mde2001 Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 Hello there Rebornians! Mde here, with a recount of my time in the country many of you call home. So over the last week and a half I was in the USA, mostly for the purpose of attending NHSMUN, the largest model united nations competition in the world. There were over 3500 delegates from countries all over from the world at the conference! So after spending an entire day travelling over a day to get to New York we arrived at our hotel at 11:30 at night before heading out to get dinner. Anyway, the next day the conference began. We headed out to Times Square for breakfast before being told we could go shopping for a couple of hours... you probably don't know this about me, but I detest shopping with a passion. So after being bored for hours, my torture was over and we headed off to the Museum of Modern Art. When I find an art gallery a nice change, you know I hate the previous activity. But to be fair, MOMA was actually pretty interesting and had some great art. Then after attending a training session, we had the opening ceremony. We were lucky enough to have Samantha Power (the united states ambassador) as a guest speaker. She was incredibly interesting so I felt really lucky to hear her speak. After the ceremony was over we began the first committee session. I was on the Special Political and Decolonization committee (SPECPOL), which was the largest committee in the conference with around 450 people (several of whom were partners representing a single country). My school was representing Yemen, and I was alone on my committee which was a little intimidating as there were people several years older than me. However, once we got down to business things got more interesting. The first session wasn't the most interesting as a large percentage of it was setting the agenda. We had two issues that we had researched being the Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan, and the Palestinian Refugee situation. After many speeches, our committee selected the latter, and through a series of moderated caucus sessions, we began to work out the other delegates general positions. However, I was still pretty jet lagged at this point so I didn't contribute very much. The next day we got to meet the actual Yemeni diplomats at their embassy, which was amazing. We were initially talking to a senior economic adviser, until the Yemeni ambassador returned from briefing the Security Council about the current humanitarian situation in Yemen. All of the diplomats there were prepared to answer our questions and speak really honestly to us. It is something I will remember for the rest of my life. We walked home via central park, to go to our next committee session. I was less tired this time, and got much more involved this time. I found a bloc to work with, led by the Netherlands, and started to draft possible solutions with the other delegates. This session was a lot of fun as it allowed us to start to get our ideas together. After a short break we had another session, where we put together out working papers, which was a way to put all of ours ideas down in resolution format. We merged with a group lead by Turkmenistan to create a working paper with about 60 sponsors/ signatories. We moved onto debate over the working papers (which were distributed to the whole committee), and eventually we merged with two other groups as well. With these new groups, we were ready to move onto writing draft resolutions, which was harder to contribute to as there were now so many people. None the less, with the ideas of so many people with different perspectives, we were able to create a really comprehensive solution. The only other draft resolution that was being written was lead by the delegates for Iran, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Swaziland and North Korea. They took a much more radical approach than our paper. The next day the draft resolutions were distributed, then we moved onto some debate over the content of the draft resolutions, followed by the drafting of amendments. These were either passed or failed to put the draft resolutions into their final forms. Then we moved onto the final vote. In the end the other draft resolution was failed, and our one was passed. This was really exciting as we had worked really hard! We were in committee for 17 hours in total which was grueling but a lot of fun. The delegate dance was next, which I went to for about 6 minutes because these things are my torture as I hate loud music, crowds and flirty teenagers. Those of you who were on the sever that night would have known about my massive sleeping problems that night, as they experienced my ranting then. Anyway, the next day we moved onto the closing ceremony. This was in the actual general assembly hall of the united nations which was incredible! The ceremony itself was a bit dull, but being in the actual hall was incredible. Then we went and did more shopping (we shopped for about 9 hours in New York). We were going to go to the Museum of Natural Science, but it was crowded and everyone else complained and made us leave After this we moved to Washington. The first night we did the Monuments tour and went around seeing a lot of cool stuff. It was nice seeing it all again because I lived in Washington for 2 months like 5 years ago. The next morning we went to the Smithsonians. We spent two hours in the Air and Space Museum and an hour in the Museum of Natural History. I loved this, but if was made difficult by the fact that everyone else complained the whole time. We went off to the Capitol, which was amazing as well! It was a great morning. Then we went to Macy's (ew) and spent ages in there. Followed by us going back to the hotel. The next morning we went to the Renwick, which was an incredible modern art gallery that blew me away. Following this, we had a quick photo stop outside the White House before heading off to the airport to fly home! Overall, it was an experience I will remember for the rest of my life. If anyone has any questions I'd love to answer them. I was going to put in some more detail, but this post would be too long if I put in too much. Mde Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spineblade Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 Sounds like you had a pretty amazing trip, mde! I once tried to get into MUN, but it wasn't very organised at my school so I kind of lost interest after a while. My brother was more involved and he went to a Dublin conference on two occasions, but they were on a much smaller scale compared this one from the sound of it. A random question popped into my head; although you hate shopping, did you actually buy anything? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mde2001 Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 Nope. Despite spending many hours in shops, I refused to buy anything (partly because the Australian dollar is really bad at the moment so everything in America is super expensive. Also I didn't really feel like I needed anything. If I had seen something I really liked I would have bought it, but we spent most of our times in expensive male fashion stores/ sports stores so I didn't want anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exalted Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 illl be honest when read the title i envisioned a dedenne running around washington. now sounds like a fun trip to me it got me curious thoug what do you want to become when you grow up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Elliot Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 the largest model united nations competition in the world I demand pics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red_Chaos Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 *feels bad that she has never been to New York or Washington* I can't believe they didn't take you to the Statue of Liberty or Broadway or heck even a Knicks game :S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mde2001 Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 illl be honest when read the title i envisioned a dedenne running around washington. now sounds like a fun trip to me it got me curious thoug what do you want to become when you grow up That is an amazing mental image! In terms of what I want to do when I grow up, my first plan is to become a teacher (focusing on English, History and Politics) but I would also be interested in more of a diplomacy/ united nations job. I demand pics. I wish I could, but unfortunately I was an idiot who forgot to take photos. I'll see if any of my friends have pictures, but for now I can't *feels bad that she has never been to New York or Washington* I can't believe they didn't take you to the Statue of Liberty or Broadway or heck even a Knicks game :S We walked up broadway to go to a 7-11 if that counts... I wish we had seen a show too! We should have seen the statue of liberty but shopping got in the way. Some people went off to a basketball game, but I had no interest so I didn't go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaciturnPhoenix Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 If you ever become a politician of some sort, you should create a Reborn based political party that promises free Blue Moon Ice Cream for everyone~ Anyway, I really don't have any questions. Hope you enjoyed your time in America! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maelstrom Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 Nope. Despite spending many hours in shops, I refused to buy anything (partly because the Australian dollar is really bad at the moment so everything in America is super expensive. Also I didn't really feel like I needed anything. If I had seen something I really liked I would have bought it, but we spent most of our times in expensive male fashion stores/ sports stores so I didn't want anything. It's not so much that America is expensive is that New York is expensive. And nobody important likes basketball anyways. =P But yeah, the museums down in DC are legit. I've been twice. Shame they ruined it by all complaining and shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monochrome_Complex Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 What a delightful read. I know no idea you were involved in something like this, much respect! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cool Girl Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 I'm so happy you enjoyed your trip to America! I really like Washington D.C! I also visited monuments while there. I went there for my 8th grade history trip. The day before we left, they said Hurricane Sandy. Thank god, we left before Hurricane Sandy happened! I moved to the US from France. I remember the first my family moved to the US, they had culture shock. I was pretty shy, back then, but little by little, we really enjoy America. I'll admit it, I enjoy it more than France. People in the US treat each other with respect while in France, I was treated like crap by my teachers! Anyways, so glad you enjoyed your trip! Hope you can find some pictures, would love to see them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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