Friday and Saturday (February 26 & 27) – MUN (Model United Nations) Weekend

Friday

Today was the first day of the big MUN conference.  We were all very excited, even though we didn’t have a single clue what would be going on when we got there.

The first three classes was a triple block of musical practice, but all the Irish students in our year had to take a driver’s test. And the next three were English, Irish, and Geography. Catherin and I didn’t have to go to the driver’s test or Irish and the rest of the MUN group was excused from all their classes. Oh, and our friend’s mom was picking us up at 1:30 to “get ready”, even though it began at 5:30. So up until 1:30, my day consisted of hanging out in the computer room, writing resolutions, helping  others write theirs, and playing on the computer. It was fun to say the least.

We got to the conference excited for the free banquet ahead and that was where the excitement stopped. We quickly went around trying to meet people and make friends. I was on a mission to find the USA team so we could bond.

After the free food, we had to split up into our committees. I had heard that they would make you get up and make a speech about your country in these committees and I was terrified. Turns out the speech was a mere introduction where you had to state your name, country, and what issues you (as in the country) most looks forward to discussing.  Turns out all the work that we attempted to put into our resolutions was useless because we didn’t have to write them.

 Our group finished early so we had a debate on the rights of ginger people. It was really funny because there were several gingers in our room and many people were anti-ginger rights.

After all the committee sessions we had a “late late jazz café”. I know the name makes it sound pretty silly, but it was really fun. It was here where we met all our friends that we have now fallen in love with. I’m not going to lie, about 90% of those friends were made by going up to random people and touching their velvet jackets, super soft hairs, or baby-soft skin. I have learned that this is how you make true friends in life!

Saturday

Today was super fun too. At MUN we have made so many good friends and have had a blast.

When Catherine and I first got there, it was a little intimidating because we couldn’t find our friends and there were so many people there.  But once we found people we knew it was okay. They had free tea, coffee, hot chocolate and muffins. That was a very big plus side to the morning.

Committee sessions started after this and they were really fun/interesting. What we do during those? We basically spent the next three hours of the morning committees debating resolutions that others had made and sent in the night before. We would also propose amendments for those resolutions. Oh, and we had to know our countries so well that we had to vote in our countries favor (this was not an easy task).

After three long hours of debating world resolutions, we had lunch! I was STARVING and all around me were amazed at the massive pile of food that I was able to pile onto my plate. Yes, I do enjoy eating. At lunch I met up with our new friends and our “old” Irish ones from our team. It was a very epic lunch to say the least.

We had another 3 hours of committee in session time. It was LONG. I discovered earlier that if we wrote a note and gave it to a secretary with where we wanted it to go, they would send it to them for us. This was so cool for me because I spent my time in my committee writing fun notes to my friends and of course listening to the debate.  Our committee finished early, so we had a rap-off. This was super fun, and I even got up and did a rap! Just saying, I am a pretty amazing rapper.

We had a short break between our committee and then we had a General Assembly. This means that everyone had to go into the hall to sit in on an “emergency” debate on a superficial crisis that had occurred.  Our table sent notes to people and had a blast doing it.

Throughout the conference there was a newspaper and in the paper was a “love corner”.  People could submit hints for the love corner in the “gossip box”. Let’s just say, the gossip box gave us in the Bolivian team much joy. We wrote so many entries, real and fake, that one of the newspapers practically had an entire gossip section devoted to us.

We made so many friends at the conference and had a great time. I even made a new brother, a ginger pet, and many many loves.