UCBMUNC 2008

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   The UC Berkeley MUN Conference was more than a week ago now (March 13-16th), but I've been busy hiking across Catalina and such since.

   My friend Mark and I attended the conference under the banner of the Pasadena City College (PCC) delegation. There were approximately 11 of us total on the delegation I believe. We all piled into a van which had been rented through the school and drove there and back.
   Despite being put on by the UC Berkeley team, the conference was across the bay in downtown San Francisco. Committees were in the fancy Parc 55 Hotel and the downtown campus of CSU SF.
   Thursday night there was only opening ceremonies, which consisted of ten minutes of staff introductions and an hour and a half of a really boring speech by a Berkeley professor (as if we've never heard a professor speak before?!). As if this wasn't enough, it was followed by half an hour of the professor fielding questions, which really meant that particularly pompous delegates engaged in intellectual wankery by name dropping important scholars from their latest poli sci reading in the form of asking questions about what the professor thought about X's theory on Y. After surviving that we definitely had to partake of the "Sailor Jerry" spiced rum.

   Friday morning committee started. Mark and I were both in the Legal Committee -- I was Israel and he was Malawi. Our topics were Unlawful Combatants and Intellectual Property. I was sure the unlawful topic would be discussed (and therefore most) and was excited about it and ready to dominate, and extremely apathetic about the IP topic. Unfortunately, the IP topic was voted to be discussed first (!) (and we didn't get to the other topioc till the last four hours )= )... which is why I didn't get best delegate THIS time (= jk.
   UC Davis was actually at this conference for once. Their delegate in my committee recognized me, but their head delegate, Nicole Quenelle, who I had been in MUN with there for a year or two, seemed to be acting like she didn't know me. I guess the legacy of the Myung et Al reign of terror and character assassination there lives on. The Davis girl in my committee noted "i think davismun has conditioned me to think the worst of you."

   Friday evening there was the usual mischief and additionally there was fencing in the hallways!
   Saturday someone had found out there was a Scientology protest (since it was founder L Ron Hubbard's birthday) so Mark, Connor and I went and checked it out at lunch. There was also a St Patty's Day Parade going by in front of the conference.
   Saturday evening Nicole Farazian, one of my very favourite people, went out to dinner with Mark, Connor, Grayson & I went out to dinner at a Thai place on Haight Street. After that my friend Marla from Davis met up with us and presently we all headed off to the soiree (UCBMUNC had rented out a nearby club for the evening for the soiree and arraned bus service there/back once every hour). Debauchery ensued.

   Sunday morning was awards. I got an "honourable mention" award, which is equivalent to paxmun's "distinguished" awards. Mark got a verbal commendation, and PCC got the "Golden Bear" (Best in California) Delegation Award.
   Then we (PCC) loaded up our vanmobile and headed to Fisherman's Wharf for lunch. While we were eating someone smashed a window on the van and grabbed Nia's bag and laptop (and our delegation award). This was a rather shocking experience not the least because our van was parked just across the street from the extremely high pedestrian traffic levels of Fisherman's Wharf. We tried to patch the window with shower curtain we bought at a walgreens but it just kept flapping in the wind and annoying the driver so we ended up just driving back with an open window the whole way. The end.

Additional Pictures


See Also
UCBMUNC 2003
UCBMUNC 2004
UCBMUNC 2005
Other Conferences and Such