Model UN blog #57: 4-1-14

Hey guys, so today was my first day in New York! We left on our plane ride at 8:00 AM and got to New York around 1:30. It was a good flight, not much happened. After our flight we went straight to our hotel. All of the boys are sleeping in adjacent rooms. In one room there are two queen beds and in the other there is a queen and a single bed. Once we got settled in, we watched a soccer game then went to eat a late lunch/dinner at Shake shack. It was really delicious and really close to our hotel. After that we went to see the view of Manhattan and came back to our hotel. I just got back from the swimming pool, and tomorrow we are taking tours at the Rockefeller center, 911 memorial and the Statue of Liberty. We also have opening ceremonies tomorrow night. I am really excited to be in New York, and can't wait to see more of it!

Model UN blog #56: 3-31-14

About 60 days ago, I started doing these blogs. I also started my website to earn funds for my trip to New York city for the Montessori Model UN conference. Since November I have been studying all about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and about the Model UN. We started our studies with everyone writing a country research paper. I wrote about some of the DRC's history, some major places in the DRC and their religion. Our second task was to start our position paper. We wrote our first drafts over winter break and had our first edits the week we got back. From then on, the majority of our work was on our position papers, studying our topics and how they relate to the DRC. It took over a month to finish those papers. After finishing the position papers, we had about a month left until our trip. So we planned out what we were going to do. Sadly, a lot of that stuff could not be accomplished since we were moving into our new Middle School building around that time. We also performed a play after we got into our new building. That left two weeks plus spring break for us to finish our studies. During those two weeks, we finish our country display boards, and finished our speeches. We did run-throughs, studied vocabulary, and pretty much everything else we needed to be prepared for this trip. Tomorrow I will try my best to get out a blog of how my first day in New York was!

Model UN blog #55: 3-30-14

Hey guys, today was my last full day to practice and review all of the work I have been doing for the past four months. Exactly two days from now, I will be in a New York hotel room with my friends from school. It is going to be a great trip and I am really excited to go. In my blog tomorrow I will give a complete overview of my studies and what I have been doing.

Model UN blog #54: 3-29-14

Hey guys, all I did today was practice and edit my speeches. I fixed some of the small things, like getting rid of the stuff I repeat in my speeches and changing the DRC into Democratic Republic of the Congo. To me though, fluency is going to be the most important thing. I have some of it memorized so I won't be having too look down at my paper the whole time, and will kind of know what to talk about if I get lost. Tomorrow is my last day off before school starts again, and on Tuesday I am flying to New York. Tomorrow I am going to practice my speeches over and over again to make sure they're perfect, I am also going to go through the procedures again. At the moment I am more nervous than excited, and it has really hit me that I am going across the country with my school for a trip. To be honest, I have had some doubts about whether or not I will be able to do this, but then I realized that I will be in New York with my closest friends for four days, and it will be a blast.

Model UN blog #53: 3-28-14

Hey guys, yesterday and today I re-read the rules of procedure and how the meetings were going to look. I also practiced my speeches. After reading what the conference was going to be like, it looks pretty easy to follow. The dais are repeating a lot of the stuff they say to make sure that you don't get lost, they also guide you through the process. The hardest thing for me will be when to raise my placard and speak, I will definitely speak if I feel a point should be made, but other than that I do not know when to make a motion or anything like that.

Model UN blog #52: 3-26-14

Hey guys, today I double checked everything that we have to do for the conference. I made sure there were no more edits to do on my paper, made sure my speeches were good, and tomorrow I am going to re-read the procedures that we have to do during the conference. I only have six days until I leave for New York!

Model UN blog #51: 3-25-14

Hey guys, today I did a lot of work for the trip. I was out shopping for about 3 hours to make sure I had all my clothes, soap, toothpaste and everything else. It was actually prey fun getting to pick out what I was going to wear and how it would match. While at home today, I practiced my speeches and timed them. I made it so that all of my speeches are at the time limit that they are supposed to be. Tomorrow I will practice them even more.