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WUDC Diaries

Tanvir Hafiz

Late Registration, Last minute Visa, 12th hour plain tickets… the list of belated attempts to finally mark Stamford University's first ever appearance in the worlds premiere debating championship, the World Universities Debating Championship 2008, in Assumption University Thailand. We started off as a team of three adjudicators, myself, Abdullah Md. Shukrana and Morshed Hasan Hassib. Sadly, we couldn't get any debater slots to perform there, but given the number of improbable situations that the team had to go through, it was an achievement to be adjudicators and just represent the University in the World Debating Map.

The event was scheduled to start officially on the 27th.But due to some misunderstanding and miscalculation we thought that we had to be there by 26th to register. For some errors, Hassib was not registered as a delegate, so we took a bit of a risk by bringing him with us to Assumption and get him registered once we reached our terminus. Hence we wanted to reach Thailand as early as possible.

After a long wait for the plane to take off we finally reached Bangkok at about 9 pm in local time instead of the scheduled 4 pm. We had asked the organizing committee to send someone in to receive us by email in advance but seeing that we will be late we wondered what will happen to us and was mentally preparing ourselves to spend the night in the airport if we had to. The Independent University Bangladesh (IUB) team was traveling with us in the same flight and Tanvir Haroon assured us that they will see to it that we will all be sticking together so there is nothing to worry about.

Thankfully enough, the welcoming committee, a bunch of diligent students from Assumption waited for us even in the untimely hour of the night to receive us. The Stamford and IUB contingent got onto a luxurious double decker bus and we left for Assumption, who had made arrangement for us to stay in their dorms for two nights.

As the bus entered the campus, we were in for countless surprises. Although most of the lights were out, from what we saw, the campus looked awesome having roman structures. The bus stopped in front of some large buildings, classily named King David, King Solomon and Queen of Sheba which were to be our home for the next 6 days. After the formalities were taken care of we got into our rooms. These rooms were not just dorm rooms but pleasantly resembled a five star hotel room. Each room had climate control, hi speed internet, refrigerator, attached bathroom which facilitated warm water and a great view. We thought if this was the dorm room, then how classy would the classrooms be. We were too tired so we said goodbye for the night to each other.

The next day…
Being really tired, we woke up late at ten. We had our breakfast coupons with us. Shukrana and Hassib being the lazy ones refused to wake up so I freshened up and started for the breakfast place in AU (Assumption University) Mall. On the way I passed the other dorm buildings, the football field and the tennis lawns. The air was somewhat cool although the sun showed early promises to burn down the earth within an hour. The weather felt different in Thailand from Bangladesh. In winter the temperature ranges from 25 to 32 degrees and goes up to 40 in summer. I was thankful that I hadn't brought any winter clothes!

Later in the day the three of us walked around the campus in close vicinity of the dorms enjoying the astonishing beauty of its structures. We visited the aquatic centre and the sports centre, which also housed the indoor basketball stadium and other sporting facility as well as a gym. We talked to the students who told us that the campus was only built one fifth of the AU vision 2016. When the development will be completed with all state of the art facilities it will have a full-fledged stadium within its limit. We talked to Tarique, the tournament director, TJ the convener and other directors. We discussed about Hassib's registration and they assured us that they would look into the matter. We spent another day in the amazing campus, thinking what the next day will have in store for us…

(to be continued)