Okay, so I really should be doing some last minute research or packing right now instead of posting to the Dope. But anyway, I’m leaving tomorrow with most of my high school class for GLIMUN (Great Lakes Model United Nations). For those of you that don’t know, Model UN is a bunch of kids representing actual countires and discussing actual topics that the real UN debate. For example, I’m representing Germany and talking about the legal status of terrorist suspects and international labor standards.
So I got to thinking: “The Dope is full of dorks. A lot of whom seem fairly educated in the ways of political science. I wonder if any of them did Model UN too, in high school or college?”
Yep, I come from a family of Model UN dorks. The first year I was on the Norway delegation, which is almost as boring as it sounds. The next year, though, I got to be head delegate. We were Vietnam, and naturally we got our asses sued off by Cambodia. They weren’t happy with us. Good times.
-Lil
Some of my high school friends were very into Model UN. (I can think of at least one who did it in college, too.) So occasionally if one of them needed a partner for a conference I would get roped into it, even though it wasn’t really my thing.
It’s good that you spelled this out. I once told someone I’d done Model UN only to have them reply “I didn’t know you were a model!” :rolleyes:
Yep, I was a Model UN dork, too. I probably spent more time scoping out cute & smart boys from other schools than I did researching my country’s socio-political issues, though. This makes me a less respectable sort of dork.
Some of my funnest moments from high school are as a result of MUN. My draft resolution for Hong Kong MUN is one of the things Im most proud of, even though it was eventually rejected. Going to the Harvard Model UN in Edinburgh this Easter, and already looking forward to it.
My best friend in highschool founded our Model UN club in our senior year. We went to Hope College in Michigan, IUPUI in Indianapolis and University of Illinois. Maybe a couple others, but those are the ones I remember.
He then went to the U of I the next year and became heavily involved in their program. He was chairman of the Model United Nations Illinois (the conference they host for high-school groups) his second year there and he is currently the President of their Model United Nations club. I got to attend the University of Chicago’s conference (for college students) with their club last year.
Hey, at least you guys got to want to kill whales!
I was Bahrain. In the early 80’s. Check with Saudi Arabia to see how they were gonna vote, add something about banking secrecy to our statement and head home.
One of my professors, when talking about a Nigerian civil war remarked, “The eventual outcome was quite similar to what my high school MUN team came up with. We were pretty proud of ourselves though, looking back, it was probably obvious.”
My highschool didn’t have model UN, so I got to be a mock trial dork.
Azerbaijan two years running in high school. My partner and I won the best resolution award for the theme ‘Nuclear Non-Proliferation’. We wrote it in physics class.
I did Model UN once - in college. My MUN partner (we represented an Arab country, I think Kuwait) was very into the cute guys. She became very friendly with this one guy in our sessions (forgot which country he represented, but his country and our country were mortal enemies). After the dance, during the last session of the simulation, she sat next to him rather than next to me. They basically chatted the entire time, ignoring the simulation. This was nothing that surprised anyone in the room (their flirting was that obvious); the MUN people worked it into the simulation.
The simulation went very well, but some of the organizers had a reputation of making things blow up in people’s faces. Indeed, at the end, they read a few statements, among which was that my country had declared war on the country of the guy who “stole” my country’s other delegate for, among other things, abducting the delegate.
It was quite fun. Too bad there’s no MUN for those out of college.
We were forced to participate in a Model UN in high school. This was in a small, English-language school in Brazil, so everyone in the high school could actually participate without it being too large. I represented the United States the first year, and it was just as tough as it sounds (especially as our MUN took place during the NATO attacks on Yugoslavia, and shortly after the US’s accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade).
During this MUN, at one point the Cambodian representative (who insisted his country be called “Kampuchea”) stood on his chair and started wagging his finger at the secretary-general about something or other. The Brazilian delegate somehow managed to be ejected from the MUN. After leaving, he ran back in, cried, “I’ll be back!” and then ran out again. Shortly thereafter, he ran in again and yelled something like, “You haven’t seen that last of me!” and ran out once again. Sometime during the day, World War III was declared. This MUN was one of the weirdest experiences of my life, but it wasn’t boring.
I managed to get the position of secretary-general the next year. With me in charge it was much more boring. No one got ejected and no wars were declared. I mostly took the secretary-general position when I had the opportunity because it sounded like less work than representing a nation and having to do all that research, resolution writing, and debating.
We didn’t take it very seriously at my school. It was really just a reason for us to stay at a hotel and drink and scope chicks. It was run by Georgetown U in DC.
My first year, junior year, we were Ethiopia. This was 1983, right during the big famine stuff. We rarely went to the meetings, so next year, we were Qatar, and we rarely went to the meetings then either. Looking back, I kind of regret not being more involved in it, because that’s the sort of thing I really dig now. But then, no.
After that, the teacher-sponsor dissolved the club, because no one took it seriously.
I did MUN in HS for two years. My junior year, we represented Chad and Trinidad & Tobago (I was on SocHum for Chad). My senior year, we represented Burkina Faso and some other country (I was on SocHum for Burkina Faso). I went to the University of Chicago conference both times. I loved sending notes to other countries that said stuff like “draw a picture of your country” or “how do you pronounce your capital city?” and then giggle to myself when they didn’t know. MUN was pretty fun, but sneaking out of conference to wander around Chicago was even more fun.
I did the MUN for one year. (I didn’t even know that the MUN existed until my senior year of high school. Ah, well.) I got stuck being Gambia, a country not exactly known for its awe-inducing power and leverge on committees. Gambia–a country whose per capita income was half of what an American makes in a month working part-time at McDonald’s. Gambia, which got its independance without a fight because Britian considered it too insignificant to hang on to. Boy, representing Gambia really made me a mover and a shaker.
Still, it was a good time. I got to draft a bunch of resolutions on human rights, mainly because I was the one most into being on the committee. I got the “most enthusiastic delegate” award. I was pretty envious of this other kid from my school, who got to be the delegate from Morocco. This schmoe, who didn’t do half as much research as I did, got to be from the leader of the Arab world. But I got…Gambia.
Woo! MUN! I was the madame ambassador from Fiji. In a complete non-representation of reality, the other delegate from my school, the ambassador from Serbia-Montenegro, completely ruled the committee investigating a way to make Iraq comply to the Oil for Food Programme’s guidelines.
This was in the fall of 2001. Seems so long ago now, and new corruption is still being found in that program. Well, that’s depressing. But, MUN! Yay!
In our general assembly, we were strafed and nuclear bombed by many countries. The devastation was terrible. My water glass overflowed. We declared war on Serbia-Montenegro. We wanted to write the declaration in the blood of the slain Fijian brave, but, alas, had to settle for black ballpoint ink and threatening cartoons.
The honors government program at our school was cut soon after.
I’m suddenly inspired to start a MUN organization on my campus. Hmm. I could be a madame ambassador once again. So very tempting.
asymptote, Mock Trial, yay! (And welcome to the boards.)
Damn. That’s supposed to read, “In a complete non-representation of reality, the other delgate (the ambassador from Serbia-Montenegro) and I completely ruled . . .”
Yup, high school. I got the task of representing Iraq in 1995. It was interesting, certainly. Ended up presenting a humanitarian view of the lives of everyday people in Iraq, which ended up with the entire auditorium castigating the U.S. There was also the ‘lunchtime incident’, where one of the U.S. delegation handed us threatening notes – along the lines of “shut up, or else”.
Wow, I had almost forgotten about the old MUN days from high school. Hugh Jass, I also participated in the Georgetown MUN, then held at the DC Hilton, fairly nice digs. To impress everyone here, I did win the Distinguished Delegate Award for my work as the U.S. Sec. of HUD. That has really moved me forward in life.
My last MUN awssignment was the delegate from Somalia, about a year after the whole Blackhawk Down incident. It is very difficult trying to promote your country’s tourism activities and beautiful beaches after something like that happens.
