An unreal international experience

Even though I didn't know it, that note (courtesy of India) would come to embody my entire experience there.

The Model United Nations is a club where students engage in an "authentic simulation of the United Nations system by learning about the UN system, the skills of debate, compromise, conflict resolution and negotiation." There are also various Model United Nations conferences held every year, where schools from all around the nation can participate together in a "mock" meeting of the UN.

For these conferences, each school is assigned a number of countries to represent, depending on their delegation size. (Menlo School was Panama and Ireland.) After that, the members of the delegation can choose to participate in specific committees with different topics. (I was in the Social and Humanitarian Committee, and my topics were: the use of torture against child soldiers and repression of the media by terrorist groups.)

Sure, it all sounds good on paper, but when you're inside, it's a completely different story.

Our first session at Berkeley went from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., and I and the other 150 delegates in my committee were crowded into a large ballroom with a podium, filled with rows upon rows of uncomfortable-looking gray chairs.

Over the next two days in that room, I observed quite a few things about the nature of Model UN.

The dress code for MUN is defined as "western business attire," which seemed to be easy enough for the boys, who decked themselves out in standard business suits and ties.

The girls, however, interpreted "western business attire," as something completely different.

Even the presiding officers got so exasperated with the choice of dress that one issued a warning. "No mini-skirts and no flip-flops," she said. "Oh yeah, and nothing that shows off more cleavage than shirt." (This last comment caused many girls to look at their chests in alarm, while others zipped or buttoned up their jackets discreetly.)

The point of these committees is to pass a specific resolution addressing solutions on how to approach the topics we were given. There is an ongoing speaker's list and delegates can give a speech on how their country would handle the situation at hand.

Let me shed a little light onto the two types of delegates who give speeches.

The first are those who treat Model U.N. as a school class (and, ultimately as a grade) and hobble up to the stage, never making eye contact with the audience and reading directly from their carefully constructed speech. They hold onto the mike stand for support, their mouths so close they're nearly kissing the mike. Still, their voices are no more than a squeak.

The second are those who might or might not have Model U.N. as a class, but it doesn't even matter if they do. They stride up to the center stage, disregarding the mike and talk off the top of their head. They don't care what anyone else thinks of them. Their speeches are usually greeted with standing ovations. Unfortunately, they only make up about 5 percent of all the delegates who actually come to the conferences, so most people are usually bored to tears or playing games on their cell phone when delegates are speaking.

Some other notable highlights of my M.U.N. experience:

· People couldn't help but laugh whenever someone called up the Republic of Djibouti (pronounced "ja-booty.")

· One guy specifically left to go "babe-searching" among the committees, coming back occasionally with tidbits like "Britain is so hot."

· I spent almost five minutes trying to persuade one delegate why he should be a signatory for my resolution until I realized that he was in a completely different committee.

· Another delegate from my school received a similar type of note as I did, somewhere along the lines of "Show me your lucky charms."

· People would make seal noises ("Arf! Arf! Arf!") whenever they disliked a delegate who was speaking.

But the whole time I thought (and I know that fellow delegates would agree) that if this is how the real UN works, we're all screwed.

Margot Leong is a senior at Menlo School. Her column appears in the weekend edition of the Daily Journal. She can be reached at margot.leong@gmail.com.