The Agrinautica

   Sally and I had just gotten in line to board our flight out of Vegas when the stewardess at the gate kiosk beckoned me over. "Are you on this flight too?" she asked me. She knew Sally was on it because she'd just bumped her in from standby. Anyway I say "yes," and joke with Sally that the stewardess is adding more frownie faces to our permanent records (since we keep being late for flight and things we'd joked already that they must have records on both of us with a bunch of frowning faces on them). Stewardess asks us for our boarding passes, does some typing, and then rips up our boarding passes right in front of us.
   At this point I was sure United hated us. Probably had a permanent record that our names brought up with explicit instructions to be mean to us, including a diagram.
   Stewardess then printed out two new boarding passes for us, and this time we actually had seats that were next to eachother (on the way in we had just inhabited two empty seats that were next to eachother, presumably earning more frownie faces from the airline).


   Anyway, I was in Vegas from Friday until Tuesday afternoon. In the mean time I tried to survive the combination of (1) the actual conference which usually keeps me thoroughly busy without the other factors; (2) having several papers due on Monday and Tuesday. Though the conference is always on school days Monday and Tuesday, for some reason this is the first year I've had anything due. I found time to write them and emailed them to Kristy and she turned them into me, because she's my favourite superhero; (3) I had to fill out some paperwork for the Department of Diplomatic Security and get it faxed to them; (4) Happy-hour: free drinks from 5:30-7:30 -- it would be criminal to abstain from that!
   The first two nights I was in bed by 10pm for the well being of my health, probably setting an AMWEST record for earliest anyone other than Catherine Myung has EVER gone to bed. The last two nights I was working on papers and got probably two hours of sleep between them. Thus I went like three days with negligible amounts of sleep. I don't know how I survived, except perhaps for the official horde of red bull in one of the staff hotel rooms.
   I once went on an epic quest to get to that red bull cache. It involved kidnapping the AU chair and trying both of her keys in the door, neither of which worked, eventually finding the Governor- and Secretary-Generals, SG left and GG right) and dragging them up there. The Gov-Gen tried two keys neither of which worked, but finally the Sec-Gen's key worked and I was able to acquire sweet sweet red bull.


   We had this one delegate (Uganda) that was psychotic. Like, literally. He always had this cold expressionless expression that just looked like he had no soul. His speeches hinted at intelligence behind bad delivery (delivered like one giant run-on sentence), but he would straight up tell other delegates they were stupid (never when I was in earshot though). I took him outside to talk to him and he said "well some of these people really need to be told how dumb they're being." Me: "well the art of diplomacy is telling someone they're a blistering idiot in such a manner that they think its a compliment." Him: "well thats not how we do it in Forensics (debate club)" "well thats how we do it in MUN." "I think I'll stick to Forensics." Like, most any other delegate would at least be a little humble and have some respect if their chairperson is yelling at them. This guy, not a bit.
   He claimed that Ugandan policy placed no value on human rights and that Uganda had no interest in fighting terrorism. I finally went and looked up Ugandan policy and the first two sentence were basically that "Ugandan president Museveni has won international praise for substantially improving human rights, but constant conflict on the borders continue to threaten the nation," ie the delegate was probably representing almost exactly the opposite of Ugandan policy. In terms of supporting terrorism and having a cold outlook on human rights I think he was getting Uganda confused with its northern neighbour Sudan. Eventually he'd get kicked out of my committee for informing another delegate he was a "fucking idiot," which is what we call a diplomatic faux pas. Certainly doesn't make me want to go sign up for debate club.


Quote of the Day
"'Sally' apparently means 'a witty or sarcastic remark,' could my parents have come up with a more appropriate name for me??" -Sally Lorenz, a very saucy girl.
"My name is just a reference to some obscure-ass religion about some guy who accidently gets himself stapled to a post or something" -me.


Picture of the Day

Rivers run red when I visit San Francisco
I feel like I should post a picture from the actual conference, but this one is too awesome to pass up.
Taken from the airplane on approach to the SF airport.

Year Ago - This Livejournal Discussed by ASUCD Senate!!
   A year ago last Saturday this very livejournal was discussed by the ASUCD Senate in my second impeachment hearing in as many weeks. The next day I made a groundbreaking livejournal entry intended for the officers of ASUCD.
   Some highlights from that entry:
      "...in testimony against me it was said that I "run a website...," implying I operate some unique news source named incriminatingthings.com or something. I think by any legitimate definition of "run," I do not "run" livejournal.com nor this particular journal. This is one of millions of journals on livejournal.com, one of 1,464,791 in fact."
      "And finally, you recall hearing read a comment by one "shid" who said "I suggest death." He has an official response for you: "Miss Henry, that quote refers to [my] inability to get laid, and has nothing to do with court proceedings. If any cute girls want to visit [me] at LMU in Los Angeles, see [Kris] after this trial." I must say, I never thought Sean's sex life would be discussed in ASUCD Senate.
   Other livejournalists also were pulled into the situation, with livejournal's pavelthegeek quoted during the senate meeting as calling then ASUCD president Sara Henry "probably a bitch." In what may have been my first interaction with current roommate wdsguy, he commented to a relevant entry stating that Sara Henry was a "hottie."

   As Sara Henry has long since ceased to be an officer of ASUCD (I swore in her successor just as I did her, and very likely I'll swear in her successor's successor...), I can now safely speculate on her and other relevant former officials.
   I don't think Miss Henry was evil per se, I honestly believe she just couldn't handle the concept of separation of powers and that she was not my boss.
   Also I'd like to mention Senator Gina Lee (whom wdsguy still fondly remembers as being in his opinion "extremely hot" btw). If it weren't for her absense at the first hearing I would have been removed. I'm still not sure whether she intentionally left before my hearing or it was an "unfortunate" coincidence for them. She'd always struck me as a particularly independant senator for a member of one of the parties. Anyway I think they got her to completely obey the party lines by the second hearing, but by then the majority of the party thought it was a pile of crap and voted against my removal.


AMWEST Las Vegas
   From Friday morning to Tuesday evening I was engaged in the Model UN adventure known as AMWEST. Well, about 20 hours of that was in driving there and back.
   The Honourable Under-Secretary-General/Director Mr. Nishan Bhaumik and I were originally going to set out at 8am on Friday, but we ended up leaving just after noon. About twenty minutes later we were being pulled over in Elk Grove.
   But Nishan used his special Nishan skills and the officer left, feeling satisfied. I thereupon took control of the vehicle. Three hours later Nishan was feeling zesty again so he took over once more, but two hours went by and he started seeing things so I was back at the wheel until just before we arrived at Vegas sometime after 9pm.
   So I was in Vegas then. First off let me say I hate vegas. Now gambling, I think gambling should be maintained legally, at least in certain places, as it is a great way to tax the foolish. Needless to say, I like to retain my money and not subject it to aleatory risks.
   And on the money note, Davis MUN recommended to their delegates to expect to spend a ridiculous amount of money, totalling $180 for the weekend (just for food, shopping, alcohol). I myself think I spent maybe $20 TOTAL this weekend on food.
   Anyway, from the start I vowed not to leave the hotel except for food. And I'm proud to report that I was successful in that.

   And best of all was the free breakfast every morning - omelettes, eggs, etc, made to order! Only at AMWEST of all MUN conferences to I spring out of bed eagerly in the morning with ample time for foraging.
   Also the hotel had "happy hour" with free drinks from 5:30 to 7:30 every day. Dinner break started at 5:30 every day. And people wondered why there was a problem with intoxicated delegates every evening.

Quotes
   Chairman Fricke: "The dias would like to announce that any delegates who are intoxicated to the point that they cannot maintain decorum will be kicked out and will bring shame upon their descendants for generations to come"
   Delegate of Equitorial-Guinnea: "Point of information - how many generations?"
   Chairman Fricke: "Six"

   Chairperson Janet Rossi: "if you kiss a banana slug it starts secreting stuff"
   Governor-General Josh Collins: "You kissed a banana slug?"
   Chairperson Rossi: "hey it was in sixth grade!"
   Chairman Fricke: "was it your first kiss?"

   Unknown Chairperson: "I'm not on a power trip!"
   Unknown Director (from same committee as above): "You've got the gavel in your pocket!" (at Baja Fresh)
   USG/Director Bhaumik: "or IS that a gavel in his pocket?"

   Delegate: "Zambia withdrawls the motion"
   Chairman Fricke: "The dias extends its condolences"

   And best of all, I'm in the little store in the hotel, purchasing a red bull, when a delegate comes in and asks the cashier under his breath "do you sell condoms?" (they don't). Maybe I'm judgemental but he didn't look like the kind of individual who normally would expect a lot of action so it was even funnier. I guess committee was going well for him.

   Also, Canada and Burma were on our roll call sheet even though we were the African Union.

   Nishan and I chaired African Union, with around 35 delegates in it. Conference evaluations in the end indicated that we were "two of the most wonderful people on the planet" and also "sexy beasts."
   I got a ride home on Tuesday from Secretary-General Josha Crabtree. At one point earlier in the weekend it appeared all passes into northern california may be snowed in, and I might for the first time in my life miss classes on account of being snowed in, but by the time Tuesday came about I was fortunate enough to get home without incident.
   The End.


Related
   AMWEST 2003