AMWEST 2005
Sally and I had just gotten in line to board our flight out of Vegas when the stewardess at the gate kiosk beckoned me over. "Are you on this flight too?" she asked me. She knew Sally was on it because she'd just bumped her in from standby. Anyway I say "yes," and joke with Sally that the stewardess is adding more frownie faces to our permanent records (since we keep being late for flight and things we'd joked already that they must have records on both of us with a bunch of frowning faces on them). Stewardess asks us for our boarding passes, does some typing, and then rips up our boarding passes right in front of us.
At this point I was sure United hated us. Probably had a permanent record that our names brought up with explicit instructions to be mean to us, including a diagram.
Stewardess then printed out two new boarding passes for us, and this time we actually had seats that were next to eachother (on the way in we had just inhabited two empty seats that were next to eachother, presumably earning more frownie faces from the airline).
Anyway, I was in Vegas from Friday until Tuesday afternoon. In the mean time I tried to survive the combination of (1) the actual conference which usually keeps me thoroughly busy without the other factors; (2) having several papers due on Monday and Tuesday. Though the conference is always on school days Monday and Tuesday, for some reason this is the first year I've had anything due. I found time to write them and emailed them to Kristy and she turned them into me, because she's my favourite superhero; (3) I had to fill out some paperwork for the Department of Diplomatic Security and get it faxed to them; (4) Happy-hour: free drinks from 5:30-7:30 -- it would be criminal to abstain from that!
The first two nights I was in bed by 10pm for the well being of my health, probably setting an AMWEST record for earliest anyone other than Catherine Myung has EVER gone to bed. The last two nights I was working on papers and got probably two hours of sleep between them. Thus I went like three days with negligible amounts of sleep. I don't know how I survived, except perhaps for the official horde of red bull in one of the staff hotel rooms.
I once went on an epic quest to get to that red bull cache. It involved kidnapping the AU chair and trying both of her keys in the door, neither of which worked, eventually finding the Governor- and Secretary-Generals, SG left and GG right) and dragging them up there. The Gov-Gen tried two keys neither of which worked, but finally the Sec-Gen's key worked and I was able to acquire sweet sweet red bull.
We had this one delegate (Uganda) that was psychotic. Like, literally. He always had this cold expressionless expression that just looked like he had no soul. His speeches hinted at intelligence behind bad delivery (delivered like one giant run-on sentence), but he would straight up tell other delegates they were stupid (never when I was in earshot though). I took him outside to talk to him and he said "well some of these people really need to be told how dumb they're being." Me: "well the art of diplomacy is telling someone they're a blistering idiot in such a manner that they think its a compliment." Him: "well thats not how we do it in Forensics (debate club)" "well thats how we do it in MUN." "I think I'll stick to Forensics." Like, most any other delegate would at least be a little humble and have some respect if their chairperson is yelling at them. This guy, not a bit.
He claimed that Ugandan policy placed no value on human rights and that Uganda had no interest in fighting terrorism. I finally went and looked up Ugandan policy and the first two sentence were basically that "Ugandan president Museveni has won international praise for substantially improving human rights, but constant conflict on the borders continue to threaten the nation," ie the delegate was probably representing almost exactly the opposite of Ugandan policy. In terms of supporting terrorism and having a cold outlook on human rights I think he was getting Uganda confused with its northern neighbour Sudan. Eventually he'd get kicked out of my committee for informing another delegate he was a "fucking idiot," which is what we call a diplomatic faux pas. Certainly doesn't make me want to go sign up for debate club.
Quote of the Day
"'Sally' apparently means 'a witty or sarcastic remark,' could my parents have come up with a more appropriate name for me??" -Sally Lorenz, a very saucy girl.
"My name is just a reference to some obscure-ass religion about some guy who accidently gets himself stapled to a post or something" -me.
Picture of the Day
Rivers run red when I visit San Francisco
I feel like I should post a picture from the actual conference, but this one is too awesome to pass up.
Taken from the airplane on approach to the SF airport.
More Pictures: on flickr - including more of SF from the air.
Previously on Emosnail
Two Years Ago Monday: This Livejournal Discussed by the ASUCD Senate - So my second removal hearing came and went. I am suprised to learn the case against me is entirely based on this livejournal. I think President Henry called the hearing the moment she discovered I had a livejournal, because despite the the immense number of anecdotal references to ASUCD here, she could not find a single one in which I expressed bias or partiality about a member or aspect of ASUCD. This is because I am and have always been aware of the contraints of my position as Chief Justice, and furthermore I don't think I'd write in a biased manner even if I weren't in my position, because I like to adhere to a higher standard of journalism here. One of my favourite parts of the second removal hearing was where I said "First of all, like the first removal hearing against me, there were once again procedural errors in bringing this up against me. Last time I waived my objection to the erronious process that the codes say would make this invalid. At that time I informed you of the correct manner to bring about a removal hearing, I am sorry but I cannot waive your errors again." Now that is quality patronization. I would go on to outlast those senators, and their successors, and their successors successors.