RMUN 2007, Day 2, GA1

(NOTE THIS IS JUST A MODEL UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE, NOTHING HERE IS REAL AT ALL)

Today started off extremely quickly, as we had left off in the middle of a debate on Hungary and UK’s resolution yesterday. Of course, it wasn’t long before someone (forgot who) motioned for the voting procedures to begin. With 19 votes for, 15 votes against, and like 5 abstaining, the resolution did not pass, failing to reach the minimum 2/3 majority.

Following that, the USA wasted no time in trying to push for countries to support his resolution, hoping to pass it before lunch, as there was a “foreseeable” crisis after that. Unfortunately, as most countries were unsatisfied with the USA’s resolution, he failed to garner the required support throughout the entire debate proper and during the unmoderated caucuses. Therefore, by the time all councils adjourned for lunch, GA1 was the only council that had not passed a resolution yet.

After lunch, a crisis occurred (as expected), it was totally made up by the organising committee. Something about a violent conflict between Israel and Iran, and GA1 had to discuss and pass a resolution about the details of a peacekeeping unit that should be sent in after a ceasefire has been achieved by the SC. I (the delegate of Russia) was already so bored with the debate on the primary topic that I originally wanted to distribute nuclear weapons to islamic nations like eygpt, sierra leone, indonesia, panama, etc, in order to allow them to have the capabilities to help Iran (forcefully) “persuade” the peacekeeping troops to leave if a unit was really sent there. Then at tea break, it turned out that the Security Council had already passed a resolution whereby Russia herself would lead a peacekeeping mission into Iran that was funded by the USA, so since I couldn’t bomb my own troops, I had to give up this ambitious notion and instead remain more or less neutral. The debate got pretty boring from that point on, as other Islamic nations began to withdraw their threat against Israel.

By the time Hungary finally managed to draft out another resolution and submit it for approval, I was already too tired and couldn’t be bothered to oppose the resolution though I found it vague at certain points, so I just signed it to get it over with. I was hoping Kathik (my director) would close one eye and approve the resolution, but alas he wanted it to be more detailed and thus needed Hungary to edit it. Thus, GA1 once again became the only council which failed to pass a resolution regarding the crisis. The day ended on a pretty low note, considering how GA1 was getting absolutely nowhere. Dinner with some members of my council was pretty fun though

Seeing as how there’s only 1.5 hours worth of debate time available on Friday, I foresee three scenarios:

1: Someone motions for postponement of the debate on the crisis, we start general debate on our primary topic again (efficiency of peacekeeping missions) and (hopefully) pass a resolution on that.
2: We continue focusing on the crisis at hand, and (hopefully) pass a resolution on that by the end of the day.
3: GA1 continues going around in circles and gets nowhere, as it has been for the last 2 days.

I think scenario 2 is most likely to occur, as it’s easier to settle the crisis as compared to our primary topic. All will be revealed on Friday I guess.

looking forward to D&D

RMUN 2007, Day 1, GA1

RMUN (Raffles Model United Nations) finally started today. I expected the entire thing to be pretty boring, considering the issue my GA was dealing with (Efficiency of Peacekeeping missions), since there was really little to talk about. That’s why I decided to just change my stance and go against the majority that drafted a resolution beforehand, hoping to make the debate more interesting.

It was a slow start, with the chair calling upon delegates to speak, and eventually calling for a moderated caucus for us so that the debate could hopefully move along. But as time passed and the entire council started warming up, debate really began to get interestinig, with different countries providing their different opinions. I was glad that it seemed like it would turn out to be a good debate after all.

Alas, it was not to be, as after lunch debate just slowed down. Hungary and France just kept repeating each other, everyone was going around in circles, analogies were used that didn’t substantiate anything, nobody was talking about anything new, etc. The delegate of Russia (me) got really bored with everything and had no idea where everyone was going as nobody was speaking about anything substantial that was worthy. Until the resolution finally arrived that is.

Unfortunately there was like 20 minutes left when the resolution by UK and Hungary was finally introduced. Debate started to warm up slightly at this point, but due to the lack of time, most delegates who spoke for the motion were called upon to speak by the chair as they had not spoken for the entire conference. Only a few (including me) spoke against the motion since there was inadequate time left, and most of the debate on the resolution was pretty unclear as everyone was already tired.

Can’t wait for the debate on the motion to continue tomorrow, can’t wait to speak against it again. Unfortunately, I don’t have veto power in the GA, or else things would be so much easier

wow.

it’s been relatively long since i last blogged here, considering my previous rate, largely due to the fact that i just started playing a 9 year old game (starcraft) like mad these few days, and of course i’ve been busy with other blogs.

English and HCL papers were hellish, I’m almost more confident in scoring for my HCL paper rather than my English paper surprisingly…. don’t really wanna talk about my prelim 2 thus far, since i still got 8 papers to take, and I’m gonna have more than enough work to do during the holiday lessons.

Alright, enough with blogging here for now, still got randomusings, and more importantly, Starcraft.

not exactly what i expected

Had loads of fun playing starcraft for the first time today. Haha yeah i know i’m outdated, playing a 9 year old game for the first time ever. But so what? I really wasn’t expecting to have that much fun playing a rts, maybe the fact that i was playing with mh and nick wong helped make it more fun than warcraft. Woots.

Wish i could say i had as much fun watching the season finale of Heroes. It was a completely lackluster episode as compared to previous ones.i mean i know there’s a season 2 and all, but did you guys really have to leave that many loose ends? Is sylar dead? Is jessica gone? Is parkman dead? What happened to peter and nathan? Not to mention the climax was ultra anti-climatic. Argh. I’ll post a full post on random musings soon, but until then, bed it is.

i really gotta start….

I got a history test tomorrow, but I practically didn’t study for it at all. Didn’t even realise time flied so fast as I was busy with… stuff….. on the computer. Didn’t even get a chance to write anything today, despite promising myself to do so initially. But I got other things to think about now, like how I’m gonna explain failing tomorrow’s test even after thian told us all the questions already. Argh, guess I have to cross my fingers and pray that I can somehow get some crap out on the paper tomorrow. Until then, I got just 6 hours of sleep. And to think that I wanted to go to bed by 10 initially, but I guess I shoulda realised that wouldn’t happen when my parents left the house..

Oh and The Siege was really quite brilliant for unspecified reasons.

i hate filing.

really don’t see the point in going through the huge stacks of paper at home, picking out a few and then filing them up. It’s not as if I use them to study anyway, and I don’t plan on doing so of course. I just really don’t see the point in filing stuff, and to think that I got 2 files to settle by tomorrow. The thought of just going through those papers already makes me wanna just go to bed. Alas, I still have one whole History SBQ question to do (after having just finished one) before I tackle those stacks of paper. I’d do another SBQ rather than file my file anytime though..

I’ve been busy spreading word of RandomMusings this morning, and it’s working to a certain extent. I got a sudden surge of traffic, but it’s mostly died down now. Guess I’ll submit it to payu2blog soon, though I highly doubt it’ll be approved at such an early stage, not even a week old yet. *sigh*

RMUN’s finally here.

Finally done with my presentation, it’s really bare, hopefully I can elaborate enough on the floor, then again we only have 5 minutes, really too little time if you ask me.

Basketball/Soccer for three hours today at Ivan’s house was fun enough, though i think i’ve gotten weaker after the panadols or something. Maybe it’s just my imagination and a stupid excuse for missing so much today

Writing something else for RandomMusings now, plz check it out. I really need the pagerank and traffic

expectations???

Haha, can’t believe that, according to the school, my expected MSG is supposed to be 1.98, like second highest in the class. Why is this so? I got no idea, i only got 253 for my psle hello? And to think that my actual MSG is 4.9… haha

bball with like 10 people tomorrow can’t wait.

too serious?

everyone seems to be so uptight about rmun this year, with people organising meetings and all. Haiz, so unlike last year. I’m almost too lazy to do much for rmun. But since this is the last chance I’ll get, might as well put in SOME effort. -.-

the 2 days of being absent from school left a pile of work that I haven’t touched at all. Too busy meddling with my new site. For people reading this please go to RandomMusings  now. You don’t need to read whatever crap I type, I just need the hits so that hopefully my blog will be accepted sooner than expected. Please check it out and help me out

nobody remembers second place

Anyone who flipped to page 6 of yesterday’s newpaper would have been greeted with Suzy’s pic that took up half the page, she looked….. strange… to say the least.

There was little mention of us, which I don’t really mind, because the article really managed to convey the message that I’ve been trying to get across to so many people for such a long time already:

The Arena sucked.

The article was even featured on the front page, though it was overshadowed by another one of those weird, offbeat stories about killings or whatever (I can’t remember). Still, I hope most Singaporeans read that article so that those rumors about how Singaporean students aren’t good enough debaters will be squashed.

Now if only it had been in the Straits Times………………