These were my first two ever MUN conferences where, even though I already had a passion for history and politics, my introverted nature combined with my inexperience and lack of confidence meant that I was relatively shy and quiet in these events, however, being my first conferences they provided me with the crucial experience I needed to develop my self in this space. In WISMUN, I found myself participating as the delegate of Russia, which, in a room full of representatives from western nations put me under the spotlight and the target of criticism from day one, forcing me to develop my defensive debate skills, finding ways to deflect and counter political accusations and attacks. BKKMUN was especially memorable due to the fact that after one of my speeches as France, I found myself answering more than 20 questions, and being ideologically attacked by every single delegate in the room, even my own allies, putting me under immense pressure to procure lines of logic and retrieve facts from my memory that would defend myself and ease the tension in the room. I attribute that moment as the turning point from being a very shy, quiet delegate, to being a very verbal, expressive and authoritative voice in the room. 

The previous features of me as a debater would solidify during this conference as is proven by the fact that I had won a Best Delegate award by the end of it. I was participating in a special committee known as HSOC which involved roleplaying as various historical figures and creating an alternate historical timeline through both diplomacy and warfare, guided by handpicked objectives from the event organizers beforehand. In my particular cabinet I found myself assuming a leadership role: brainstorming various potential plans of action that could be taken in response to the various events we were observing occur around us and consulting these ideas with my fellow cabinet members, before delegating roles and tasks to them, while I assumed direct and near total control of our armies. I found myself having to deal with a severe lack of information about the location of enemy troops, national budget as well as time constraints, plus spies and treason within my own cabinet. It was from this leadership role, in conjunction with my effort and improvisation put into commanding the army, even if some battles were lost from grave miscalculations, that I found myself winning a Best Delegate award. 

In this conference, I was no longer a delegate, I had managed to be recruited as a Chair into this event’s HSOC committee, due to recognition I received via my Best Delegate award. This position found me reversing the roles, rather than being the delegate navigating the chaos to achieve objectives, I was one of a handful who organized this particular part of the event, writing up research papers as reading material to help educate the delegates about the historical event / time frame at hand before the event started and conducting extensive background research into numerous historical figures, some well known, and some obscure, to create reasonable objectives and abilities for each figure which would be played as by a delegate. Not to mention the time and effort put into revising and testing the rules and mechanics of how this committee worked to improve the experience relative to previous HSOC events. On the day of, I found myself very literally running from room to room, coordinating the event with my fellow chairs, as well as acting as a chaperone for the delegates. By the end of the event, I in conjunction with my fellow chairs got to discuss and debate amongst ourselves, based on the actions and skills we observed from each and every one of our delegates, who should be awarded with the title Best Delegate. All of this effort however, was most definitely worth it as I had a complete blast watching how much fun my delegates were having and all the crazy ideas they managed to procure

This event would act as one of the biggest challenges I had ever faced as a delegate for the country I was assigned to represent was the DPRK (North Korea) in the Human Rights council. For 3 days I had found myself at the very center of relentless controversy and criticism, constantly struggling to find allies and get a resolution passed. However, I also regard this as one of the most joyful and growth inducing events I have attended, as, even though from a professional standpoint, I as North Korea had little to no allies or political backing, informally, my immense efforts, controversial speeches and takes as a representative of North Korea, found me making many friends and becoming a minor celebrity within the population that had attended this particular THAIMUN, with strangers asking to have their selfies taken with me. It was from this even that I realized, being an excellent delegate and representing a country and peoples culturally and ideologically far from you is not achieved solely by extensive research, memorizing of facts, and awareness of the current news surrounding and within that country, but rather, all of that must be done in conjunction with not simply knowing, but understanding the fundamental beliefs and ideologies held by a government and creating a persona, a character, that embodies them, and using that as a template to think critically as though you yourself were that government. 

By the time this event rolled around, I had climbed the ranks in my school to become the President of Wells MUN Club. Thus in 2023, I, in conjunction with my two other student leaders, 2 teacher advisors, and school staff / admins, were responsible for planning, organizing, and hosting Wells’s MUN conference for 2023. This effort had taken us the better part of half a year, doing everything from coming up with topics to debate about, to the logistics of seating, budgeting, food, developing ID cards, security measures, fire escape plans, coordinating with other schools, sending out invites, processing payments, and much much more for an excess of 200 delegates. On the day of the event, I was the Secretary General and was the one who both opened and closed the event, as well as gave speeches during the opening and closing ceremonies, and coordinated the event between all the chairs. After putting in the effort to host an MUN conference, I gained a new level of respect for my MUN acquaintances that had been Secretary Generals and other logistical / operational roles before at other conferences I attended. I gained much insight into all the thought, logistics and variables that go into hosting such large events in general. Much stress has endured during the process, and to be extremely honest humbled my sense of having good time management, communication and planning revealing new weaknesses in me as a person that I now work to improve.