Just had an assessment for one of my politics classes and it was in debate form.  Our moot was "that the Tino-rangatiratanga flag represents all New Zealanders" and I was affirming that.  DIFFICULT MUCH?! I wanted to make the point, during my presentation, that it is always much easier to find racist rhetoric unseating any positive affirmations of Maori-ness than it is otherwise but ran out of time and my team members weren't keen on it '-_-'.  

Anyway, I wrote my transcript up an hour before the debate because the evening before (when I started writing it up) I fell asleep...AFTER helping my two team members with their presentations i.e. I had this great slideshow idea which due it its relevance to our first speaker's speaking points was delegated to her...SHE BETTER HAVE GIVEN ME CREDIT IN THE TRANSCRIPT OF HER SPEECH SHE HANDED IN.

I digress...my speech was about the definition of Tino-rangatiratanga as being something akin to, if not completely, self-determination and how as a universal notion this couldn't be argued to apply just to Maori...ergo arguments that the Maori-ness of the name mean it's applicable only to Maori and does not represent all New Zealanders...

That only took up a few minutes so the rest of my 6minute allocation I spent lambasting the negating team (I was 3rd speaker so while all their speakers before me were presenting I was furiously scribbling notes on points I could bring them up on).  

I'm getting to the point of this post now.

Afterwards, we were all congratulated but a day later I received comments like "oh we all wish we had your brain"...this next comment prompted me to write this: "[insert name] didn't know you were so intelligent"        '-_______-'  GEE THANKS So I've been here for two years giving off the impression that I'm ignorant and inarticulate?  

I would have settled for a "great presentation, I can appreciate the points you made' because when you say things like "...didn't know you were intelligent" the implication there is that before the presentation I had written you off as UNINTELLIGENT.

rant over.