. How’s it going?” I greeted her with a warm hug.

“Hey, this is Lana. She’s in Team 1 of our squad. Lana, this is Faz.” she turned to her beautiful blonde companion.

“Hi, there” she said to me with an extended hand and a strange Australian accent. “Lana. So you’re Faz?”

“Yeah, that’s how I usually introduce myself. Enjoying yourself?” I returned her gracious gesture. Both ladies are of the same squad of a certain Thai university.

“This is the guy I told you about.” said Lunga.

“Oh really? So you’re that newbie I’ve been hearing about.”

“I’m sorry?”

I had absolutely NO idea how to react.

“Yeah,” said Lunga “he hasn’t debated like, for ages? And this Australs is like, the first time he got back in action?”

“Yeah, yeah?” replied Lana. I could only watch helplessly as the two ladies continued to gossip about me, right in my face.

“He’s the guy I told you about? The guy who scared the living shit out of my skin?”

I was like, whoa. What did you say?

“I scared you?” I asked, very curious about that remark.

“You know, Faz. At least 3 teams have been talking about how they got completely shocked half to death from the speech of a newbie third speaker.” said Lana.

“I myself have heard first-hand accounts of the experience.” she continued.

Lunga excitedly picked up. “You know what he did? See, if he was, like, the second instead of the third speaker, he could’ve, like, completely and easily fucked up 3 teams and got them the win.”

For the record, there were eight preliminary rounds, and we only won two. Many factors came into play, but it doesn’t matter now.

“When you spoke, Faz, we were expecting a calm, steady rebuttal. Cause’ that’s what your earlier two speakers were like, you know? But then, you were like, BOOM! Like, a fucking car bomb just exploded in our faces and you went like, into this really high-adrenaline nerve-racking series of rebutts and attacks.”

I was honestly surprised.

“It was like, we were all nanana, nanana, then suddenly BOOM, BANG, BANG, BOOM, BANG, BOOM, BOOM, POW! and we were like, what the fuck just happened? Did he just, like, trampled all over us? It’s like a bloody steamroller burst out from behind the fucking curtains!”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard about that from Team 3, too! That steamroller thing!”

“And when we went out for a chat he was like ‘I only started like, a week before the Australs’? We were like, what the fuck?”

“Whoa, ladies. Did I really do that?” I honestly didn’t notice.

“Don’t get cocky with me, guy. It was the last round of the night, everyone was drained and tired and heads hung low, and suddenly you came and went like WHAM! and snapped everyone straight on their seats!”

I kinda knew that I managed to grab people’s attention when it mattered, but I screwed up and did what a third speaker wasn’t supposed to do. Lana went on and said,

“You seriously scared the hell out of at least three other newbie teams. The adjudicators I’ve spoken to were actually sorry that they had to penalize you for messing up your role, and they all penalized you on the same basis. It’s either role fulfillment failure or a screwed up time management. They honestly like your speeches because your voice has the ability to excite people and make them listen to you.”

“People don’t really talk much about newbies, cause it’s a common thing, right.” said Lunga, “But this Australs, the name Faz will probably be remembered as the most exciting newbie of the tournament.”

I was speechless. I tried to thank them for the compliments but I was truly out of words to describe how I felt then.

“If you could do that without training, I think in just two or three months of regular training, you should be able to take on the Oz and Kiwi teams and be at par with them.”

I just got back from an exhausting party that marked the end of the prelims and announcements of which teams qualify for the second stage of the tournament to compete for the trophy. None of our teams, even our best ones, qualified and the entire MMU squad was quite demoralized and disappointed.

I can understand their frustration. It’s been a lot of hard work, blood, sweat, tears piled on years upon years for the sake of passion for debating. It’s almost a shame that I don’t share the same kind of passion.

Then again, I have more passionate things to care about. It’s a bittersweet decision for me, but as of today, my debating career has come to an end. I have a responsibility to a club that I honestly love, and I’m also responsible for a new club that I’ve been working on.

Thanks, Voices, for the great breakaway and priceless learning and growth experiences. I feel really bad to unfairly leave you all like this, but I have greater passions and greater responsibilities to fulfill.

Good luck for the next tournaments, guys! MMU Rocks!