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box_of_doomCHAMUN 2004 ended exactly 1 week ago. It was so great. I am now going to proceed in going over everything that happened in as much detail as possible partially because I don't want to forget anything, and partially just because I can. ^_~ So... expect this to be possibly long and boring in some sections yet very detailed... especially saying that I keep on going back and adding stuff... ^^;
*time elapses as Claire-chanwrites types* Hmmm... this is going to be overly long... so I'm going to put it into 2 or 3 entries, posted all right now. No really... this definitely has the record for the longest post I've ever made. I'm currently at lunchtime on Wednesday and it's already longer than my former "longest post"
Where to start? I suppose the best place would be Tuesday night. So... I went to band, and then headed to the computer lab... I got a little confused because it wasn't the normal one, but I followed other MUN-ers and found my way to where everyone was. We were going to make hate cards, but the site we were going to use wasn't up, thus causing a few problems. So, we didn't end up making any. :( Instead, we looked up possible stuff, but couldn't find a whole lot, and some people were doing homework/writing a biology ISU test. We had pizza and some 2-bite brownies (yum!) and had some discussions, such as why musicals (in general and some particular ones) are good and/or bad. Turns out Stuart dislikes basically all musicals, preferring straight plays and operettas instead (he's a Gilburt and Sullivan fan), while Nikki's a lot like me... major musical lover, as well as that of straight plays and maybe going into the operetta side (I never asked about that end of the spectrum). We then headed over to the GO station in 3 cars:
People that went in 'Cello's car
Marcello (obviously...), Jeremy, Stuart, Creighton
People that went with Mr Lang (excluding him and his kids)
Nikki, Alex, Rabiya
and
Seating arrangements for Ms Lang's vehicle (front/back, l-r)
Ms Lang, Me
Ying Ying, Alicia (this row may be backwards)
While waiting for Lang to get tickets, we stood in a... well, somewhere between a circle and a blob... and talked some more, a few of us utilizing the washrooms there (Ms Lang thought that was sort of gross, but they were fairly clean...) We got on the train, and all managed to get seats, 8 of us sitting in 2 sections right across from each other. Numerous conversations ensued and I jumped back and forth from listening to one side of the aisle and then the other, being on an aisle seat myself. (I was seemingly invisible half the time conversation-wise... as I tend to try to jump in at every wrong moment possible...) :( There were some interesting conversations though. For instance, I am quite possibly the most "uncool" person out of our group (as well as the self-dubbed "unimportant" one), because I do not have a leather jacket, and I've never been to England (basically everyone I asked met one of these two requirements, and Alex was going on how she was cool for her jacket, and uncool for her non-being-to-England-ness). So then we got there, and were trying to figure out how to take the path from there to Metro Hall, which was where CHAMUN was to be held. We ended up looking all over for a map, and finally decided to ask for directions from a guy who said it would be a whole lot faster just to go above ground.
We did.
It was pouring rain.
None of us had an umbrella with us, so we all walked fairly quickly, with us "uncool" (due to lack of leather jacket) ones using our hoods, and going under covered areas to stay out of the rain as often as possible. Jeremy was singing some random Christmas carol (I forget what at this point), and I was saying that my pencil agrees with him (I have a pencil in my pencil case with Christmas trees all over it). I then asked why there aren't any Easter carols and he agreed that there should be. Thus, he started singing once again, "Here comes the Easter Bunny, Here comes the Easter Bunny, Right down the Easter Bunny lane, Floppity and Moppity and..." (that's as far as I remember, he might have stopped there... I've finished up the song since then on my own, and will post it near the bottom of the post). I laughed, and started singing an Easter based song I learned back in grade 1 "a bunny, a bunny, a bunny rabbit left it, who else could walk inside my house and be so very quiet?". LOL Rabiya was wearing a skirt, and managed to have a bit of a "Marilyn Munroe moment" as she walked over a vent. We (mostly I) haven't let her forget it since. ^^; So... we got there around an hour early. We headed upstairs, a few people grabbed some more pizza/water (they had some there...) and Lang-sensei headed over to the registration desk to... well... register us and get our stuff (folders and nametags). At some point fairly early in, we headed down to near the doors where we headed in to get a piccie of all of us on the bottom few stairs, and then headed into a little corner with a few benches. So... some sat on benches, others (like myself) on the floor or on the base of a column that was right there, and others stood in the general area. We were basically in small random groups, myself being part of a group of one at most points, and one guy going between where the rest of the boys were and where Nikki and Alex were... which was fairly close to me. I talked to Alex at one point about doing the wave, and she was coming up with ways that it wouldn't work. I made a sign that said "wave," and had an arrow pointing downward on it using a sheet from the pad I was given in my package. She said it could be misleading, and for an example, took it and pointed the arrow toward Stuart. I then took it back, and drew a wave on the bottom. More stuff happened in between all of this, such as me waving my hand, and talking about drawing a wave on my blue folder. 'Twas fun, 'twas fun. ^_^
So... we just chilled, looking at our packages and randomly chatting and such for an hour or so, then we headed back upstairs for the opening ceremonies, which were held in the same room as the General Assembly was over the next two days. We were all sitting in two rows, basically all of us in one, but then someone told us that some of us would have to move because they wouldn't be able to see the screen from where they were, so we moved closer together in order to try and get more people to be able to see. Some still couldn't, so they moved to the desk-ish things directly in front of us. 4 of us stayed on the bench. I was sitting between Stuart and Rabiya, with... I think Marcello (though it may have been Creighton, I really can't remember which) sitting on Stuart's other side. The lights dimmed, which I commented on... to which Stuart replied something along the lines of "I wonder what that could mean" (slightly sarcastically, of course). My response: It's a brown-out!! ^_~ That got both Stuart and Rabiya laughing. ^_^ Then we started coming up with a list of things to put in a survival kit for CHAMUN, that Rabiya was writing down, and I was telling her to add to over the next two days, though I doubt she ever actually did.
Our CHAMUN Survival Kit (not necessarily in order)
1) pen
2) highlighter
3) note pad
4) notes
5) lined paper
6) flashlight (Stuart actually had a Scouts Canada penlight last year apparently... quote from around this time: "Oh no! We've had a blackout! Don't worry, Stuart has a penlight!" LOL)
7) crash symbols (to wake Rabiya up if she goes to sleep on the GO train... never mind that I probably would have been kicked off the train if I had used them...)
8) extra socks/underwear
9) umbrella (I already mentioned the rain...)
10) tissues
11) paper clips
12) band aids
If anyone reads this and thinks of anything I've missed, tell me what and why and I'll add it. (At the "chair's" discretion) ^_~
So yeah... go the 87/88 babies on the Sinclair MUN team! ^_~ (I'm not including the last person on the bench with us because he didn't contribute to said list or the discussions that came out of it that much at all.) So... eventually the opening ceremonies did start. They introduced all the chairs and heads of things, and then had a guest speaker from Warchild come and talk about some things that are happening in various parts of the world, such as conflict diamonds, and genocide. Some of the pictures were a little gross to look at, but hey! You've got to be aware of what's going on, right? One story in particular was extremely gross. I think it took place in Sierra Lione, but I could be wrong, and apologize if I am. Anyways... during an election campaign, one party had a slogan going something like "let's put our hands together and make this country better". Innocent enough, right? Well, one rebel group decided to take this a little more literally than would be liked, amputated hands, feet, and limbs from innocent citizens and put them on the steps of the government saying "these are the hands of your citizens who do not want a free(/independently run?) government. She also showed a movie on when a hip-hop group (I think...) went there to see what it was like... they were shocked by some of it, but were glad to see the happy looks on people's faces and their will to live, even after everything that's happened has happened. One guy made the comment that he won't give trivial things as much importance anymore. It really does make you think though... we are so removed from war over here. We're lucky in that respect, but we all take it too much for granted. this is a hypocritical statement and I realize this, as I take it for granted all the time. Still, that doesn't mean that it's not true. There was one quote that she used to start off her presentation that is really true. "One person working towards peace makes news. Many people working towards peace makes history." Tis very true, no? During the entire presentation, Rabiya and I both noticed Stuart nodding at a lot of the facts. ^^;
The opening ceremonies actually ended ahead of schedule, so we were able to get back to Union Station and get on the GO ahead of time. It was still raining. Marcello and Creighton each got their 1st hot dogs at this time, and a few people went to The Second Cup and McDonalds to grab random food items, as we were waiting to even so much as find out where our train was coming in. A couple of us didn't though... myself included, and we moved over to a place that was a little more out-of-the-way, though Nikki stayed where we were in case by some fluke they couldn't see our current position (we were in plain view of there). Jeremy and Ms Lang had a conversation about age... in which Ms Lang is 50 and Jeremy is 12. Jeremy saw this as a good thing... it means he can live longer. ^^; My comment: this proves that saying that one acts their shoe size is more of an insult for some people than for others. (This comes from a 16-year-old with size 6-7 feet, depending on the shoe.) They joked about this whole age issue for the remainder of the week, and I doubt we've heard the end of it yet.
We headed to the platform after everyone got back, and made it there before the train, only to have another "brownout". ^^; So... then we got on our train and started the trip home. (This was the only time we were at the platform before the train on the way home if I remember correctly.) Near the beginning of the trip, we were claiming random stations... that was fun. At some point Rabiya said she felt tired and might go to sleep... this is when I suggested adding crash symbols to wake her up onto the list of things to put in our CHAMUN survival kit. We also talked about growing veggies, colorblindness, and Ms Lang's impression of dinner at the Wright household. The latter 2 topics both relate directly to Stuart, who was sitting facing Rabiya and I in the next section over, so we were innocently waving at him at one point and telling him we weren't saying anything bad about him. We weren't. Alicia (I think it was her, and not Ying Ying) had the wrong idea of what her purple pants look like to him. At least, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't look like fluorescent pink!!! -_-; We got back to the Whitby station, and parted ways to head back to our respective homes at around 10:00.
And that ends Tuesday. Now onto Wednesday.
I got to school at around 7:10... give or take a few minutes. I had left my backpack at school on Tuesday, so I went and got it and gave it to my mom before heading over to the front doors where we were meeting. I was the 3rd one there, after Rabiya and Alex. The Wrights arrived soon after. So... the 5 of us stood and waited around for a little bit, randomly chatting and me noticing that Lang-sensei was late for her own "be here at" time... until Marcello, Alicia and Ms Lang arrived. Sometime during this conversation while only 3-5 of us were there, I pointed out to Rabiya (who I had been talking to about hair the day before) that my hair could go overly curly with nothing in it (as I had defused it that morning). I also ran and hid very badly at one point, and blamed it on my blond-ness. Then... we waited a bit longer as we still had 3 missing... Nikki was the next to come which sort of surprised some of us, seeing as she was the one voted most likely to be last to arrive... so then Ms Lang sent Marcello off with Stuart and Alex while the rest of us waited for Mr. Dawson, who was supposed to help get us all over, and Creighton (Ying Ying arrived at around this time). Finally, seeing neither, Ms Lang went over to the other parking lot to see if either had gone there. Creighton arrived while she was gone, and she arrived saying Mr. Dawson was on his way to where we were. Rabiya, Ying Ying, Alicia and I quickly piled into the car (me in the front, the other 3 in the back), leaving the remaining 3 for Mr. Dawson.
So... we all get to the station. Ms Lang drops the 4 of us near the doors so we won't have take the long walk needed to get back there from where she needs to park. We go inside, and the 3 that left before us (in Marcello's car) weren't there (we didn't expect the ones coming with Dawson to be there, and indeed they weren't either). So... we waited and randomly chatted in a similar circle/blob to the day before, with everyone joining us as they arrived. We had to move over a bit at some point because we were a little in the way of people getting their coffee at the refreshment stand-ish thing there. Ms Lang was the last one to get there, and so she bought our tickets, and we headed to the platform, getting there minutes before the train did.
Oh, by the way, I didn't mention this last time, but the tickets we got were 2 family passes and a single, as there are/were 3 of us (including Ms Lang) who are 18 or older, and the rest of us that are not (due to later birthdays in 86 and being born in 87-89). So... since a family pass allows for 1-2 adults and 3-4 "children", we were able to get away with that. I always laughed at this, thinking about how old Marcello would have needed to be for any of us to be a "real" family. Nikki (or was it Alex?) put for a solution at one point saying maybe he was a very mature 4-year-old and adopted some of us or something. Still... that was fun. It was Rwanda day (set aside by the UN to commemorate the genocide that happened there), so I was also wishing everyone a happy Rwanda Day... with Rabiya telling me (rightfully so) that "happy" probably isn't the right word to use there (remember what it's commemorating). *heh*
We sat in the same basic spot on the train as we had the day before, taking up 2 complete sections with others in a 3rd on the 2nd floor of the train, although we weren't right across from each other this time. The same with Tuesday on the way home actually. During this trip, we had more random discussions and looked over our booklets and notes, some highlighting stuff they thought might come in handy.
We got to Union Station, and stopped because Stuart wanted some coffee. While he was in line, half the group went to get more coffee and McDonalds stuff and such. ^^; When we were all together, we laughed at Stuart a bit because he couldn't figure out how the tops on the cups work ("They've never given me one like this before!") he couldn't put it on... and was having problems figuring out how to drink from it. Apparently no one knew that Stuart so much as drank coffee... @_@ I think it was actually a cappuccino or something (I honestly wasn't paying too much attention to what everyone got, being a non-coffee drinker myself...) because he was commenting on how the foam helps to prevent the tongue from being burnt or something... *shrugs* anyways... either then, or the night before, we also went over what the best hot drink is somewhat. Most people prefer coffee. Me? Tea and hot apple cider all the way! ^_^ Anyways... after everyone was back from random-stuff-getting, we headed over, with myself and possibly one or two others telling Rabiya to beware of vents, even though she was wearing pants. ^^;
We arrived at Metro Hall on time, and headed to the room we were in on Tuesday for the delegate training session... but then half the people left when they figured out they should be in the rooms that their groups were in, and not the GA room that the other half of us needed to be in anyways, saying that half of us were in GA. *reads over sentence* Yeah... that sounds a little redundant. Meh... So anyways... they had the countries in alphabetical order, going around the floor in the desk-ish areas and then up onto the upholstered benches we were sitting on the day before. Since Zambia was the 2nd last country (to Zimbabwe), I was up on the 2nd bench in the 2nd (out of 3) section. They had these big placards with all the countries' names on them, so we could find our spots. We also used them for voting and to be noticed in order to make a motion or point (holding them up in both instances). When I got to my seat, the nearest person to me in my row was the girl representing Uzbekistan, and so the two of us introduced ourselves to each other. It was her first CHAMUN too if I'm not mistaken, but not her first MUN symposium. I think she hadn't ever spoken at one before, but she did over the next 2 days a couple times. ^_^ Vietnam and Zimbabwe came fairly soon after, and in that order. I talked to Vietnam a bit, I think her name was Mary (there were two girls at one point, and I think the girl on the Thursday was the 2nd girl to come on Wednesday, so I don't know who she was really...). Zimbabwe and I ended up talking to each other a fair amount on the other hand. Her name's Amanda. Throughout the day, I ended up telling her the names of various people from my school. She loves the name Creighton, and has a cousin who shares a name with Marcello.
It was now time for the General Assembly to actually begin. The chairs started out by introducing themselves and going over some basic procedural stuff, and then the primary speaker's list was opened, and times and default yields were set. After a fairly short debate, (the time spent on the Primary Speaker's List usually isn't that long...) we decided to start on the topic of UN reform. (We were given a list of topics before-hand so we knew what to research. This was, of course, one of them.) Although there was some talk on general reform and such, the majority of the time spent on the topic was spent on ways that the Security Council could be reformed. Countries on the SC (especially permanent members with vito powers) wanted things to same the same, while everyone else wanted change (for obvious reasons both ways). People on both sides of me were getting a lot of notes all day long, but I got none. Actually, I got one, because I was adding myself to the Secondary Speaker's List, and had an idea about trying to start a committee dedicated to seeing what changes could be made, to report to the GA on a regular basis. However, I wanted to see if such existed already, and was asking around during one of the many unmoderated caucuses we had. The girl from New Zealand, who was friends with Amanda (Zimbabwe) knew something of a group called the "Coffee Club" and so I sent her a note asking what she knew about it. She sent one back saying she didn't know much. :(
Come lunch time, I was 7th on the Secondary Speaker's List. We (the 10 of us Sinclair kiddies and Ms Lang) met at the top of the stairs, and headed down to the restaurant/cafeteria where they were having a special: any entree and pop/water for $5.75. I was one of 2 or 3 of us to go for lasagna, while others went for chicken-kabobs, sandwiches, pizza and salad, etc. Lotsa different choices, and pretty good food. ^_^ I was the 4th one to get to the tables we were sitting at, after Ms Lang and the Wrights. I ended up sitting across from Jeremy, with Lang-sensei on my left and Stuart diagonally across from me. Nikki and Alex sat at the next table to my right, and the other 3 girls were at a round table on the other side of Ms Lang. Creighton and Marcello both went out for their second round of hot dogs on the trip, taking their total up to 4 collectively. They then came and rejoined us, sitting at a table in front of the round one the 3 girls were at, playing cards while we ate and talked. At some point, Creighton and Marcello were trying to get me on either side of the SC issue... I said that I would abstain from the conversation... and on the issue... though I didn't completely stay true to the latter (I'll explain as I get there). Ms Lang told us she'd be meeting her mom on Thursday for lunch, and we went over how each of the groups were doing. Apparently, Security Council was going slowly but pretty well, and 1970 Canadian Cabinet was fairly boring, with a number of things happening that they had to point out as being wrong (they were getting press releases from the CNN -- which didn't exist in 1970!). Rabiya spoke in AU, but didn't think she did an overly great job. Ms Lang thought otherwise. Then, there was Nikki, who was supposedly leading ESCAP very well indeed, although the chair of this committee was not very good. (I don't remember whether or not Alex shared on her opinions... sorry Alex!) Nikki was about to speak, so Ms Lang was going to head over to ESCAP as soon as she got some coffee, and then come and see me speak. When there were about 5-10 minutes left, we all headed up to our rooms, with the exception of the Wrights who had already left (or Stuart left really early, and I left sometime after Jeremy... before most of the other delegates, but they weren't too long after me).
When we came back, we had role call, then stopped for a minute of silence to remember the horrors of the genocide that took place in Rwanda. According to Nikki, in ESCAP, the chair gave a little speech, and thought it was a current event (it was around 10 years ago!). It's horrible to think that so much hatred and so many deaths could happen. It's amazing, yet horrible. The minute passed rather quickly. Maybe it wasn't really a minute. Then again, time seemed to pass more quickly than usual there. Really! The days went by way too fast.
Anyways... as I said, I was 7th on the list when we came back. However, I never got to speak. :( We had some caucuses, and then 3 resolutions were put forth. The first one asked for all vito powers to be removed. The third wanted vito powers to remain the same, with more punishment for countries that go against their rulings. The second, which is the one I was for, asked for vito power be altered so it takes a majority vote from the 5 current permanent members in order to make it, rather than just one country being able to vito something on its own. The first and second ones put forth also asked for more members, both permanent and non-permanent in order for different parts of the world to be represented more equally. Someone came up at some point while we were talking about this (I think it was in the morning actually, but meh) and mentioned how a "little country from Africa" probably shouldn't have as much say as the major powers. Numerous countries raised rights of reply to this, and after the 3rd apology, he was just like "I apologize to you, and to any other country that felt insulted by what I said". That was great. After that, I was joking to Amanda (as I said before, she is/was the "honourable delegate from Zimbabwe) that someone should raise a right of reply and actually say "RIGHT OF REPLY!!! I feel that I have been attacked or slandered in any way!!!". That would've been slightly amusing.
Anyways... even though most countries seemed to be for changing the ways of the security council, the only resolution out of the 3 to pass was the one that asked for things to stay basically the same. How is that reform I ask you? Meh... Stuart would've liked that, even though he ended up losing his vito power anyway *giggles* more on that later though.
After we got through all three, a motion was put forth to table the debate, which passed. I put my name on the primary speaker's list, but it didn't get to me. I wanted to talk on the war crimes issues, but the first few people wanted to talk on the Israeli security barrier. This was decided on to be the next topic. The time limit was set to 4 minutes so that both Israel and Palestine -- the first two countries on the speaker's list for slightly obvious reasons -- would be able to have ample time to speak on their perspective on the issue. Most of us were confused by this, as Palestine was an observer nation, and, since its placard was on the other side of Amanda, we knew that there was no one to represent it. That's when they made the announcement "The UK has now become Palestine". LOL. Yeah... the guy doing the UK was from Chaminade (the school that runs CHAMUN), and had arrived late, so he missed a major portion of the UN reform stuff, which Palestine wouldn't have been able to vote on anyway, and he was able to change to cover that country instead, leaving the UK unrepresented. We got through both Israel and Palestine's speeches, and then it was time to call it a day. One topic down, a second one just started, and my time in the general assembly was already half-done.
All of us Sinclair people met at the bottom of the staircase as we ended. Creighton and Marcello left early in search of hot dogs #5 and 6 (their 3rd each), and Ms Lang gave the rest of us the option of leaving (we were still missing one or two people, at least one of which was a Wright if I'm not mistaken), but we decided to stick together and wait. When everyone was there, we started our trek back to Union Station. One thing I must point out, the area right in front of Metro Hall is extremely windy. It feels great to be there, letting the wind blow in your hair, but it can mess it up too. Luckily for me, my hair always looks messy, so I didn't have to worry about that. :P While we walked, there were always numerous conversations going on. I usually took part in one or two, but was more or less walking on my own within the group... I don't remember any of the exact conversations that took place this time.
When we got back to Union station, we headed towards the screens that would tell us where to catch our trains (as usual), but when we got there, everyone but Stuart, Ms Lang and I had disappeared! We figured they had all gone to McDonalds (which they had), and so Ms Lang started stressing and went off (either in search of them or to get a drink, I forget which), leaving Stuart and I by ourselves. I asked him about his colourblindness... he's got very weak/deficient red receptors (I was curious which type of red/green colourblind he is, since there are multiple kinds...). I told him about this site which basically goes over what it's like to be colourblind by showing you what images look like, and has a feature that allows you to "correct" images so that the contrast in colours is noticeable by colourblind people. I think Jeremy came around this time, or someone did at least, and confirmed that everyone was, indeed, at McDonalds. They came and joined us eventually, and we quickly went on to the train with minutes to spare.
We were too late to all get seats together so we went through a compartment or two, and then tried to get random seats in small groups. I ended up sitting near Nikki and Alex (there were 3 seats fairly close to each other which we were going to take, and then people were nice enough to move so that the 3 of us could actually sit together. ^_^ We talked about some random stuff including the origin of the quote on Alex's LJ icon (I'm a gigantic brain!), some stuff that happened in Nikki's school production of Oliver back in grade 8 (for her, not for me... I would have been in grade 7), random singers and their awesomeness (Nikki and Alex, not me... I was sitting quietly for this one), food (I went over that I had some citrus cheesecake in my fridge, and they were envious, and we went over numerous other kinds of good, yummy food that we all love), and the need to get Ms Lang some sort of thank you present. Sometime near the end of this, I noticed that the 3 of us were the only ones sitting on the level from our group. The others were down below, and supposedly some were sitting 3 to a 2-person seat. *heh* Yeah... the others wouldn't believe me that we were the only ones on our level, but I was right! (No, not Wright, right. :P ) I called home to mom at Rouge Hill. The conversation went something like this:
Mom:hello?
Me: Hi mom! I'm at Rouge Hill.
Mom: What?!?!? That far?
Me: Yeah... it's not like I'm in Pickering yet... (Pickering's the stop after this...)
Mom: Okay... I'll head over now then
Me: 'kay. Bye!
Mom: Bye.
Yeah... go short phone conversations that involve panicking mothers... -_-; I got back at around 5-ish, and left the group to get to mom's car (she got there right before I did). On our way home, we came up with the idea to get Ms Lang some Tim Horton's gift certificates for her presents, knowing how much she loves her coffee... so we bought them as well as a card for me to bring in with me the next day. In the evening, I did a bit more research on various stuff, went out to Swiss Chalet, wrote more parts to Here Comes The Easter Bunny, and went to bed semi-early-ish.
Thus ends Wednesday. Now onto the next entry for the last day...Thursday.
*time elapses as Claire-chan
Where to start? I suppose the best place would be Tuesday night. So... I went to band, and then headed to the computer lab... I got a little confused because it wasn't the normal one, but I followed other MUN-ers and found my way to where everyone was. We were going to make hate cards, but the site we were going to use wasn't up, thus causing a few problems. So, we didn't end up making any. :( Instead, we looked up possible stuff, but couldn't find a whole lot, and some people were doing homework/writing a biology ISU test. We had pizza and some 2-bite brownies (yum!) and had some discussions, such as why musicals (in general and some particular ones) are good and/or bad. Turns out Stuart dislikes basically all musicals, preferring straight plays and operettas instead (he's a Gilburt and Sullivan fan), while Nikki's a lot like me... major musical lover, as well as that of straight plays and maybe going into the operetta side (I never asked about that end of the spectrum). We then headed over to the GO station in 3 cars:
People that went in 'Cello's car
Marcello (obviously...), Jeremy, Stuart, Creighton
People that went with Mr Lang (excluding him and his kids)
Nikki, Alex, Rabiya
and
Seating arrangements for Ms Lang's vehicle (front/back, l-r)
Ms Lang, Me
Ying Ying, Alicia (this row may be backwards)
While waiting for Lang to get tickets, we stood in a... well, somewhere between a circle and a blob... and talked some more, a few of us utilizing the washrooms there (Ms Lang thought that was sort of gross, but they were fairly clean...) We got on the train, and all managed to get seats, 8 of us sitting in 2 sections right across from each other. Numerous conversations ensued and I jumped back and forth from listening to one side of the aisle and then the other, being on an aisle seat myself. (I was seemingly invisible half the time conversation-wise... as I tend to try to jump in at every wrong moment possible...) :( There were some interesting conversations though. For instance, I am quite possibly the most "uncool" person out of our group (as well as the self-dubbed "unimportant" one), because I do not have a leather jacket, and I've never been to England (basically everyone I asked met one of these two requirements, and Alex was going on how she was cool for her jacket, and uncool for her non-being-to-England-ness). So then we got there, and were trying to figure out how to take the path from there to Metro Hall, which was where CHAMUN was to be held. We ended up looking all over for a map, and finally decided to ask for directions from a guy who said it would be a whole lot faster just to go above ground.
We did.
It was pouring rain.
None of us had an umbrella with us, so we all walked fairly quickly, with us "uncool" (due to lack of leather jacket) ones using our hoods, and going under covered areas to stay out of the rain as often as possible. Jeremy was singing some random Christmas carol (I forget what at this point), and I was saying that my pencil agrees with him (I have a pencil in my pencil case with Christmas trees all over it). I then asked why there aren't any Easter carols and he agreed that there should be. Thus, he started singing once again, "Here comes the Easter Bunny, Here comes the Easter Bunny, Right down the Easter Bunny lane, Floppity and Moppity and..." (that's as far as I remember, he might have stopped there... I've finished up the song since then on my own, and will post it near the bottom of the post). I laughed, and started singing an Easter based song I learned back in grade 1 "a bunny, a bunny, a bunny rabbit left it, who else could walk inside my house and be so very quiet?". LOL Rabiya was wearing a skirt, and managed to have a bit of a "Marilyn Munroe moment" as she walked over a vent. We (mostly I) haven't let her forget it since. ^^; So... we got there around an hour early. We headed upstairs, a few people grabbed some more pizza/water (they had some there...) and Lang-sensei headed over to the registration desk to... well... register us and get our stuff (folders and nametags). At some point fairly early in, we headed down to near the doors where we headed in to get a piccie of all of us on the bottom few stairs, and then headed into a little corner with a few benches. So... some sat on benches, others (like myself) on the floor or on the base of a column that was right there, and others stood in the general area. We were basically in small random groups, myself being part of a group of one at most points, and one guy going between where the rest of the boys were and where Nikki and Alex were... which was fairly close to me. I talked to Alex at one point about doing the wave, and she was coming up with ways that it wouldn't work. I made a sign that said "wave," and had an arrow pointing downward on it using a sheet from the pad I was given in my package. She said it could be misleading, and for an example, took it and pointed the arrow toward Stuart. I then took it back, and drew a wave on the bottom. More stuff happened in between all of this, such as me waving my hand, and talking about drawing a wave on my blue folder. 'Twas fun, 'twas fun. ^_^
So... we just chilled, looking at our packages and randomly chatting and such for an hour or so, then we headed back upstairs for the opening ceremonies, which were held in the same room as the General Assembly was over the next two days. We were all sitting in two rows, basically all of us in one, but then someone told us that some of us would have to move because they wouldn't be able to see the screen from where they were, so we moved closer together in order to try and get more people to be able to see. Some still couldn't, so they moved to the desk-ish things directly in front of us. 4 of us stayed on the bench. I was sitting between Stuart and Rabiya, with... I think Marcello (though it may have been Creighton, I really can't remember which) sitting on Stuart's other side. The lights dimmed, which I commented on... to which Stuart replied something along the lines of "I wonder what that could mean" (slightly sarcastically, of course). My response: It's a brown-out!! ^_~ That got both Stuart and Rabiya laughing. ^_^ Then we started coming up with a list of things to put in a survival kit for CHAMUN, that Rabiya was writing down, and I was telling her to add to over the next two days, though I doubt she ever actually did.
Our CHAMUN Survival Kit (not necessarily in order)
1) pen
2) highlighter
3) note pad
4) notes
5) lined paper
6) flashlight (Stuart actually had a Scouts Canada penlight last year apparently... quote from around this time: "Oh no! We've had a blackout! Don't worry, Stuart has a penlight!" LOL)
7) crash symbols (to wake Rabiya up if she goes to sleep on the GO train... never mind that I probably would have been kicked off the train if I had used them...)
8) extra socks/underwear
9) umbrella (I already mentioned the rain...)
10) tissues
11) paper clips
12) band aids
If anyone reads this and thinks of anything I've missed, tell me what and why and I'll add it. (At the "chair's" discretion) ^_~
So yeah... go the 87/88 babies on the Sinclair MUN team! ^_~ (I'm not including the last person on the bench with us because he didn't contribute to said list or the discussions that came out of it that much at all.) So... eventually the opening ceremonies did start. They introduced all the chairs and heads of things, and then had a guest speaker from Warchild come and talk about some things that are happening in various parts of the world, such as conflict diamonds, and genocide. Some of the pictures were a little gross to look at, but hey! You've got to be aware of what's going on, right? One story in particular was extremely gross. I think it took place in Sierra Lione, but I could be wrong, and apologize if I am. Anyways... during an election campaign, one party had a slogan going something like "let's put our hands together and make this country better". Innocent enough, right? Well, one rebel group decided to take this a little more literally than would be liked, amputated hands, feet, and limbs from innocent citizens and put them on the steps of the government saying "these are the hands of your citizens who do not want a free(/independently run?) government. She also showed a movie on when a hip-hop group (I think...) went there to see what it was like... they were shocked by some of it, but were glad to see the happy looks on people's faces and their will to live, even after everything that's happened has happened. One guy made the comment that he won't give trivial things as much importance anymore. It really does make you think though... we are so removed from war over here. We're lucky in that respect, but we all take it too much for granted. this is a hypocritical statement and I realize this, as I take it for granted all the time. Still, that doesn't mean that it's not true. There was one quote that she used to start off her presentation that is really true. "One person working towards peace makes news. Many people working towards peace makes history." Tis very true, no? During the entire presentation, Rabiya and I both noticed Stuart nodding at a lot of the facts. ^^;
The opening ceremonies actually ended ahead of schedule, so we were able to get back to Union Station and get on the GO ahead of time. It was still raining. Marcello and Creighton each got their 1st hot dogs at this time, and a few people went to The Second Cup and McDonalds to grab random food items, as we were waiting to even so much as find out where our train was coming in. A couple of us didn't though... myself included, and we moved over to a place that was a little more out-of-the-way, though Nikki stayed where we were in case by some fluke they couldn't see our current position (we were in plain view of there). Jeremy and Ms Lang had a conversation about age... in which Ms Lang is 50 and Jeremy is 12. Jeremy saw this as a good thing... it means he can live longer. ^^; My comment: this proves that saying that one acts their shoe size is more of an insult for some people than for others. (This comes from a 16-year-old with size 6-7 feet, depending on the shoe.) They joked about this whole age issue for the remainder of the week, and I doubt we've heard the end of it yet.
We headed to the platform after everyone got back, and made it there before the train, only to have another "brownout". ^^; So... then we got on our train and started the trip home. (This was the only time we were at the platform before the train on the way home if I remember correctly.) Near the beginning of the trip, we were claiming random stations... that was fun. At some point Rabiya said she felt tired and might go to sleep... this is when I suggested adding crash symbols to wake her up onto the list of things to put in our CHAMUN survival kit. We also talked about growing veggies, colorblindness, and Ms Lang's impression of dinner at the Wright household. The latter 2 topics both relate directly to Stuart, who was sitting facing Rabiya and I in the next section over, so we were innocently waving at him at one point and telling him we weren't saying anything bad about him. We weren't. Alicia (I think it was her, and not Ying Ying) had the wrong idea of what her purple pants look like to him. At least, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't look like fluorescent pink!!! -_-; We got back to the Whitby station, and parted ways to head back to our respective homes at around 10:00.
And that ends Tuesday. Now onto Wednesday.
I got to school at around 7:10... give or take a few minutes. I had left my backpack at school on Tuesday, so I went and got it and gave it to my mom before heading over to the front doors where we were meeting. I was the 3rd one there, after Rabiya and Alex. The Wrights arrived soon after. So... the 5 of us stood and waited around for a little bit, randomly chatting and me noticing that Lang-sensei was late for her own "be here at" time... until Marcello, Alicia and Ms Lang arrived. Sometime during this conversation while only 3-5 of us were there, I pointed out to Rabiya (who I had been talking to about hair the day before) that my hair could go overly curly with nothing in it (as I had defused it that morning). I also ran and hid very badly at one point, and blamed it on my blond-ness. Then... we waited a bit longer as we still had 3 missing... Nikki was the next to come which sort of surprised some of us, seeing as she was the one voted most likely to be last to arrive... so then Ms Lang sent Marcello off with Stuart and Alex while the rest of us waited for Mr. Dawson, who was supposed to help get us all over, and Creighton (Ying Ying arrived at around this time). Finally, seeing neither, Ms Lang went over to the other parking lot to see if either had gone there. Creighton arrived while she was gone, and she arrived saying Mr. Dawson was on his way to where we were. Rabiya, Ying Ying, Alicia and I quickly piled into the car (me in the front, the other 3 in the back), leaving the remaining 3 for Mr. Dawson.
So... we all get to the station. Ms Lang drops the 4 of us near the doors so we won't have take the long walk needed to get back there from where she needs to park. We go inside, and the 3 that left before us (in Marcello's car) weren't there (we didn't expect the ones coming with Dawson to be there, and indeed they weren't either). So... we waited and randomly chatted in a similar circle/blob to the day before, with everyone joining us as they arrived. We had to move over a bit at some point because we were a little in the way of people getting their coffee at the refreshment stand-ish thing there. Ms Lang was the last one to get there, and so she bought our tickets, and we headed to the platform, getting there minutes before the train did.
Oh, by the way, I didn't mention this last time, but the tickets we got were 2 family passes and a single, as there are/were 3 of us (including Ms Lang) who are 18 or older, and the rest of us that are not (due to later birthdays in 86 and being born in 87-89). So... since a family pass allows for 1-2 adults and 3-4 "children", we were able to get away with that. I always laughed at this, thinking about how old Marcello would have needed to be for any of us to be a "real" family. Nikki (or was it Alex?) put for a solution at one point saying maybe he was a very mature 4-year-old and adopted some of us or something. Still... that was fun. It was Rwanda day (set aside by the UN to commemorate the genocide that happened there), so I was also wishing everyone a happy Rwanda Day... with Rabiya telling me (rightfully so) that "happy" probably isn't the right word to use there (remember what it's commemorating). *heh*
We sat in the same basic spot on the train as we had the day before, taking up 2 complete sections with others in a 3rd on the 2nd floor of the train, although we weren't right across from each other this time. The same with Tuesday on the way home actually. During this trip, we had more random discussions and looked over our booklets and notes, some highlighting stuff they thought might come in handy.
We got to Union Station, and stopped because Stuart wanted some coffee. While he was in line, half the group went to get more coffee and McDonalds stuff and such. ^^; When we were all together, we laughed at Stuart a bit because he couldn't figure out how the tops on the cups work ("They've never given me one like this before!") he couldn't put it on... and was having problems figuring out how to drink from it. Apparently no one knew that Stuart so much as drank coffee... @_@ I think it was actually a cappuccino or something (I honestly wasn't paying too much attention to what everyone got, being a non-coffee drinker myself...) because he was commenting on how the foam helps to prevent the tongue from being burnt or something... *shrugs* anyways... either then, or the night before, we also went over what the best hot drink is somewhat. Most people prefer coffee. Me? Tea and hot apple cider all the way! ^_^ Anyways... after everyone was back from random-stuff-getting, we headed over, with myself and possibly one or two others telling Rabiya to beware of vents, even though she was wearing pants. ^^;
We arrived at Metro Hall on time, and headed to the room we were in on Tuesday for the delegate training session... but then half the people left when they figured out they should be in the rooms that their groups were in, and not the GA room that the other half of us needed to be in anyways, saying that half of us were in GA. *reads over sentence* Yeah... that sounds a little redundant. Meh... So anyways... they had the countries in alphabetical order, going around the floor in the desk-ish areas and then up onto the upholstered benches we were sitting on the day before. Since Zambia was the 2nd last country (to Zimbabwe), I was up on the 2nd bench in the 2nd (out of 3) section. They had these big placards with all the countries' names on them, so we could find our spots. We also used them for voting and to be noticed in order to make a motion or point (holding them up in both instances). When I got to my seat, the nearest person to me in my row was the girl representing Uzbekistan, and so the two of us introduced ourselves to each other. It was her first CHAMUN too if I'm not mistaken, but not her first MUN symposium. I think she hadn't ever spoken at one before, but she did over the next 2 days a couple times. ^_^ Vietnam and Zimbabwe came fairly soon after, and in that order. I talked to Vietnam a bit, I think her name was Mary (there were two girls at one point, and I think the girl on the Thursday was the 2nd girl to come on Wednesday, so I don't know who she was really...). Zimbabwe and I ended up talking to each other a fair amount on the other hand. Her name's Amanda. Throughout the day, I ended up telling her the names of various people from my school. She loves the name Creighton, and has a cousin who shares a name with Marcello.
It was now time for the General Assembly to actually begin. The chairs started out by introducing themselves and going over some basic procedural stuff, and then the primary speaker's list was opened, and times and default yields were set. After a fairly short debate, (the time spent on the Primary Speaker's List usually isn't that long...) we decided to start on the topic of UN reform. (We were given a list of topics before-hand so we knew what to research. This was, of course, one of them.) Although there was some talk on general reform and such, the majority of the time spent on the topic was spent on ways that the Security Council could be reformed. Countries on the SC (especially permanent members with vito powers) wanted things to same the same, while everyone else wanted change (for obvious reasons both ways). People on both sides of me were getting a lot of notes all day long, but I got none. Actually, I got one, because I was adding myself to the Secondary Speaker's List, and had an idea about trying to start a committee dedicated to seeing what changes could be made, to report to the GA on a regular basis. However, I wanted to see if such existed already, and was asking around during one of the many unmoderated caucuses we had. The girl from New Zealand, who was friends with Amanda (Zimbabwe) knew something of a group called the "Coffee Club" and so I sent her a note asking what she knew about it. She sent one back saying she didn't know much. :(
Come lunch time, I was 7th on the Secondary Speaker's List. We (the 10 of us Sinclair kiddies and Ms Lang) met at the top of the stairs, and headed down to the restaurant/cafeteria where they were having a special: any entree and pop/water for $5.75. I was one of 2 or 3 of us to go for lasagna, while others went for chicken-kabobs, sandwiches, pizza and salad, etc. Lotsa different choices, and pretty good food. ^_^ I was the 4th one to get to the tables we were sitting at, after Ms Lang and the Wrights. I ended up sitting across from Jeremy, with Lang-sensei on my left and Stuart diagonally across from me. Nikki and Alex sat at the next table to my right, and the other 3 girls were at a round table on the other side of Ms Lang. Creighton and Marcello both went out for their second round of hot dogs on the trip, taking their total up to 4 collectively. They then came and rejoined us, sitting at a table in front of the round one the 3 girls were at, playing cards while we ate and talked. At some point, Creighton and Marcello were trying to get me on either side of the SC issue... I said that I would abstain from the conversation... and on the issue... though I didn't completely stay true to the latter (I'll explain as I get there). Ms Lang told us she'd be meeting her mom on Thursday for lunch, and we went over how each of the groups were doing. Apparently, Security Council was going slowly but pretty well, and 1970 Canadian Cabinet was fairly boring, with a number of things happening that they had to point out as being wrong (they were getting press releases from the CNN -- which didn't exist in 1970!). Rabiya spoke in AU, but didn't think she did an overly great job. Ms Lang thought otherwise. Then, there was Nikki, who was supposedly leading ESCAP very well indeed, although the chair of this committee was not very good. (I don't remember whether or not Alex shared on her opinions... sorry Alex!) Nikki was about to speak, so Ms Lang was going to head over to ESCAP as soon as she got some coffee, and then come and see me speak. When there were about 5-10 minutes left, we all headed up to our rooms, with the exception of the Wrights who had already left (or Stuart left really early, and I left sometime after Jeremy... before most of the other delegates, but they weren't too long after me).
When we came back, we had role call, then stopped for a minute of silence to remember the horrors of the genocide that took place in Rwanda. According to Nikki, in ESCAP, the chair gave a little speech, and thought it was a current event (it was around 10 years ago!). It's horrible to think that so much hatred and so many deaths could happen. It's amazing, yet horrible. The minute passed rather quickly. Maybe it wasn't really a minute. Then again, time seemed to pass more quickly than usual there. Really! The days went by way too fast.
Anyways... as I said, I was 7th on the list when we came back. However, I never got to speak. :( We had some caucuses, and then 3 resolutions were put forth. The first one asked for all vito powers to be removed. The third wanted vito powers to remain the same, with more punishment for countries that go against their rulings. The second, which is the one I was for, asked for vito power be altered so it takes a majority vote from the 5 current permanent members in order to make it, rather than just one country being able to vito something on its own. The first and second ones put forth also asked for more members, both permanent and non-permanent in order for different parts of the world to be represented more equally. Someone came up at some point while we were talking about this (I think it was in the morning actually, but meh) and mentioned how a "little country from Africa" probably shouldn't have as much say as the major powers. Numerous countries raised rights of reply to this, and after the 3rd apology, he was just like "I apologize to you, and to any other country that felt insulted by what I said". That was great. After that, I was joking to Amanda (as I said before, she is/was the "honourable delegate from Zimbabwe) that someone should raise a right of reply and actually say "RIGHT OF REPLY!!! I feel that I have been attacked or slandered in any way!!!". That would've been slightly amusing.
Anyways... even though most countries seemed to be for changing the ways of the security council, the only resolution out of the 3 to pass was the one that asked for things to stay basically the same. How is that reform I ask you? Meh... Stuart would've liked that, even though he ended up losing his vito power anyway *giggles* more on that later though.
After we got through all three, a motion was put forth to table the debate, which passed. I put my name on the primary speaker's list, but it didn't get to me. I wanted to talk on the war crimes issues, but the first few people wanted to talk on the Israeli security barrier. This was decided on to be the next topic. The time limit was set to 4 minutes so that both Israel and Palestine -- the first two countries on the speaker's list for slightly obvious reasons -- would be able to have ample time to speak on their perspective on the issue. Most of us were confused by this, as Palestine was an observer nation, and, since its placard was on the other side of Amanda, we knew that there was no one to represent it. That's when they made the announcement "The UK has now become Palestine". LOL. Yeah... the guy doing the UK was from Chaminade (the school that runs CHAMUN), and had arrived late, so he missed a major portion of the UN reform stuff, which Palestine wouldn't have been able to vote on anyway, and he was able to change to cover that country instead, leaving the UK unrepresented. We got through both Israel and Palestine's speeches, and then it was time to call it a day. One topic down, a second one just started, and my time in the general assembly was already half-done.
All of us Sinclair people met at the bottom of the staircase as we ended. Creighton and Marcello left early in search of hot dogs #5 and 6 (their 3rd each), and Ms Lang gave the rest of us the option of leaving (we were still missing one or two people, at least one of which was a Wright if I'm not mistaken), but we decided to stick together and wait. When everyone was there, we started our trek back to Union Station. One thing I must point out, the area right in front of Metro Hall is extremely windy. It feels great to be there, letting the wind blow in your hair, but it can mess it up too. Luckily for me, my hair always looks messy, so I didn't have to worry about that. :P While we walked, there were always numerous conversations going on. I usually took part in one or two, but was more or less walking on my own within the group... I don't remember any of the exact conversations that took place this time.
When we got back to Union station, we headed towards the screens that would tell us where to catch our trains (as usual), but when we got there, everyone but Stuart, Ms Lang and I had disappeared! We figured they had all gone to McDonalds (which they had), and so Ms Lang started stressing and went off (either in search of them or to get a drink, I forget which), leaving Stuart and I by ourselves. I asked him about his colourblindness... he's got very weak/deficient red receptors (I was curious which type of red/green colourblind he is, since there are multiple kinds...). I told him about this site which basically goes over what it's like to be colourblind by showing you what images look like, and has a feature that allows you to "correct" images so that the contrast in colours is noticeable by colourblind people. I think Jeremy came around this time, or someone did at least, and confirmed that everyone was, indeed, at McDonalds. They came and joined us eventually, and we quickly went on to the train with minutes to spare.
We were too late to all get seats together so we went through a compartment or two, and then tried to get random seats in small groups. I ended up sitting near Nikki and Alex (there were 3 seats fairly close to each other which we were going to take, and then people were nice enough to move so that the 3 of us could actually sit together. ^_^ We talked about some random stuff including the origin of the quote on Alex's LJ icon (I'm a gigantic brain!), some stuff that happened in Nikki's school production of Oliver back in grade 8 (for her, not for me... I would have been in grade 7), random singers and their awesomeness (Nikki and Alex, not me... I was sitting quietly for this one), food (I went over that I had some citrus cheesecake in my fridge, and they were envious, and we went over numerous other kinds of good, yummy food that we all love), and the need to get Ms Lang some sort of thank you present. Sometime near the end of this, I noticed that the 3 of us were the only ones sitting on the level from our group. The others were down below, and supposedly some were sitting 3 to a 2-person seat. *heh* Yeah... the others wouldn't believe me that we were the only ones on our level, but I was right! (No, not Wright, right. :P ) I called home to mom at Rouge Hill. The conversation went something like this:
Mom:hello?
Me: Hi mom! I'm at Rouge Hill.
Mom: What?!?!? That far?
Me: Yeah... it's not like I'm in Pickering yet... (Pickering's the stop after this...)
Mom: Okay... I'll head over now then
Me: 'kay. Bye!
Mom: Bye.
Yeah... go short phone conversations that involve panicking mothers... -_-; I got back at around 5-ish, and left the group to get to mom's car (she got there right before I did). On our way home, we came up with the idea to get Ms Lang some Tim Horton's gift certificates for her presents, knowing how much she loves her coffee... so we bought them as well as a card for me to bring in with me the next day. In the evening, I did a bit more research on various stuff, went out to Swiss Chalet, wrote more parts to Here Comes The Easter Bunny, and went to bed semi-early-ish.
Thus ends Wednesday. Now onto the next entry for the last day...Thursday.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 07:48 pm (UTC)sssh.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 07:51 pm (UTC)So... was it worth the wait?