https://www.wbdg.org/additional-resources/case-studies/united-nations-headquarters I am sitting on a more-or-less comfortable dusty grey train seat looking out at the Adirondacks. The sun is shining down, though it will soon start to set. Earlier, we passed through a dozen stops in the state of New York, each city poorer than the next one. Now, we are somewhere between Plattsburgh, NY and Montreal, surrounded by the forest and plains of the St. Lawrence River. The peaceful nothingness allows me to reflect as I am leaving behind the blinding, bright lights of New York City. My bag is laying at my feet full of placards, name badges, paper pads, pencils and about three packs of throat lozenges. On the foldable table in front of me, there’s an apple cider vinegar juice that I bought for 8$ because it apparently helps with throat sores (spoiler alert: it doesn’t), and a couscous salad that will be my lunch on this 11-hour train ride. My passport and boarding pass are somewhere in the mess that I made, probably laying with school books I should be reading. My friend KF is sleeping next to me. He’s had a long week too. My muscles ache from hauling my luggage across the subway. It is stuffed to the maximum limit with Western Business Attire, three pairs of heels, eveningwear, and more than a few pairs of jeans. My feet are inflated either from the train ride or from the week of walking in painful but pretty heels. I haven’t been able to sleep for more than two hours at a time between committee session or team dinner for a week. My mind feels simultaneously sharp and stimulated, yet so mushy and exhausted from reading, writing, researching, debating, negotiating… Model United Nations (MUN) takes a toll on your body. I can’t remember the last time I left a conference without feeling sick. It is between two and five days of intense work with no sleep, no time to eat, a few parties or networking events to attend on top of deadlines for school or work.
Yet, I rarely feel as alive as when I am “MUN-ing”. MUN is a simulation of a United Nations body (ECOSOC, UNESCO, General Assembly, UN Women…). Delegates are in a committee and represent (under the banner of their school) a country. Every committee discusses topics of vital importance to the UN and for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda. The delegates must put front the values of their assigned country, regardless of their personal interests, to produce a resolution which will propose solutions to said problems. For each conference comes weeks, sometimes months, of researching and writing to get ready to debate. To best understand how MUN changed me, I must go way back. In high school, I was in a dance program. I spent hours every day, five days a week, practicing my jumps, correcting my posture, analyzing the shape of my arms, stretching the most obscure muscles, turning until I felt dizzy and learning how to perform on a stage. Some days I had enough. Some days, I just wanted to be a normal girl who played board games with her friends on Friday nights. These days were random and short-lived. Nothing can replace the thrill of being on stage. I felt free of everything. I defied the laws of gravity, I defied my personal demons, I defied society who told me arts were pointless. Instead, I became something beautiful, something effervescent and untouchable. Years of practice came for just these moments of pure ecstasy. Dance thought me perseverance and the literal meaning of "blood, sweat and tears". I learned to handle defeats and victories with grace. That small group of girls became my family for the most formative years. We spent all days together, in dance class, at school or on stage. Yes, we fought, we bickered, and we were jealous of each other. After all, we were all aiming for the front and centre place on stage because we loved performing more than most things in our lives. I also witnessed the greatest acts of friendship and selflessness. Girls picking each other up when a girl was sad, promising that if one girl falls on stage, we would all fall with her. However, I was still insanely insecure. I was always scared of making mistakes. Being in such a small group had me feeling claustrophobic. After high school, I needed to go somewhere where I could be more than just a “dance girl”. I needed to discover who I was, what I liked and who I wanted to be. Dance took up all my extracurricular time, it was the only thing I had ever known, but I knew I couldn’t make a life out of it. I went somewhere where none of my friends were, somewhere where I could start from scratch. CEGEP is the one time in your life where you can do whatever you want before diving into university and eventually look for a job. I chose a small program in a mid-sized school. Experience has shown me that your class friends are not always your real friends. True connections are made by meeting people outside of your group who will talk to you for more than getting the notes for class. Most times, you bond with people over your shared love of something. I just needed to find a group with similar hobbies as me. However, I had given up dance. It was all that I had, my one hobby. How does one go from dancing 3 hours a day to not having anything to do? One week into my first session of CEGEP, I was already overwhelmed. I didn’t know anyone, and I missed my old friends. I started getting quizzes and it wasn’t going as I expected it would. I was scared with no one to talk to because all my connections were too busy dealing with the same problems themselves. When I saw the ads for Activities Day, I knew I had to sign up for something. My mother pushed me to go towards the debate team or something more political because I always argued at home. She also knew that I am the copy-pasted younger version of her in many ways. She participated in multiple school newspapers and student politics groups. My mother knows me better than I know myself, so I trusted her. Walking up to school that day, I promised myself that I would not let my anxiety and my insecurities get the best of me. I could not be afraid of meeting new people, I would not be scared to sign up for something out of my comfort zone, I shan’t be scared of auditioning. That day, I visited every single kiosk and signed up to at least 20 activities. It was so exciting! I never saw such variety of non-sports activities in my life! The last kiosk I saw was called NMUN. There were about 20 people in front of it trying to talk to the two girls hosting it. All the people there were clearly very interested and knowledgeable about what it was. I sneaked in front of everyone and put my name down for the information session. I did not make eye contact with the ladies tending the kiosk nor did I utter a word to them. I figured I’d understand once I got to the session. The following week I had a meeting every single day for all the clubs I signed up to. I was a busy bee. Then came the NMUN meeting. I learned two things that day. The first being that NMUN stands for National Model United Nations, and the second, that is was a group of students doing a sort-of political thing with a little bit of debate (I still didn’t really get it). The second thing was that I REALLY wanted to do it. Ok, a certain trip to NYC might have something to do with that. The same ladies that were there at the kiosk were speaking at the session. They told us about the audition process which would consist of two rounds: the first being an individual audition, and the second a group one. You didn’t need to have experience with MUN or with debate, you just needed to have a sharp, creative mind with a will to learn. I had made a promise to myself. I had to try. Then came the first round of interviews. I sat down in front of the panel which was made of one of the girls from the kiosk, a teacher I did not recognize, and two other seemingly older people. They all had a straight poker face. I was immediately intimidated but tried to keep my cool. When I feel nervous, I remember the words of my grandmother which roughly translate to “you’re pretty, you’re sweet, and you’re smart”. Somehow that always calms me down. They started asking basic questions to know me. I answered as eloquently as I could. I mentally thanked my Anglophone friends in high school for having helped me get rid of my accent when I spoke English. They had asked the interviewees to prepare to present briefly a current political situation that you thought was the most urgent one to solve. At that time, the world was seeing massive waves of refugees from Syria and Iraq coming through Europe or in neighbouring countries like Jordan. After questioning me on who was on who's side, we discussed the conflict some more. Before I knew it, the interview was over. I had never been challenged intellectually like that. Never in all of high school had someone asked me what I thought about current affairs, never had someone asked me to analyze and discuss solutions. I decided CEGEP was going to be awesome. At this point, I needed to get in. I had a taste of MUN and I was already addicted. A few days later, I got an email asking me to come back for the group interviews. I screamed in the hallway. The second round was in a week. The content of the interviews was kept secret, so I had no idea how to prepare. The day came. I shall not reveal the content of the second round since it is kept religiously secret every year. Fast forward after two hours of intense work. Honestly, throughout that round, I had no idea what I was doing. I like to think people came to talk to me because I seemed approachable and intelligent while not being cocky, but the room was so loud and confusing with twenty-something kids all desperately trying to prove themselves. After two hours, I was absolutely exhausted. They told us they would call us personally that same night if we got in. That night I tried to do my math homework. I really did try! I just couldn’t think of anything else than my audition. What if I didn’t give the right phone number? What if I had too much of an accent? What if the fact that I had no prior experience would cut me out? What if I didn't make it? Then I heard my phone ring. I answered, and a girl told me I was in. I tried to sound as composed and polite as possible, but the truth is that I just wanted to scream and shout and dance it all out. She said congratulations and I think I thanked her about 300 times. She hung up, and I checked my phone to receive a Facebook notification that I was added to the "NMUN 2016-7" group. I went to bed overjoyed. It felt as if I would be getting 18 new friends. Our first meeting would be Wednesday of next week. We would join each week for the rest of the year to learn about position papers, resolution writing, speech writing and delivering, negotiation techniques… Everything was brand new to me. I looked forward every night to our session, except when we did improvised speeches, that still scares me. I got better, I learned, I developed my creativity, I made friends. Here are just a few notable events to describe my first year with the team:
After McMUN there was NMUN, but I will talk about that a bit later on. After 5 long conferences, it was time for summer. I was chosen to be Secretary-General of SimEURO 2017. It would prove to be the biggest challenge I ever took on. I never thought I would one day plan my own conference. After a year of learning the mechanics of being a delegate, it was time to move up to a higher level in my “career”. I couldn’t wait to share my passion with everyone. I spent the summer planning the committees with my wonderful team. I won’t lie, it was the most stressful time of my life. I have experience planning events, but something with this many moving parts was new to me. I like to think that it went well. By no means was it the best conference ever, but I think it was the best it could’ve been considering the means that we had. I got out of SimEURO more exhausted and drained that I have ever been. It is by far the proudest achievement of my short life. I got to share my passion with fellow students, many of them first-timers. There is no better feeling in the world than seeing young people get passionate as they write for the first time or speak in front of an assembly. I remembered being in their place the year before and falling in love with MUN. I like to tell myself that I witnessed something special for a least one or two people. Maybe SimEURO made them realize that they wanted to do MUN or work in politics. Maybe it gave them a sense of fulfilment after being lost for a while. There is no way that I can know for sure, but maybe there was a Libellus 2.0 in the crowd. I decided to come back to the NMUN team the next year. I was the only one except the head delegates to come back. I truly understand MUN is not for everyone. It demands sacrifice, perseverance and a level of investment that some people would rather put in their studies or other clubs. But, after all, it had brought me last year, I knew I wanted to keep going. I returned to MUNC as Assistant Chair to the UNEA where I saw a lot of familiar faces from the week before at SimEURO. My heart was filled with pride and happiness. We had made it, we had given the addiction to some kids. In that second year, I chose to adopt a stress-free attitude. Of course, I would keep giving it my all, but I would not get anxious about speaking, I would not get anxious about stepping into a room full of people. I was a veteran, I knew the drills. In the back of my head, I also knew that this year would probably be the last in my MUN career. I don’t know if I will make the team or have the time in university. I just wanted to have fun! Before I talk about NMUN, I would like to dedicate a paragraph to my teammates of both years. Every single one of them has left their mark on my heart. You pushed me when I thought I couldn’t keep going. You gave me a helping hand when I was struggling. I thought I had seen what teamwork was in high school, but these teams have brought it to a new level. Every week, I was motivated to come see my friends and debate with them. We had some memorable laughs (#NMUNMemes) and spent the best of nights together. Thank you to all of you for making this the most unforgettable experience of my life. Especially you KF and JR. KF, thank you for being the gardener of my happiness. JR, thank you for always pushing me out of my comfort zone. Now I shall attempt at explaining what NMUN is like. Have you ever been in a room full of young people who are passionate about something? I certainly hope you have, it is an amazing feeling. Imagine that there’s about 300 of them and that they are, for the most part, extremely talented, well-rounded, clever and creative individuals. That’s kind of what NMUN is to me. You get to meet people from all over the world: Venezuela, the Netherlands, the USA, France, Belgium, Egypt, South Korea, UK… What’s craziest is to understand the points of views of other cultures on politics. When you get out of committee to eat with your working group, you form true bonds with individuals who will one day be the leaders of their countries. I realized was that regardless of where you come from, we all share the same values. We want peace, stability and development. We want the power to realize our maximum potential regardless of any barriers. We all want the best for everyone, we just don’t always agree on how to get there. Part of what I love about the UN is its devotion to the three aforementioned principles: peace, stability and development. I am undeniably idealistic. I don’t know much about anything, but I do know that everyone should be equal in these principles, and I think that people who do NMUN agree with me. When you collide with ideas from different cultures, you grow as an individual. They brought me new points of views and new solutions to the most basic of problems. They made me see how issues impact differently people from all over the globe. For that, I will be forever thankful to all the delegates I’ve met. I don’t know if NMUN 2018 will really be the end of my delegate career. However, I need to get used to the idea just in case it is. As I said, I hope to keep chairing and be involved in local conferences, but nothing quite compares to the delegate experience. I feel blessed that I had the luck to experience it all. I am forever grateful to the Universe for allowing me to enter such an adventure. I have never been good with goodbyes, but it is a necessary one. I leave with an open heart and an invigorated mind. If there’s one thing you have to remember from this story dear reader, is to find whatever motivates you and makes you happy and to keep doing it until you can’t anymore. I found my thing for two years. It is time I find another. Xx.
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