Taking a quick break from math, I decided to check some photos from two weeks ago. The rush of nostalgic feeling came as I was comparing these weekends and those past weekends. That day in the exact same hour, I was wearing dresses, my friends were wearing some fancy stuff, eating pasta while saying goodbye to each other and how excited we were to see each other soon. Now, I'm sitting on bed, wearing pyjamas and almost crying because I can't solve any equation right.
You would've probably guessed which one I'd love to do again.
That Friday, I woke up still at the same hour as usual, but instead of wearing an awful PE uniforms, I wore a blazer with a dress underneath. I grabbed my handbag and luggage (yes, a luggage), wore my flats, I was ready to go.
Arrived an hour earlier at a restaurant called Hayam Wuruk in Margonda, Depok, I decided to stay at car first, rather than go inside and being stared as the ambitious kid whom I wasn't and I'm still not.(I'm giving up on math, is that what and ambitious kid will do? No.)
But I guess, I could call myself an ambitious kid in the conference.
What conference? Here's the story.
After finally entering the restaurant with a school friend, I sat on a table with her. She was greeted by a friend from her last competition. I tried to engage on a several conversation until her friend's friend came and I ended up talking to her. She was loud and talkative, I swear I've never met someone louder.
So, by now, you might have been asking, what did I actually do?
Several days ago, I went to a competition, named High School Model United Nations(H!MUN). It's a Model UN competition, obviously. A Model UN is a simulation of United Nations itself, where students, where in my case were high school students, gather and talk about international problems. then make a resolution out of it. Since it is only a simulation, the resolution, draft resolution, which we make in the conference isn't really used. Yes, I know, it's kind of useless. But in my defence, this experience actually changed the way I saw things.
After talking to the loud girl, I knew for fact that she was on my council, the UN Women, and participating as the delegate of Saudi Arabia. When she knew I was Algeria for UN Women also, she immediately asked me to ally with her, which I absolutely agreed to.
After a seminar from several youth organization and a MUN 101 for those who were confused, first timer delegates (that's how MUN call their participants) like me, we finally proceeded to Universitas Indonesia and assembled in Fakultas Teknik lobby before we were being divided to several room according to our council.
Inside, I sat behind some people whom I believed had already known each other, since it was not their first time. Saudi was one of them, she gave me a smile and encouraged me to join their conversation. Since I didn't understand what they were talking about, I leaned back on my sit.
Suddenly, a boy who sat in front of me turned around and offered me his hand. 'Hey, what's your name?'
'Alya. Yours?', I answered and shook his hand.
He answered my question and asked which country I was representing. I also asked the same question and he said that he was Netherlands.
'Well, it's probably hard for us to be allies.', he smiled sheepishly. I chuckled sarcastically, thinking how pathetic it was that people there made friends to make alliance. Ignoring that, I asked him another question anyway, 'What school do you go to?'
'Cita Buana, you?'
'Labschool.' I answered he then raised his eyebrow, 'Kebayoran.' I answered his unspoken questions.
'Ooh, basketball?' he then smirked. Yep, my school and its basketball.
'Noo, I don't play. Have our school play together?' I asked.
'I think so.'
'Are you in the basketball team?' I asked wondering.
'No. It's not really my thing.' He shook his head, laughing.
'Oh? What's your thing then? All of these?' I asked him jokingly and made a reference to MUN.
'Noo', he laughed, 'My things are like golf, umm--'
'You play golf?' I was shocked. He laughed and asked me whether I played too.
'Sometimes.' I said and we started talking about golf.
First day was bizarre. I was Algeria, so alphabetically I had to deliver my opening speech first. Remind you, I didn't like to be the centre of attention, so it was a bit nerve-wrecking. The feeling I got after my first speech was relief and addiction. Still, I don't like being the center of attention, but the power I've got to actually influence people in that room was a good feeling. I suddenly didn't feel self-conscious anymore.
'Therefore, Algeria believes that the fight for gender equality has not yet come to an end.' I ended my speech and went back to my sit. A committee appeared next to me and gave me two notes. Since we are not allowed to talk to each other during a moderated caucus, delegates usually pass notes. I opened it, it was written from Netherlands. I turned it around.
Good point. I'm surprised Algeria said that.
Next note was from Maldives.
Your condition is the similar to ours. Looking forward working with you.
Not long after that, someone motioned for an unmoderated caucus. That was our cue to start negotiating freely without a specific amount of time. Netherlands and Maldives stood up from their sits and started to ask everyone to gather. At first, we were all in the same page. We all wanted gender equality. Even countries like Somalia which I didn't know where it was and Gambia which I thought didn't like the idea at all.
We unconsciously divided into groups when we talked about which problems came first. Some countries believed it was the society and government was the core of the problem. Some countries believed, well, Netherlands and I believed that we had to fix some traditional values first.
The 30 minutes moderated caucus ended and we were back to the moderated one. Some speeches were given, mainly to convince other which issue was the main one. Finally, the first session ended and we moved outside to prepare ourselves for dinner.
Before dinner, there was 15 minutes break. I ended up talking with Netherlands, Saudi, and a girl presenting Philippines whom I've got to meet earlier before the session started. Philippines and I finally got to know each other a little bit more. China and Latvia joined us shortly. We chatted up and joked around, before I've got to leave them because I was being called by a school friend.
'Al, we have to take photos with the other.' He said.
So, we took photos and talked about the first day. Most of my friend didn't quite enjoy, since they were confused and they thought it was too intense. I laughed it off and agreed with them that it was pretty intense, while honestly I enjoyed it very much.
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school mates and I in front of Fakultas Teknik
after the first session |
We then separated and went to our own council bus. I still got my school friends with me since we were in the same council. When we entered the bus, I was being called by Saudi to sit with her, Netherlands, and Philippines. I sat next to her and my friend sat in opposite sit from me. She talked to some people including Philippines and Netherlands. Then, we proceeded to dinner.
Dinner was fun. It was pretty relaxing. We talked about hobbies, movies, anything aside from the conference topic. There was a little bit topic about it, but it was only about which bloc you would join. Some countries were still considering which bloc, a few of us, like Philippines, Netherlands, Saudi, China, and I were already in bloc. Maldives made her own bloc. Things just get a little bit more interesting.
Day 2 was more structured, since everyone started to understand what was really going on. I actually started to understand the night after day 1 when I talked to Philippines and Netherlands a little bit. That night, my grandma and aunt were worried because I stayed late to talk to them. I stayed with my grandma, aunt and uncle since their house was way closer than mine. So close, it was only a 15 minutes drive.
We started to talk with our own bloc more. Disagreements were on point when we talked about how we solved the problems first. The bloc which I was in proposed an idea where we had to deal with the traditional barriers by education and law and government as the last step. But the opposite bloc, included Maldives, USA, Gambia, etc proposed an idea where countries had to deal with the government first. The other bloc, included Latvia, India, Poland, etc proposed a technical idea from every perspective.
Day 2 ended with a campus tour, well not really. It was raining, so it was pretty hard to walk around. I didn't really mind, at the first day of conference, we had it at Fakultas Teknik, and the second day we had it at Fakultas Hukum. Also, before the campus tour there was a 30 minutes break, Saudi, Netherlands, Philippines, and I spent it by walking around the campus. Since it was raining, we only took several photos and went home.
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| girls in UN Women |
After sessions of the second day ended, we all went home. At night, Netherlands asked my email to invite me working on our draft resolutions on google docs (free ad for google.). Philippines and Saudi were working on it too as I saw them online. I ended up working until 11 pm and already heard my grandma told me to go to sleep.
Day 3 was intense. In the morning, Netherlands said that he had called Maldives last night and asked for her to negotiate with him and merge. I was shocked since I knew for sure that wasn't his attention. 'She backstabbed me yesterday, stole my idea, I had to!' was his answers.
I admitted, I was kinda mad with Maldives in the second day, I called her names which wasn't very nice. But what Netherlands did was priceless and beyond the level of mean, also brilliant. So I had to laugh on what he did.
After hours of negotiating, compromising, and finally merging my bloc with Latvia's. We came to the end of our discussion. Merging our bloc with Latvia's was actually a plan from the start to make both our bloc stronger. We practically also had the same ideas, so why not, right? It was actually more than that. It was a planned to get revenge to Maldives because both our bloc, had been backstabbed by Maldives.
Finally, it was time to vote for the draft resolutions. We had two draft resolutions to be voted upon, draft resolution 1.2 from our and Latvia's, the results of our merging, and draft resolution 1.1 from Maldives and allies. After being voted, our draft resolution got the major votes but didn't feel the quorum. Therefore, the UN Women conference which we had for 3 days, didn't have any resolutions.
The conference had ended, everyone could laugh freely. We had some superlative awards, like the best couple, etc. We also signed our placard. Then, straight we went to the hall for closing ceremony and the gala dinner. We had fun, took some photos, chatted up, and hugged each other (surprisingly).
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| all the sponsors of DR 1.2 |
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| my signed placard |
It was my first Model UN competition and safe to say that I want to do it all over again. True, major drama, greater for my council since it was more intense than the security council, but it was fun. After all, this remarkable, sweat-dropping, brain-crunching experience has taught me pretty well about many things.
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| UN Women |
