For Just Six Low Payments of 10 minutes!

It is now six o'clock.  Please proceed to your next conference.  A voice announced over the loudspeaker.  Tonight was parent teacher conference night- but also a Model UN night, for me.  

It is now six ten.   Please proceed to your next conference.  Model UN begins, a bit late.  We're in a lecture hall with huge seat-less tiers, my friends and I have claimed the couch at the top.  "Decorum!"  The head delegate reprimands.  We quiet down.  A cell phone goes off.  I brace myself, expecting to hear your usual hip hop ring tone.  But what's that-opera?!  We all silence to hear the song.  "I didn't know you could buy opera ring tones."  Someone comments.  "Decorum, delegates!"  Thailand is called to speak.  Or is it Finland?  "Finland, Thailand, all the same country," the head delegate dismisses.  Right.  Finland introduces an extremely vague resolution.  A girl raises her hand.  "Would the delegate from Finland be amenable to amendments?"  She asks, tripping over all the amens.    One of the delegates with a history of changing his country steps up to speak.  Last week he was the Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, the week before he was People's Republic of China.  "Go back to Japan!" someone hollers.

 It is now six twenty.  Please proceed to your next conference.  Japan yields to Japan #2, who despite only having ten seconds, manages to get in about thirty seconds worth of material with a small fight against the gavel, speaking over the loud bangs and glares of the head delegate.  He raises the point that the resolution is very vague.  United Arab Emrites is up to speak.  "Vagueness is good!  In true UN spirit!"  He argues.  At this point I am rather bored, and I reach over to peruse Marena's notebook.  One of the pages has a long list of names, first and last.  I head it with the words 'People to Kill'.  Helen looks over.  "Whaat?!" She exclaims.  "Marena?"  I giggle.  I love fostering confusion.  She eventually is told that I wrote the heading.  (Edit: Well, apparently not.  Over IM she informed me, "Wait?  You wrote that heading?  I was not eventually told!")  Finland is up to propose an amendment.  He reads it aloud.  "...semicolon and with the aid of the UN office of blah de blah semicolon."

 It is now six thirty.  Please proceed to your next conference.  I wasn't really paying attention but some absurd statements caught my ears.  "This isn't a golden ticket!"  One person exclaims.  "No one found it in a chocolate bar."  Another kid gets up and asks if he can propose amendments to amendments.  Hey-I'm all for it.  Anything to add more semicolons.  There is a random email in Marena's notebook and I can't resist adding in a caption-my boyfriend.

 It is now six forty.  Please proceed to your next conference.  Oh god.  Would they just shut up already?  I'm not sure what's worse, the ten minute interruptions or the fact that we are now voting on whether to vote.  There is so much parliamentary procedure in Model UN that I have at times voted on whether to vote to see if we should vote.  The motion passes.  "Clapping is in order."  The head delegate tells us.  No one claps.  "Please clap."  He translates.  Oh.  Right.  Us.  We start to talk about new topics to debate.

 It is now six fifty.  Please proceed to the last conference of the evening.  "I don't want to solve poverty."  Someone complains.  "We've done it too much."  The head delegate tells us to get cracking on curing AIDS.  I ponder what we could do.  Maybe we'll write a resolution suggesting countries to look into implementing programs that may lead to the cure for AIDS.  We are the UN after all.  Darfur is suggested.  "Yeah there's a lot of shit going on in Africa."  The head delegate says.  "Well I mean there's always shit going on in Africa."  The room erupts into chaos, every delegate shouting out a country in Africa and its problems.  But then we move on to discussing fashion, specifically shirts for club members.  "I don't want any purple shit."  The head delegate tells us.  Ideas included monogrammed scarfs, pictures of gavels with the caption 'banging' and dedications professing our undying love for the club sponsors.

 Parent teacher conferences are over.  Have a good night.  Model UN is over.  I jump down the large tiers, and head home.

Sachi