It was an early start - dragged up at 6:00 a.m. to get the Matthew's bus to Whitehall. However, it wasn't to be. Ryan was just awakening from his slumber around 7:00 when we phoned him so we patiently waited and got the 7:30 bus. Even so, Ryan nearly managed to miss it again and had to run to catch the bus ! The moral of the story - a contingency plan is always worth the extra 5 minutes it takes to come up with it.

We found the RCSI Smurfit building quite quickly, navigating treacherous icy paths and dubiously signposted housing estates to reach it. The Santa Sabina girls proved to be a very strong and polished proposition. We had our speeches well rehearsed, however, with Conor providing a dash of humour and Fritz putting the factual icing on the cake. On the day, though, it just wasn't to be. Apparently words such as 'evil' and 'soul' constitute emotive language. Who knew!

Afterwards we played the gracious losers and wished the girls, who seemed like thoroughly decent people, well in the subsequent rounds of the competition... hoping to have the honour, at least of being beaten by the eventual national champions! Incidentally, Ryan collected a hug from each of the nine girls against us, but was denied one by Fiona (the organiser) - it would be slightly inappropriate, after all.
As a consolation prize, Fiona gave us an impromptu and fascinating tour of her laboratory. We got to see microlitre pipettes and cell cultures... it was all very exciting as you can imagine. Then, all cheered up by Fiona and her colleague "Izzy", we took the bus in to the city and made the small stroll to the ambassador to see the Bodies exhibition. While not exactly appealing, it was still a fascinating experience. Very educational all the same.

The display seemed to be intended to raise people's awareness of cancer and general health as there were a lot of blotchy, disgusting-looking cancerous tissues, including cancer of the... let's not go there.

Also on offer was an exhibit of embryos at various stages of development which managed to amaze and disturb simultaneously.
Afterwards we had a bite to eat in the luxury establishment that is Supermacs, then caught the 14:00 bus (on time) back for 3:30; too late for school, but not too late for applied maths - well for some!

F.Dunne, C.Manning
(6th Year Science Debating Team)