Annual general meeting

After the lecture yesterday, I dashed to the IC LINKS annual general meeting. I’m the new chair for 2006/07. Quite a few of the rest of the committee are pretty new to SJA, but they all seem competent and enthusiastic so I’m looking forward to working with them. Hope we meet your expectations.

Lab winner

My lab mate just won a prize of £250 for her poster! The competition was held in conjunction with the Hounsfield Memorial Lecture, which was presented by the director of the molecular imaging program at Stanford. Well done SJ!

China and WorldMUN beckon

I’ve just bought a ticket to China. Towards the end of next month I’ll be going to Beijing to participate in the Harvard World Model United Nations. It’s the world’s largest student MUN simulation, with around one thousand four hundred delegates from all over the world expected to attend and eighteen different UN committees being simulated. I’ll be representing Nigeria in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Seeing as it’ll only be the second MUN conference I’ll have attended I’m pretty apprehensive about how productive I’ll actually be, but I’m really looking forward to it. It’s the first time WorldMUN is being held in Asia and it will be my first time in China and I can’t wait to explore. Fortunately, I’ve been given an extra week off by my supervisor so I’ll also be able to see some of the country.

In the mean time, though, I have to do some serious preparation. I know next to nothing about the country I’m representing (Nigeria), let alone the topics we’ll be discussing (Rwandan refugees in Burundi and Unaccompanied minors). Position papers are due soon so I’d better get to work. Help!

Resolution passed

Phew. We finally passed a resolution just minutes before the close of meeting. View about the topic were so polarised that there wasn’t much compromise on either side. Amendments were rejected and the resolution voted for was badly received by some of the delegates representing some of the African nations where female circumcision is most common.

I’m glad I signed up for LIMUN in the end. The debates were really stimulating and dynamic and we had the chance to meet people from all over the world. Would definitely do it again.

LIMUN

My first MUN conference.

London International Model United Nations (LIMUN) is the biggest annual university-based MUN conference in the UK, and this year it’s being held at Imperial. I’m representing Turkey in the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural committee, a specialised subset of the UN General Assembly. We’re debating female circumcision, or ‘cutting’, and things are already pretty heated. I didn’t have time to extensively prepare for the conference, but as far as I know female circumcision isn’t practiced in Turkey and it doesn’t seem to be a topic that it’s government has strong views on. So I’m not that active in discussions, but it’s interesting to note that, amongst others, the delegates representing Kenya and Egypt are totally against a resolution urging member states to impose a ban, even though their governments have already enacted bans (I really should have done more research as to their extent).

Anyway, committee is over for the day, and the social event beckons: a boat party on the Thames.

A promise (and apologies)

Yep, I know I've been really slack with the regularity of posting lately. I've been...well, lazy really. Yesterday I was belatedly drawing up some 'New Year's(!) Resolutions, and one of them was to keep up with the blog. So from now on I'll be posting more, and will also backdate my entries to add more holiday pictures.

Till tomorrow,
Moc

Hyde Park Relays

Hyde Park Relays earlier today. Not much too do first aid-wise, but we did leap into action when we saw a rider-less horse galloping down the Serpentine Bridge. No one appeared to have been hurt though. There was also a competitor who had a tonic-clonic seizure and was rushed to hospital, but I wasn’t around for that. Hope they’re ok.

Welfare officer

ICMUN (Imperial College Model United Nations) held their annual general meeting today. At the start of the year, I knew next to nothing about how the UN works and the skills required to be a good diplomatic, but the hard work done by the previous committee has encouraged me to get involved. They’ve been committed and dynamic, coordinating regular UN committee simulations, helping members to attend external conferences, organising our very own mUN@IC and hosting London International MUN (LIMUN), all the first year of the society. So I ran for a post, and am now welfare officer for 2006/07.

International Night

International Night is a College tradition and one of the biggest nights on campus. Every year, the national societies come together to showcase the variety of cultures here in an evening of food, culture and dancing. This year was slightly different, though, with the food fair being cancelled to give more time to the live show, but this didn’t seem to be too well received. The show itself had a great range of songs, comedy sketches and dances, most of which were pretty spectacular, though some societies gave the same performance they have in previous years, unfortunately. Still, it was a fun night, as these pictures hopefully show.

Opening ceremony
















Malaysian Society
















Hellenic Society (I think)
















No idea
















Iranian Society
















Japanese Society...it's Doraemon!
















Arabic Society
















Blur