Ithica College

This blog entry is about the great couple of days we spent at Ithica College, which is located in one of the most beautiful parts of up-state New York.

Having spent a few days at Cornell with our ol’ pal Alex Just, and our hero-host Sam Nelson, we travelled a very short distance across the city of Ithica to Ithica college where we were met by our new host Scott Thompson.

We dropped our bags of in the guest-house and made our way to the college. We were scheduled to have four debates over two days, all of which were on the motion ‘This House Believes the sun is setting on America, and rising on China” We were the government so went through the SBS World Guide (AKA The Infamous Book of lies!) every copy of the Economist we could find and all of the research material Wikipedia and Google had to offer.

The first debate was in the afternoon and our audience included a mix of students and some local retirees who were part of a debate programme Scott runs in the community. As government for all four debates Ben and I tried out our arguments about Chinese oil strategy, foreign policy and manufacturing industry. Aside from one audience member being slightly disturbed by our support for Chinese repression the debate was a great success!

We were invited for a dinner at a great Italian restaurant, which reminded us of England before suiting up and heading to the high-profile public debate back at College. Once again the audience were impressed with our research, but specifically there was a resident professor of Chinese government, from China, who graciously contributed her expertise at the end of the round.

That evening we met Scott’s wife who is from Mexico, and family, back at their home in Ithica. We were given all sorts of traditional Mexican tequila which is apparently, supposed to be sipped neat. We had a really fun night and even got a bottle as gift to enjoy during our trip! Thanks again!

The next day we got a full tour of the college, which is built on one of the most attractive landscapes in America. We finished up with two final debates for communication theory classes, after which we talked about some of the tactics we use for public speaking. The students had some really great questions about England, tuition fees, the London riots, and my personal favourite Harry Potter!

Upon completion we drove towards our next destination, Colgate University, and were welcomed by British Weather. The snow started to fall that late evening, as Scott’s children taught us some Spanish and we travelled to our next destination, exited about continuing the best tour ever!