MUN
Log 001 - 2/7/2003 - 23:00
Hey
there, this is the second day of the MUN conference and I'm just feeling
that I should talk about what's going on here (actually I'm writing this
because the current session has fallen as close to pointless circular
debate as it can get). This is the 15th Model United Nations of the
University of Chicago, or, MUNUC XV as it is called and overall, I am very
impressed by what is presented in the overall format--it is very well
organized and has made a generally positive stab at professionalism. The
current delegations come from 16 states and 3 countries--93 schools
representing 136 nations/ non-governing bodies--so it’s a pretty big
conference. The purpose of MUN is to increase awareness of the duties and
responsibilities of the United Nations by having each delegation represent
a nation in the UN and act in committees where we attempt to pass
resolutions according to what our nation would have done. I’m in
the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural committee—one of the largest, and
conversely the most boring of them all. Our two topics are “achieving
sustainable development through eco-tourism” and “care for the
elderly”—not necessarily the most exciting things to debate about for
22 hours. It’s my first year here so I've really spent a lot of time
getting to know the rules and mechanics of MUN. I personally think that...
no... I know that I have not participated as well as I want, could, and
should have, (maybe because my partner Megan ditched me--actually,
she got sick just before the conference, but it still meant I was all by
myself)--I'll do
better next year, when I’m really ready. ("May we have decorum
please?") But really, right now I've been sitting in this session for
nearly four hours (eight damned hours for the day) the only things that
I can talk about are highly irrelevant and can be labeled as BS. Ah
well... I'll talk more about what's been going on later.
Okay
never mind--the moderator just ruled a move for an informal unmoderated
session as dilatory.
MUN
Log 002 - 2/8/2003 - 15:22
Okay...
Lets see... woke up at around 9:12 today missed about half of the first
committee session (4th overall) and was totally lost for the duration of
the session. Big deal... Its not like I missed much (we've only been
debating the same topic for the previous 11 hours...). I soooooooo can
feel the bureaucracy of the United Nations.
MUN
Log 003 2/8/2003 16:25
Hey
hey! Let me talk some more about the background of what's going on here.
You might be one of those people that question the purpose of the UN and
don't quite believe that the UN can do anything that matters. I used to
believe that and to some extent still do. The UN didn't end all wars,
poverty still runs rampant through two-thirds of the globe, and countries
still openly defy the UN resolutions that are passed. But I've also come
to realize a lot of new things over the past year of my heightened
interest in international affairs. The UN really isn't and was never meant
to be a world governing body or even a world regulatory body--at the time
of its inception in 1947, its was created to prevent the world from
plunging into another world war. The Cold War Era is now often seen as an
era of irrelevance for the
UN, but in truth it accomplished what it was created to do--preserve the
peace. This is visibly true in the Cuban Missile Crisis. The UN provided a
constantly existing conduit for diplomacy during that time, which probably
would not have materialized without it. Over the years, the UN's role in
the international stage has expanded but it does not have any power that
individual sovereign nations give it. The UN itself is not a
"power". Despite what an increasingly larger number of people
seem to believe, the UN is doing well with its fundamental reason for
being: preventing the world from plunging into another world war, and
preserving the world peace. The UN brings nations together and fosters an
international community where nations can readily agree and disagree on
various topics through open dialogue. I am all for ideal of international
cooperation for the common good of humanity—and though it may seem
completely idealistic, I do believe that there is a good deal of logical
reasoning involved. Just as humans did in creating government, nations are
beginning to realize that there is much more to benefit with the
relinquishing of some sovereignty for a world order that would be in the
best interests of the entire human world. The long-term future of humanity
depends on this ever-growing sense of internationalism and I believe that
the UN is the global body to begin this transition from a state oriented
order to an international community order. But enough of this, I’m here
to talk about MUN.
The
delegate from Cuba has been really friendly since I first spoke in the
second session (just stuff like gestures of physical support, light hugs
and such). While this wouldn't really be anything worth noting in normal
situations, it does raise an interesting question about the nature of and
methods of achieving a political goal. Is she really being friendly or is
utilizing her 'femininity'? Ah, whatever. (for my future information, the
delegation of Cuba is from Bartlet HS). Also being cordial is the
delegation from Poland (Monona Grove HS), Portugal (William Fremd HS,
Palatine), Iraq (Kirksville HS), and Fiji (also from Kirksville).
MUN
Log 004 - 2/9/2003 - 01:48
Well...
tonight was an interesting night. I really should be sleeping but bah... I
should be getting ready for school. Things went well across the board
today. Really important is that I spoke on occasions when I had points to
make for the last session. Bah. Too tired... I gotta get this out... Arrgh!!!
Okay forget it... Waaaaay too tired--gotta wake up early tomorrow morning
for the final committee session. Will talk about Laura tomorrow.
Actually,
I’ll talk about Laura now. Laura A. W., a freshman from William Fremd
HS, in Palatine. I had seen her once…some time before—on the elevator
I know of… well anyway. Though she didn’t make it really evident at
first, she’s really smart, and not only that—she knows it and liked to
flaunt it subtly—proud and really strong about herself. That’s a good
thing, as far as I’m concerned and I wasn’t intimidated—I myself
have plenty of skills and abilities to be proud of. Well, she was REALLY
smart, and she knew it. She was taking a whole slew of honors classes, in
the top 3-5% of her class. She was also in French 2 (honors French 2, what
the hell…), another commonality between us. She asked for my “phone
number” so I have her my cell phone number—of course, then she’s
like, nonono your ROOM number! Whatever… so I then give her my room
number. And I also found out that she had to leave immediately because of
a dinner arrangement she had. That’s all I’m gonna say for now.
MUN
Log 005 – 2/10/2003 18:50
Okay,
I’m really behind now. MUN ended about 28 hours ago, but let me
recollect what happened. Okay let’s see… oh yes, and funny thing
happened on… the fifth committee meeting, so that would be
Saturday—I’ll talk about that in a bit. I was really bored after
about… the seventh hour of committee meetings that day, so I started
sending notes out. I sent one to the Republic of Korea (turned out to be
from an inner-city school with a lot of stupid openmouthed morons—what a
disgrace), Saudi Arabia—who I was really engaged with in debate, but
later trailed off—and Poland, two more girls whom I got semi-acquainted
with. During one of the informal unmoderated sessions (where you can get
up from your seat and confer with other delegations) I got semi-acquainted
with a Tajikistan delegate from my committee (female, freshman, about
5’3”-ish, not necessarily in order of importance)—makes me a lot
happier to know that I have a few acquaintances in committee now. We were
talking about various things, such as where in hell Myanmar is, about our
wonderful dictators (not—really messed up is more like it). While we
were talking, complaining, an interesting topic came up: “what would the
real representatives think of us as being simulated representatives
of their respective countries?” It’s a really interesting thought—MUNUC
is a pretty well known conference—considering that Kofi Annan himself
sent a message to us—and I’m sure that at least some people from other
countries have at least a passing interest in how things turn out here. If
that’s true, then I hope that I made a good Myanmar representative. Her
name was Teresa, from a boarding school in or around Detroit. Really
friendly. After the informal session was over, we walked back over—she
asked where I was sitting, and said that she would send a note. I claimed
that I would send one to her first. This is where I sorta screwed up. In
my rush to send out a letter, I sort of combined Laura and Teresa in my
head—first of all, I wrote it in French, cuz Laura was in French. I
wrote something along these lines.
------------------------------------
Tajikistan-
Haha
I think I beat you!
Qu’est-ce
que tu fais ce soir?
J
hehe…
Alex of Myanmar
------------------------------------
This
could have easily been the worst screw up of my MUN experience—I really
had just gotten to know Teresa and I definitely would not have sent her
this note yet if I had realized who I was really sending it to. In my
head, I was sending it to Laura, whom I knew a little better, and was more
comfortable with making such jokes. The first bad sign was when some
people started reading my not-so-innocent note it instead of passing it
directly. I was sort of tempted reacquire the note and send it again, but
then I decided that it would probably eventually get to her. It wasn’t
until AFTER she read it that I realized that I made a slight mistake.
There really wasn’t anything I could do. I wasn’t even sure if she
knew how to read French, so I took some little comfort there. Of course,
as it turned out, she COULD read French, and not only that, her PARTNER
could read French TOO! It was really a sort of inwardly embarrassing
moment, but I did my best to vindicate myself of any misdoings. When I
asked her if she could read French, she just nodded and said “I knew
what you were trying to say.” Good sign? Bad sign? I was just thinking
that the worst ting that could happen would be the alienation of a
potential friend because of my stupid mistake, which I hid soooo well.
THANKFULLY, she didn’t seem too bothered by it—the most critical
inquiry she made was “you didn’t write this did you?” pointing to a
new sentence on the note I sent her saying “i think youre ugly”. I
said something like, “haha, I see my note mutated on its way over to you.” And that
was it. After that, I thought, hmm… well maybe this is a good thing.
(sigh of relief).
DINNER
TIME! I decided to go with Dhru’s little group and Sabahat’s gang for
dinner (FYI the whole rouster was… Dhru, Alexis, Zaineb, Erin, another
Erin, Sabahat, Aki, and myself). Sabahat (or someone else from her party)
asked if I wanted to go see some symphony featuring some violinist—I
rejected in the nicest way I could think of; symphonies… Anyway, We went
over to the Italian whatever place for a spot, but had to wait for a while
to see if another party was gonna come or not. Our stay depended on them
not-coming. But then they did (coincidentally, that group happened to be
Laura’s party) and we decided to go to Giordano’s for some pizza. We
went there, ate (I dropped a sizzling hot slice of pizza on my thumb—got
a first-degree burn, otherwise fine.) and then went back to the hotel. I
was considering going to the dance. I got a call from Tyler saying that I
had received a call from some girl representing Portugal asking if I was
going to the dance. So I go back up to our room to listen to the
messages—they were kinda scary and funny at the same time. She happened to have left 5
messages in the course of 15 minutes. The first was started out really
nice: “This message is for Alex—hey this is Laura. I was just
wondering if you were going to the dance. Call me at 7-16-271. Bye!” or
something along those lines. The second one was similar, but at the third
message, things started getting scary. “This is Laura, where the hell
are you. You’re supposed to be there to pick up my call--” and such.
It’s not MY fault that I didn’t get her phone call, I wasn’t even in
the room! Oh ye, and the last one was something like… “Okay if you
don’t call back in 10 minutes, I’m going to come down there and break
you (or hurt you, or something like that).” I was slightly perturbed,
but I re-checked the message to get her room #. And then I called her.
Sigh, well anyway, this is pointless to explain. I went upstairs to her
room, and knocked on her door…
One
of her female friends (Kristi) was there with her, and two guys, who were
both coincidentally also named Alex. They had devised a way of
differentiating between us by giving us all nicknames. The short dude was
named “Just Alex”, the tall dude was “the other Alex”, and I was
affectionately (lol) called “Laura’s Alex”. Well anyway, we
went to the dance—and it was so damn loud that I could NOT communicate
with her all. A similar thing that happened at the previous homecoming
dance happened here—and even the same question: “Why aren’t you
dancing??” Now that I think of it, it is an interesting question. I
think it was really a matter of self-confidence—even at the conference,
I really didn’t want to say anything unless I was sure I had a surefire
plan—and at the dance, I think I just didn’t REALLY dance because I
wasn’t sure if I could do it. Hmm… I think it’s really just a lack
of experience than a lack of will. Or maybe it’s both. Oh yea, “Just
Alex”—he knew what he was doing. As for “other Alex” he was in a
similar predicament as I was. Anyway, I did dance a bit—and then an hour
and half after we left, sort of moseyed out of there. And we pretty much
just talked until the dance neared its closure, and then I decided to go
to her room. And I heard a bunch of funny (to me) about this one roommate
of theirs ("Hell no am I sleeping there! She slept on there with her bare
ass!"). I’m not supposed to be talking about this… mleh!
Well
anyway, I left there soon just before curfew. Laura called the room, by
that time, the rumors had already spread that a crazy girl was after me.
They had a fun time trying to make fun of her. I think she took care of herself
quite nicely.
I’ll
continue this log some other time.
