So, I haven’t been on campus since early Wednesday morning because at 9:40am we departed for the airport on our way to Boston. HNMUN is a Model United Nations conference hosted by Harvard and held at the Park Place Hotel. We are staying in the hotel that the conference is held in and we arrived by mid afternoon on Wednesday and had the rest of the evening to ourselves. Phil and I took the train out to a local mall to pick up a few things we forgot, but we also just explored the city a little and had a really good time.
We also had a lot of free time on Thursday morning, so Phil and I went to the beach at the end of the train line. We had a little trouble finding it, but once we did it was definitely worth it. There were huge shells that were bigger than my hands – hundreds of them, as well as lots of beautiful spiral shells and smaller shells scattered around. It was one of the prettiest sites I have ever seen, especially in combination with the beach being completely clear of snow but there being huge piles of it just off to the side of the beach from the 26″ that Boston received earlier in the week.
(beach pics)
After the beach we had opening ceremonies and the first day of committee. At the opening ceremonies, Maria, PJ, and myself were able to secure a balcony for Colombia, which is the country we are representing. That is actually a really big deal because there are only 10 balconies total and with all the UN countries competing to get to one first, its actually really difficult to get one. Basically, you have to make a run for it and then guard the territory closely to retain it =). The opening ceremony was great, lots of cheering for our individual countries, flags waving, and more. The first committee session was a little slow because of technicalities but overall it went well.
(opening ceremonies)
Friday and today we had 2 committee sessions per day. I am in the Third World Assembly on Aging and our topic was the social and economic issues associated with aging populations. There has been a lot of talk about age demographics and how to make the elderly more self-sufficient, but I definitely think some people had really good ideas. I formed a coalition with Mexico and a few other countries and we later merged with the coalition headed by France to form a draft resolution. Today we completed the draft resolution. Four drafts were accepted, including ours, and discussed as well as amendments suggested. Our draft has a lot of support, which I am definitely excited about. We only had a few small complaints about our definition of the elderly, which was an easy amendment and a few things people would like to see added in order to support our draft. We made those amendments at the end of the session, so we’ll see how tomorrow goes.
(one of the committee rooms)
For dinner tonight our entire team (Colombia) went out to Fire and Ice, a Mongolian restaurant about a block from the hotel. We had a lot of fun talking about our experiences in the different committees, countries we worked with, people we met, and just enjoyed each others company. It was a blast. I have really enjoyed the HNMUN experience and I got a lot more involved this year than I had in the past. I definitely had a lot more fun as a result and that definitely taught me that I need be a little more open to new experiences sometimes.
Tomorrow morning will be voting and the closing ceremonies. I can’t wait to tell you all about them on Monday.
=)
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