Halloween, Home, and Hilarity

So last week was Halloween. It was a lot of fun. My floor decorated our lounge in honor of the event, and there were a lot of Halloween parties and such. Every year we also host a trick-or-treat for kids around Hiram... they go around the dorms and get candy. I believe the school supplies candy to anyone who volunteers to pass it out.

On Wednesday, I went home (because I was going to be in Cleveland from Thurs-Sunday anyways... as I'll explain in a moment... and I figured I'd go up a day early so that I could see my friend/family). It's interesting what college does to you.... such as making you want to spend time with your parents! For the past couple years I've gotten along with my parents quite well, but living away from them does make a big difference still.

I fed my pet snake, too. He hadn't eaten in a month.

I also got a chance to eat at Chipotle which -- as many of you probably know -- is awesome.

On thursday, I had a Model UN conference in Cleveland. Our Model UN team is supposed to be pretty good, and we sent 10 people to compete at this conference. The rest of our team came to Cleveland on Thursday, and I met them at the hotel.

I had never competed in Model UN before, but it's a form of debate, and I love to argue. For anyone who doesn't know, the point of Model UN is to (as it sounds) simulate the discussions of the United Nations. The particular event that I was in was the "Historical Security Council", which means that we role-played a past Security Council -- the one from 1979.

My roommates at the hotel (some with really bad facial expressions):

I represented China (which was fun, because it meant I was powerful and held veto power). Unfortunately my knowledge of history is very limited, and I also knew nothing about UN procedure (I didn't read the 10 page packet of rules). I didn't research the 1979 issues enough, and was expecting to make a fool out of myself, but it ended up being a lot of fun and I even won an award.

Oh, and one fun point: I decided to veto a resolution that took everyone 2 hours to write. Seriously, this resolution was REALLY STUPID. Then it took them another hour and a half to fix it such that I would allow it to pass :-)

Above are some pictures of the Council in action, our Committee room, and some of my fellow delegates, including myself.

Myself and the Honorable Delegation from the Kingdom of Norway perform a karaoke rendition of Billy Joel's "Piano Man."

We take a group picture after the event is over.

Anyhow, overall it was a good experience, and I'd definetely consider doing it again. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys public speaking and politics/international affairs. You also get to meet some cool people (and I even ran into a kid that I was friends with starting in Kindergarten!).

Today is election day, and in 45 minutes I'm going to go and do some phone-banking or door-to-door work in the dorms to get people to vote.

--David