Mr Smith just sent me an email saying we were ranked fifth after this year's debating championships. When I say "we", I mean the juniors. For some reason, after this year I'm quite reluctant to associate myself too closely with the society's current members. I'm a bit of an elitist I guess.

Fifth. That's quite surprising to me actually, because it means the school is back at its usual status in the debating world. For years now we've constantly been ranked fifth. Only last year did we manage to break into the top four, after a five-year drought. I think all the ruckus surrounding the dismal state of the team made me think they were much worse off than they are. If I look at it relatively speaking, however, then it seems fine, cos the rankings reflect a recurrent trend.

Of course, we all know that just because the ratings stay the same doesn't mean the quality's been maintained. The ranking is in fact, nominal, you might say, while in terms of real ranking the quality has gone down tremendously. It's a nationwide trend I guess. It merely confirms what I've suspected all along, that Singapore is in for a hard time next year at the world championships. It's really puzzling. Maybe in years to come 2006 will be labelled "The Lost Generation" for national debating. Unless, of course, this year's batch is merely the tip of the iceberg, in which case we're all in for a really bumpy ride.