Christmas!

There is eight days left till Christmas. It's a big holiday in my family. On the first weekend in December we put up decorations inside and outside our house. My mom doesn't like having a real Christmas tree because the pine needles need to be vacuumed off the ground everyday and she hates having to water it while getting stabbed by pine needles. So we have a fake tree. It's about eight feet tall and every ornament has to be put on a certain part of the tree. Outside we have icicle lights hanging from the roof. Our big pine tree in the front yard is usually covered in colorful lights and we have a Rudolph that is helping Santa out of a chimney.

This week is when my mom and I start baking Christmas cookies! Every year we bake the same cookies and we try a new recipe. We make biscotti, sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon cookies, peppermint twists, peanut butter cookies and gingerbread men. The weekend before Christmas my cousins and aunts come over and we decorate gingerbread men and ginger bread houses. The houses usually don't last even till Christmas Eve. By then most of the candy has been picked off, eaten and half the roof has been bitten off.

We had a HUGE Christmas party at the Italian American Banquet Hall with all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, parent’s cousins, grandparents, great- grandparents and great aunts and uncles. My cousins and I had to set up a nativity scene and I was the narrator. As everyone got in his or her costume we realized we didn't have anything to wrap my cousin Seth in, who was playing as baby Jesus. After brainstorming, we decided we would take a pillowcase my cousin had in her car still from a sleepover the night before and wrap him in it. Of course the play was a disaster. The baby started screaming after almost being dropped by my little sister and the angels were running in circles until they got sick and fell over.

I'm really excited for tomorrow! It's our last day of school until Winter Break! This day every year is traditionally a blow off day, no matter how old you are or what grade you're in. Teachers either make us watch an "educational" movie, like Elf or do an "educational" snowflake project. Third hour is what I'm really looking forward to though. My homeroom won the can drive for the freshmen class so we get a pizza party!

Christmas is almost here and I can't wait!

Rwandan Genocide Debate

It was different stepping outside of character and looking at the Rwanda genocide is a different countries point of view. The debate was crazy! A lot of countries were pointing fingers and blaming other countries for their own mistakes. France, the MNRD, and the U.N. and U.S. were blamed several times. Danny, Matt and I as Belgium believed that France was promoting violence by “training” the Hutus to fight. The debate on the topic was that France believed they were helping the Hutus defend themselves. The MNRD was blamed the most. Almost all the other groups, especially the RPF believed that they were brainwashing the Hutus, telling them that they must kill the Hutus. We ended the debate with talking about how the U.N. and the U.S. didn’t do anything to help the Rwandans in the genocide. The U.S. said that they were scared to get involved with the genocide because they were still frightened with the way it turned out when they helped Somalia in their genocide. The U.N. said that they didn’t have the support or supplies. When they went to the U.S. for help, they refused to help. The U.N. also said they did not have enough facts to consider it genocide.

The debate from my point of you was actually really fun. I learned a lot the effort it takes for countries and groups to get along, agree and communicate about tragedies. Even though I didn’t agree with the way Belgium handled things in the genocide. I still had to try to convince the other groups that Belgium was innocent. I didn’t think the debate would have been as chaotic as it was. As myself then as Belgium I believe that Belgium actually had a lot to do with the genocide being so violent. They owned Rwanda and when the genocide began they simply sat back and hardly did anything. I still believe that France was guilty as well. France said that they were helping the Hutus defend themselves. They trained the Hutus to fight and are responsible for the Tutsi lives lost in the Rwandan genocide. I also thought that the MNRD was being blamed for a lot more than actually did. A radio station can’t possibly make a group of people turn on another group in their country without other causes. The debate helped me realize what SIMUN will be like and how much preparation and hard work it will take.