M.U.N. REFLECTION

Although I feel that my second year brought me much more experience to use during debate, I still feel limited by the obscurity of the countries we are assigned. I would have loved to have been able to strike deals with major countries, and to an extent I did this year much more than last year. I would have like to make more deals, but Macedonia's position on Darfur was very very limited. I was forced to remain neutral on certain key points that I personally felt strongly either for or against. 

     The largest thing that this year's M.U.N. has opened my eyes to is how politics actually works, granted though that I am running under the assumption that American politics works roughly in the same way as the U.N. minus foreign presences. All of the speeches given were largely ignored and mostly a waste of time. All real decision making was made during unmoderated caucuses. Also, much as I'm sure real politics works, no one had any idea what they were talking about. 5 minutes of research could have yielded more information than what certain delegates seemed to know. Certain delegates seemed to have a hard time separating personal beliefs and that which is best for one's own country. That seems to be a theme amongst people involved in politics.

M.U.N. 3/17 - 3/20

     3/17
Opening committee session began very slowly as decorum seemed difficult to establish. Once the first unmoderated caucus began, Liz and I immediately began searching for our potential allies in order to get Topic B (Eastern European development) to be the topic of choice.  A few delegates seemed not to have done their research because a number of Eastern european countries voted against their own development. topic A was chosen as a result and Macedonia's involvement was slightly limited.

     3/18
Committee opened today and discussion immediately began regarding how best to approach peacekeeping efforts in Darfur. Macedonia has little involvement in Darfur, minus the fact that the one point Macedonia does feel strong on (ICC's decision to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes) is supported by few other countries, so allies were hard to make. We did, however, sign a draft paper with India because it seemed to be the most comprehensive.

     3/19
Draft resolutions came out this morning, only to discover that all contained motions to remove the warrant for President al-Bashir's arrest. This was Macedonia's only strongly felt point, After passing a lot of notes, Liz and I managed to strike a deal with Germany, to ensure that the country would use its pull to make sure an amendment was created to remove the clause. We debated with Mexico because yesterday they had said that no provisions would be made as to the removal of the clause, but when the draft resolutions came out, a clause was added. Liz and I decided that Macedonia was forced to remove its name for the list of sponsors.

     3/20
Closing committee session was fairly uneventful, seeing as Macedonia was forced to vote against almost every resolution from SPECPOL. In terms of ECOFIN and DISEC, Macedonia seemed to do very well despite not having a lot of resources or diplomatic weight.

M.U.N. 3/10

Today was our second MUN debate. The topic at hand was "Should child soldiers be tried as criminals?". I took the side that child soldiers should not be tried as criminals. I tried to cite some studies that I had read regarding whether or not children at that age could be considered accountable for their actions, along with modern Western laws regarding children and criminal charges. I also tried to tie it in to accounts of child soldiers that we had read in English class. Stories said that all the kids were given drugs, which i feel makes them even less accountable. Nathan and I tried the debate tactic of having the opposing side define the difference between right and wrong. Overall I thing the debate went very well, but we should have focused more on the procedures and actual steps used in MUN debates.

Guitar Practice - 12/17

I had slightly changed my goals this week because instead of going over music theory, I wanted to get some tips for playing by ear. My goal was to play with Alexander in a few weeks time, but because Alexander is quite the accomplished musician, I'd have to find out what I'm supposed to do. I soon discovered that I have no business holding a musical instrument. I can not tell the difference between two notes, almost entirely. I thought maybe I could work on this by either practicing or maybe there were some exercises I could do to train my ear. So far, it doesn't seem to be working.

Guitar 3/4

Today I continued my efforts to try to learn "Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?" by The Gaslight Anthem. The bridge of the song contains alternating major and minor chords. I have absolutely no idea how music theory works so I had to completely learn how to tell the difference between the two types of chords. A major chord is root, 4th, 5th; and a minor is root, 3rd, 5th. The song used nothing but D, E, and F# chords over and over again, but the spacing on the fingers was the hardest part. I'm sure if I had more time to spend on seriously studying music theory it would make more sense to me, as a half hour a week is simply not enough. I will try to spend more time practicing, but it's very hard to fit in a schedule.

M.U.N. 3/3

Today we held our first mock debate. The topic at hand was "Whether or not the United States was justified in its invasion of Iraq". I was assigned to the pro-war side, which served as a struggle for me seeing as I am neither pro-war, nor pro-American. I had to struggle to come up with reasons to support the current war effort. The best I could come up with was "Saddam was a threat to national security and had already amassed certain parts capable of nuclear weaponry." The realization that there are few to no good, rational arguments to support the war has really reaffirmed my opinion that the chief exports of the United States are missiles and lies. It was good practice for my debating skills to argue something that I oppose in real life. The next debate should involve the switching of sides in order to be fully prepared for M.U.N.

Guitar 2/25

Instead of continuing on my quest to learn to read music, i took a break to try to learn "Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?" by The Gaslight Anthem. The song has a really strange rhythm to it, not unlike the first part of the Fibonacci sequence. It sounds simple enough when it was explained to me, but I had to struggle with it to even get kinda close to sounding normal. Luckily the fingering pattern was relatively simple. Combining them proved to be a bit of a struggle though primarily because my ring finger is kinda fat and gets stuck behind my middle finger. Instead of going on a finger diet, I'm trying to hold my guitar in a different way that allows for more room for fingers, but it's rather uncomfortable.