The MUN experience -part two-

Welcome to the second part of "The MUN experience".

As of January 8th 2011 I was an MUNer.

Training session after training session I got to meet all sorts of people and go through all sorts of phases. I can't say I took it that seriously at first. There were definitely a couple of session solely dedicated to laughter and idiocy, but as we went further through the program, and as the time for assessment neared, I got more focused and considerably more aware of the fact that I had no idea how things were going to happen in the dreaded "Final Conference" when we were going to be evaluated.

To top it all off, Elianne (the librarian) was of absolutely no help; she knew absolutely nothing, couldn't tell us anything helpful and boldly acted like a know-it-all once the university sent her the guidelines that we were to follow in said or said matter. The times I wanted to just slap her in the face!!

Despite all of that, things were going remotely well. I still had no idea what the exam was exactly and how it was going to happen but that changed after a few weeks when Elianne announced that we had to choose which countries we would like to represent in the final conference where we would play the role of ambassadors each in a different committee.

My class wasn't really involved in the first part of the process since the older kids saw Elianne more and worked with her on it. It's not that we couldn't have payed the effort to see her during lunch brakes, but the sight of her when we were so infuriated by her indifference and unbearable character wasn't recommended to anyone.

The day finally came when we had to choose which country we wanted to represent and in which committee. The choices were Senegal and Saint Kitts and Nevis; a small island which I later found out I wasn't the only one to have never heard of. I ended up choosing the latter and the General Assembly 2nd Committee - Economic Financial as my committee. The choice was a completely random one with the next step being doing research about my country and the two topics addressed by my committee "Eradication of Poverty" and "Development of the Private Sector". The catch was that we had to do thorough research about both topics but only one would be discussed after a voting procedure.

I started my research soon after the mock simulation which was sort of a rehearsal for the real thing. All the students were there and the chairman that was supervising us then was the same one to be assessing us during the final conference.

The mock simulation went great. I made even more friends and laughed a lot but the best part was definitely that I had acquired a more concrete idea of what we were supposed to do and how we were supposed to behave.

All that was ahead now was the final conference, the last piece of the puzzle and the most important one.

Stay tuned...