Washington University in St. Louis, Princeton, Georgetown and even Qatar; the Whitman delegation of Model UN has been everywhere. But what does “WhitMUN” actually do at conferences?

The Black & White’s Jamie Norwood reported from Model UN’s Vanderbilt conference in Nashville, Tennessee on what happened on the club’s most recent rip.

Friday, Oct. 9, 2009                   11:20 AM

Three hours of sleep, four hours of movies, five hours of anticipation and we’re finally in Nashville. Surprisingly, the 12-hour bus ride wasn’t bad at all. Ms. Osbourne brought “She’s the Man” on DVD, a definite crowd pleaser. As we pull into the Nashville Courtyard Marriott and everyone packs up their food and laptops, it turns out all of our rooms were double booked. Not good. Thankfully, it isn’t too long before the concierge figured everything out. We all found our rooms and got a complimentary breakfast. I’m currently sitting on the hotel bed while my roomies are showering, straightening their hair and unpacking for the weekend. If I know anything about Model UN conferences, it’s that there’s no free time. The schedule is already packed, and we’re all preparing ourselves for long hours of committee, campus tours and the delegate dance (everyone’s favorite). We’re  meeting in the lobby at 11:30 to walk over to the Vanderbilt campus for a group tour. I’ve got to go get ready!

Friday, Oct. 9, 2009                   11:30 PM

After a long day of running around Vanderbilt, we all walked back to the hotel decked out in our new Vandy sweatshirts. We had an hour of free time to wander around and get ready for our first session of committee. Before we knew it, we were all back on campus, sitting down for opening ceremony. It was surprisingly short! We met our committee chairs for the first time (all of them are Vanderbilt students). Everyone was anxious to finally get to their committees; nothing’s worse than an uneventful, boring committee. After all, this is where 90 percent of your weekend is spent. My country is Nigeria and my committee, SOCHUM (Social Humanitarian and Cultural), primarily deals with access to clean water and the legality of torture. Yikes! At first, I was terrified to get up and speak in front of the other delegates. It was only the first day though, so I wasn’t the only nervous one. But, naturally, there are those five or so kids who seem to be overly-confident. As they speak, the rest of the delegates roll their eyes. It’s going to be an interesting weekend…

Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009          4:30 PM

The hotel room phone trills at 7:30 AM for our wake-up call. After five hours of sleep, waking up is anything but easy. It’s all good though, because we have a full day of committee to look forward to. Right now (I’m sitting in committee), we’re working on passing a resolution in response to contaminated water distribution. You’d think 13 hours of committee would be boring. Wrong. Spending all this time with these new people is awesome. We even passed resolutions that define torture. I can’t even begin to explain some of the notes we’ve been sending and receiving. They’re hysterical! Last night we ordered pizza to Ms. Osbourne’s room and then we all hung out in each other’s rooms until midnight. Exhausted from a full day of activity and lack of sleep, everyone hit the beds the second we get to our rooms. I can’t believe we’re all leaving tomorrow; it’s gone by so fast. I’m really going to be sad to go!

Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009             9:30 PM

We were all checked out of our rooms by 8:30 AM this morning. Packing was a disaster! I had no idea how unorganized and messy four girls could be. We left the hotel and headed to Vanderbilt for our last session of committee (so sad!) and the closing ceremony. Since it was our last day, our chair agreed to cut work short and let us do SOCHUM superlatives. During the last hour of committee, we voted on “cutest couple,” “best dressed,” “laziest delegate,” etc. We all took our last few pictures, passed the last couple of notes and said goodbye to our new friends. I felt like I was leaving summer camp!

So now, I’m sitting on the bus (and have been for nine hours). We’ve already watched four movies so far. I’m going to sleep now, something I haven’t been doing very much of this weekend. Back to Bethesda and real life. I’m going to miss Nashville a lot.