SIMUN:)

SIMUN was really fun. At first I was really clueless and didn’t know what to expect. All the sophomores, juniors, and seniors seemed to know what they were doing and understood everything. Our first scenario was the Zimbabwe election in 2008, and lucky me, I was Zimbabwe. I was so scared because I didn’t know what to expect. I kept thinking to myself that I was over exaggerating and that it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought, but it was. Everyone got very into it and some people even yelled at me because the South African president was killed in my country. I seriously don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have Ms. Van Horn and the mentor helping me.

I think for my first SIMUN experience I did pretty well. I gave a lot of speeches and contributed to two of the three resolutions made. There were a few countries in my group that didn’t like me that much though because I asked a lot of questions. After the Zimbabwe scenario I did very well and was able to participate more. People actually came to me for my opinion and advice in caucus. I was amazed because I was a clueless freshmen who wasn’t really sure what they were doing.

At first I didn’t really know how to prepare for SIMUN. I started off by figuring out where Zimbabwe was. Then I researched there government system and leader. Reading news articles about Zimbabwe also helped me get a picture of what countries were allies and enemies with Zimbabwe. Knowing the countries allies helped me extremely in SIMUN, especially during caucus. The research for the SIMUN prep questions helped me prepare a lot too. If I hadn’t written the paper on the Zimbabwe elections in 2008, I would have been clueless at SIMUN because I never came across the story of the violence in the election.

For next year in SIMUN I plan on researching much more on the allies of which ever country I have. I will definitely do more research on the stability of the countries government and what kind of government they have. Researching the groups of citizens would also help a lot because when my group was doing the Uigher and Chinese government scenario I was very confused. Most of all I think researching more on the culture and religions in the country and the countries surrounding will help me out next year in SIMUN.

I'm reading Chinese Cinderella. The story is about a little girl that is "bad luck" to her family because her mother died giving birth to her and is unwanted by her family. She has seven siblings; five biological and two half siblings. Her step mother Niang treats her horribly. When they moved from their hometown to Shanghai she is forced to share a room on the third floor with three of her siblings. While her half siblings got their own rooms, the five of them aren't allowed any food other than breakfast, lunch, and dinner. On her first day back from school in Shangai was forced to walk miles in the rain back home and even when there was storm watches. Her father married a woman who was only seventeen when he was in his late thirties. Age doesn't seem to matter in Chinese culture because it wasn't just her parents. Even her grandparents got married when her grandma was fifteen and grandpa was twenty five. It's only a ten year differences. But in America it would be like a sophomore in high school marrying someone who is already out of college. Also in China, if a stepmother is brought into a household, the father’s children from a previous marriage aren't treated nearly as well as his step children. In the story the two half siblings were given a private tutor, who would always blame accidents on the five other children. The five children had to starve between meals, while the two half children would constantly feed food to pets. They weren't provided with any transportation to school and even being in a wealthy family are to never be given pocket money by their dad. They also acknowledge the dead in very strange ways. The body was kept in the house for several days so people could pray to the dead grandmother. The day the grandmother died, the five children were forced by their aunt to sleep on the floor by the coffin at night to keep her company. Even though they were terrified.