Sunday, March 7, 2010
This is my hundred post! A milestone, I would say. I just came back from Overseas family school Model United Nations, and it was really fun, and I am not exaggerating that fact. Trust me.
A little background information, I was in the Disarmament council, and I was representing Brazil along side Xin Jie. Preparation for this MUN was surprisingly easy, and I was quite surprised through out the debate.
First day: We did opening speeches, and me and Xin Jie had a little squabble about who should present the opening speech, his justification being it was his, thus he had every right to do so. I was reluctant to do so, but I gave in the end. I would be proven to make a good decision, for throughout the whole debate, I did 95% of the talking while Xin Jie did the opening speeches and 4 points of informations. XD. I didn't really understand the protocol and screwed up a little, and thus I only suggested only one amendment, which I will elaborate on later on . the day then started with lobbying, where delegates attempt to co-submit draft resolutions, and also to merge draft resolutions. I wanted to join the USA, Ghana, United Kingdom group, but found myself somewhat unfamiliar with them for they were "ang mohs". I decided then to group with delegates of Egypt, Netherlands, Mali (who left his draft resolution at home, but since we needed 7 people, we just added him), Denmark, Thailand and France. We merged draft resolutions, and I was unanimously chosen to be the main submitter, and the one who was going to be present. That was what you get when people know you are a debater. I also found myself gaping at the awesomeness of their computer labs. Their computer labs, for your information, were chock full of iMacs. Huge. Enormous. White.
The day then proceeded with lunch, then the committees in session. I found myself not talking much, but after a while, I started to understand the protocol more. I found myself asking POIs, and after a while, thought that I should submit an amendment, which orginally read "banning the use, production and transportation of landmines from country to country" to "restricting the use.... blah blah blah". Nobody objected, all they asked was some point of information. Then, I presumed that they were going to vote for my draft resolution. However when the voting process came, only 4 people voted for my resolution, and 20 people voted against the motion. I was really pissed off, and went home really pissed off.
The second day, which is today, was much better, Firstly, we had the whole day to debate the motion, and that was really good. Secondly, I was much more prepared, and was more knowledgeable in terms of protocol. Thus, this resulted in me pointing much much more, speaking much more, and talking much faster and being more stylistically competent. When it was my turn to present the draft resolution, it went on for two hours, without it getting too boring, especially thanks to the delegate of the Philippines, who suggested that the way to get rid of landmines was to use specially trained mice. The delegate of Cambodia ( that dumb guy), counted out the number of mice needed to deactivate (which means activate the landmines and blow themselves up) the landmines, which came up to 230 million mice, and that number of mice was used to deactivate the mines in Egypt only, which had around an estimated number of 23 million mines. If Egypt required 240 million mice to deactivate 23 million mines, then what about the rest of the world? A point to think about.
I went home, satisfied and happy, for I had made more friends, had lots of fun and knew more about what was going on in the world, and what was going on in people's mind. Especially those dumb people.
ending
6:56 PM
