It was towards the end of the month of December 2010 that the librarian at our school came to us with the news of the launch of this years' MUN Global Classrooms at the Lebanese American University.
It was the first year our school participates at the event and it was only thanks to the insistence of our librarian on the importance of the students of our school to get the opportunity to take part in the event that out school officials agreed on entering the competition.
At first, the whole thing was a complete blur.
When Elianne (the librarian) first introduced the project all she said was that it was in English, that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity (literally since we were only allowed to participate once), that we had to attend seven training sessions set on the LAU campus in Beirut and that seven lucky winners of the first prize would be flown to NYC.
I was hesitant about putting my name up for participation at first mainly because of the problem of lack of transportation; I was sure even though my aunt had a car she would never agree to drive me to and from Beirut each weekend for two months. Everyone in class encouraged me to put my name in anyway and figure something out later. After many considerations, I finally decided I would do it and signed up to become an MUNer (as we started calling ourselves later on :P)
The first step for me was to try to find out how I would be going to these training sessions. I still had no idea when they were going to take place; the days, the time. I had no idea what was required, and every time I trying to ask Elianne about these details she would tell me that he would let us in on all the details in time. I trusted her and focused on finding a ride to the university and eventually found out that when of my classmates who lived in Kfarchima was participating as well and ended up going to the training sessions with him in the following months.
Our first training session, as we later found out, was set to take place on January 8th.
When we first got to the university, on a particularly rainy day, we could just feel the excitement in the air. It was everyone's first (and only) time taking part in this and it was clearly no one had any idea what lay ahead.
The first shock was seeing that all the other schools had sent officials and teachers to monitor the students, in addition to advisers (students who took part in MUN in previous years). Everyone looked organized and more or less prepared, and there we were, ten students from SSCC Hadath standing in the middle of enormous crowds with no idea what we were supposed to do. Elianne had obviously dismissed the necessity of accompanying us and found almost offensive that we called her and asked her why she hadn't come along and whether she was going to at all that day.
The rest of the day was far more interesting...We were divided into groups in class (purple classroom and proud :P) and mine was absolutely the best. We called our group sushi for some reason and spent the rest of the day (even after the group activity was over) laughing and "innocently" making fun of the stupidest things. It was probably just the nerves but at the end of the day we all felt like we had known each other for a lifetime and not just a few hours. The best part was definitely the fact that all 69 faces (:P what luck hun?!) were new; no two schoolmates were assigned to the same classroom.
That was the best end I could have hope for for that day.
I got everyone's phone number and we still talk from time to time.
(The story is still far from over but I think it would be better that I write it in small passages to avoid readers' boredom :P)
Stay tuned...
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