Debate Tournament

My debaters had their first debate tournament this weekend. I am very proud of them. It's hard to watch people that you have trained competing. I am so much more nervous for them than I am before I give a speech!

There were a lot of humorous one-liners, but I was rolling on the floor for the "This house believes that police officers should not entrap pedophiles" debate. Both teams consistently throughout the round pronounced 'pedophiles' as "Philadelphias".

I started my Mandarin classes last night. The first few days will be terribly boring, as we will be learning the pinyin system. My classmates are quite interesting. One is a helicopter engineer from Finland who flies helicopters for wealthy people between Macau and Hong Kong; another is a Las Vegas transplant (exotic dancer), others are from Japan, Portugal, Mongolia, Brazil, etc. so it's like the UN of language courses. A psychology phD student asked for my help in editing his dissertation, which I am excited about.

Hope all's well wherever you are :)