By Raymond Chuang
This is a fictional account of a student’s embarrassing MUN experience. These events, however, are all based on true instances that the author has compiled from his experience as a delegate. You might be a little incredulous as you read on and merely snicker, or you might bawl and pound the table in frustration at the unbelievable stupidity of this imaginary character. Anyhow, if you’d sit down and ponder, you’d probably think of someone you know who vaguely—or strongly—resembles this delegate. All packed: My embarrassingly small TravelPro suitcase threatened to explode. The highly compressed bulk consisted of my MUN suit, five sets of clothing, deodorant, shampoo, razor, shaving cream, science textbook, a giant IBM that held nothing but online games, and god-knows-what-else Mom had warned me not to bring. A can of green hair dye was on the verge of implosion from the pressure exerted by a ten-kilogram dumbbell (I was going to stay fit). I ruminated in front of the trunk for a minute. “Fantastic,” I uttered to myself. “No, wait a minute. That’s not good for MUN,” I mumbled, and replaced the can of green hair dye with a can of pink hair dye. I stood there thinking for a while. Making up my mind, I grabbed hold of the green hair dye again and spent twenty seconds squeezing it into what little room the suitcase allowed. Why not? Singapore won’t cane me for having colorful hair. All prepared, I marched into my parents’ room and grabbed my sleeping mother by the shoulder. Oscillating her skinny frame from side to side, I accidentally emitted a vicious stream of spit as I shrieked into her ears: “Bring me to the bus stop, mother!” The Airport: I was lounging in a plastic airport chair when my advisor appeared. She demanded to see my opening speech. I actually have not written my opening speech yet, and I find it incredible that my advisor has not realized that, but of course I couldn’t give myself away.“Oh god, I left my passport in the bathroom!” I exclaimed. I grabbed my backpack and ran off to the nearest restroom in order to lock myself in a cubicle to privately finish the speech. I savagely tore my backpack open and found a pen and piece of paper. After struggling to finish that boring garbage, I finally managed to produce something that vaguely resembled an opening speech. I concluded that I’d just avoid my teacher on my way to the boarding gate and type the speech up once I get on the plane.Lobbying: I was lobbying with some of my fellow delegates and things were a bit confusing for me on my first day of MUN. So enthralled by my hair (which now looked like a Singapore Zoo peacock on hormones), this Danish-looking girl came to me with a piece of paper and said that I “most definitely must sign her resolution if I had a heart”. I still did not really know what a resolution was, so I signed hers just to make her happy. As soon as I finished signing it, however, this Sicilian-looking paisan with a 2000-dollar pinstriped Armani jacket and greased-back hair stopped in front of me and told me how great his resolution was. “It’s going to guarantee that no nuclear weapons are going to be illegally exported from Russia for the next four and a half years.” “Our resolution is much more specific; in fact, their resolution is simply breadcrumbs, we have a cinnamon bagel complete with raspberry jam- sign it.” I nodded in appreciation at his beautiful use of metamorphic language, and scribbled my name on his resolution sheet also.It took me a while to realize that I had screwed up, as I was only supposed to sign one resolution. Much to my chagrin, I finally mustered the courage to apologetically walk to Michael Corleone and withdraw from his resolution. His eyes became misty with grief when I spilled all my thoughts and said that I’d rather work with a delegate of the opposite sex than with some nuclear weapon nerd.Debate: Since I have been daydreaming for the past two hours, all I remembered doing after lobbying was buying several Starbuck’s Frappuccinos for my fellow delegates while they diligently merged their resolutions. Having said that, let’s skip the merging part and fast forward to the debate.I had been passing unauthorized (and therefore uncensored) notes to the voluptuous Delegate of Mexico for the first twenty-five minutes, but when I finally realized that she just didn’t dig my style, I tried to impress her by taking the floor. I gave a random wave of my placard and somehow ended behind the lectern.“Nuclear weapons are awesome!” I screamed hyperactively before the chair had time to allow me to proceed. Everyone stared at me with this peculiar expression, and as the chair asked the room for points of information, only North Korea volunteered. He stood up. “Does the delegate not agree that nuclear weapons are totally awesome?” He asked. Overly excited about North Korea standing on my side, I accidentally used the first person voice and said something along the lines of, “Yeah, man. I agree.” I thought I heard a disgusted groan from the back row.Wrap-up: Hopefully by now, you have realized that this MUN story does not serve as an example of what you should do, but what you should avoid to do. On a serious note, delegates are advised to leave some space in their suitcases, stick to the rules about formal clothing, research and prepare for the conference ahead of time, and have a basic understanding of MUN procedures. Quick and calculated thinking might also boost your negotiation skills, helping you evade those massive verbal attacks from the yearly horde of angry, vengeful, delegates during debate time. These reminders may all sound cliché, but we all witness these classic problems in every conference—instances that could otherwise have been avoided with that magical, instinctual thing we call common sense.
This is a fictional account of a student’s embarrassing MUN experience. These events, however, are all based on true instances that the author has compiled from his experience as a delegate. You might be a little incredulous as you read on and merely snicker, or you might bawl and pound the table in frustration at the unbelievable stupidity of this imaginary character. Anyhow, if you’d sit down and ponder, you’d probably think of someone you know who vaguely—or strongly—resembles this delegate. All packed: My embarrassingly small TravelPro suitcase threatened to explode. The highly compressed bulk consisted of my MUN suit, five sets of clothing, deodorant, shampoo, razor, shaving cream, science textbook, a giant IBM that held nothing but online games, and god-knows-what-else Mom had warned me not to bring. A can of green hair dye was on the verge of implosion from the pressure exerted by a ten-kilogram dumbbell (I was going to stay fit). I ruminated in front of the trunk for a minute. “Fantastic,” I uttered to myself. “No, wait a minute. That’s not good for MUN,” I mumbled, and replaced the can of green hair dye with a can of pink hair dye. I stood there thinking for a while. Making up my mind, I grabbed hold of the green hair dye again and spent twenty seconds squeezing it into what little room the suitcase allowed. Why not? Singapore won’t cane me for having colorful hair. All prepared, I marched into my parents’ room and grabbed my sleeping mother by the shoulder. Oscillating her skinny frame from side to side, I accidentally emitted a vicious stream of spit as I shrieked into her ears: “Bring me to the bus stop, mother!” The Airport: I was lounging in a plastic airport chair when my advisor appeared. She demanded to see my opening speech. I actually have not written my opening speech yet, and I find it incredible that my advisor has not realized that, but of course I couldn’t give myself away.“Oh god, I left my passport in the bathroom!” I exclaimed. I grabbed my backpack and ran off to the nearest restroom in order to lock myself in a cubicle to privately finish the speech. I savagely tore my backpack open and found a pen and piece of paper. After struggling to finish that boring garbage, I finally managed to produce something that vaguely resembled an opening speech. I concluded that I’d just avoid my teacher on my way to the boarding gate and type the speech up once I get on the plane.Lobbying: I was lobbying with some of my fellow delegates and things were a bit confusing for me on my first day of MUN. So enthralled by my hair (which now looked like a Singapore Zoo peacock on hormones), this Danish-looking girl came to me with a piece of paper and said that I “most definitely must sign her resolution if I had a heart”. I still did not really know what a resolution was, so I signed hers just to make her happy. As soon as I finished signing it, however, this Sicilian-looking paisan with a 2000-dollar pinstriped Armani jacket and greased-back hair stopped in front of me and told me how great his resolution was. “It’s going to guarantee that no nuclear weapons are going to be illegally exported from Russia for the next four and a half years.” “Our resolution is much more specific; in fact, their resolution is simply breadcrumbs, we have a cinnamon bagel complete with raspberry jam- sign it.” I nodded in appreciation at his beautiful use of metamorphic language, and scribbled my name on his resolution sheet also.It took me a while to realize that I had screwed up, as I was only supposed to sign one resolution. Much to my chagrin, I finally mustered the courage to apologetically walk to Michael Corleone and withdraw from his resolution. His eyes became misty with grief when I spilled all my thoughts and said that I’d rather work with a delegate of the opposite sex than with some nuclear weapon nerd.Debate: Since I have been daydreaming for the past two hours, all I remembered doing after lobbying was buying several Starbuck’s Frappuccinos for my fellow delegates while they diligently merged their resolutions. Having said that, let’s skip the merging part and fast forward to the debate.I had been passing unauthorized (and therefore uncensored) notes to the voluptuous Delegate of Mexico for the first twenty-five minutes, but when I finally realized that she just didn’t dig my style, I tried to impress her by taking the floor. I gave a random wave of my placard and somehow ended behind the lectern.“Nuclear weapons are awesome!” I screamed hyperactively before the chair had time to allow me to proceed. Everyone stared at me with this peculiar expression, and as the chair asked the room for points of information, only North Korea volunteered. He stood up. “Does the delegate not agree that nuclear weapons are totally awesome?” He asked. Overly excited about North Korea standing on my side, I accidentally used the first person voice and said something along the lines of, “Yeah, man. I agree.” I thought I heard a disgusted groan from the back row.Wrap-up: Hopefully by now, you have realized that this MUN story does not serve as an example of what you should do, but what you should avoid to do. On a serious note, delegates are advised to leave some space in their suitcases, stick to the rules about formal clothing, research and prepare for the conference ahead of time, and have a basic understanding of MUN procedures. Quick and calculated thinking might also boost your negotiation skills, helping you evade those massive verbal attacks from the yearly horde of angry, vengeful, delegates during debate time. These reminders may all sound cliché, but we all witness these classic problems in every conference—instances that could otherwise have been avoided with that magical, instinctual thing we call common sense.
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