My first MUN experience

Yup, I joined a Model United Nations conference.

Shy ol' me. I'm pretty proud of myself lol.

So, 3 days before the HELP MUN conference, I felt regret. Why did I even join this?! At that point, I only knew 1% about the country I was delegated to, which was Bolivia. What's worse is I only knew 3% of what MUN was about and what happened during MUNs. Sounds like a bad idea huh.

1 day before the conference, tried to jam into my brain whatever information about Bolivia I could find on the internet because I was too lazy to do it before (typical Carmen to do things at the last minute). Even printed out the whole Wikipedia article about Bolivia in case someone decided to ask me weird questions I don't have the answers to in my brain.

Day 1 of MUN

I was dreading this day. Not mainly because of MUN, it was because of something else, but MUN was the spoiled cherry on top of the messed up cake.

When I reached HELP, the lobby was filled with unknown faces. I studied at HELP yes, but I felt like the stranger among the throng of people who looked like they've made HELP their home (for the next 3 days at least). Felt a little uneasy, because none of the people I know (other than the organizers themselves) participated or is even slightly interested in the idea of joining MUN. Fml.

I always feel awkward when I'm alone in a crowd of peers, and feel the need to make friends. I'm not even an extrovert! The first 2 friends I made were from the matriculation course and IT department in HELP. Other HELP-ers, yay (I was starting to think I was the only one). Collected my tag, which I always thought looked cool and professional when someone wore it. Now, I get to have my own, how exciting.

I also introduced myself and made a few more acquaintances during the opening ceremony. Met quite a number of people until I forgot their names 20 minutes after I met them. Sorry, I blame my short-term memory loss? For their sake and mine, I hope they never read this.

We were then separated to our different venues depending on our councils. Oh no, that means I have to make new NEW friends. Anyways, I was assigned ECOSOC - the Economic and Social Council. I thought since I was taking an economics subject in uni, maybe I could learn a thing or two from here or inject some economic terms here and there to make me sound or look smart. The questions/issues posed were of enhancing narcotic security at borders of certain countries and implementing renewable energy solutions.

It started with roll call, and then... the opening speeches. And in typical Carmen fashion, I didn't know I had to make one and was not informed of this until like an hour before the conference started by one of my new friends. Luckily, I read up on my stance on the issues the night before and that was what I was suppose to talk about. The speeches were suppose to be only a minute or two. I can do this. RIGHT?!

I hoped that they wouldn't call me to make my speech so early because I honestly didn't know what to say. Everything here has protocol and a certain format, and I don't know what I'm suppose to be doing! Of course, my hope was futile. After a few speeches, they called my country out. They weren't even calling countries out in alphabetical order.

The funniest, unlucky, badly-timed and unfortunate thing happened: My laptop which contained what I was going to say, turned off by itself. A little backstory here... my (new) laptop had a battery problem, at least that's what I deduced it to be. My battery at the bottom of my laptop is loose, and if I lift my laptop and place it down, there is a 60% chance the battery will move and my laptop will shut down unintentionally. That 60% chance presented itself during my way up the podium. I put my laptop down on the podium and realized the screen was black. Why do these things always have to happen to me? So, I gave an impromptu speech. Wasn't very smooth because I was trying to come up with stuff to say and let out a lot of 'um's and stutters. Oh well, it could've gone worse like I could have tripped on the way up and fall flat on my face. Small blessings, right?

We were then asked to make resolutions for either of the issues they've given us: narcotic security and renewable energy solutions. My new friend, Jing and I decided to go with narcotic security and joined a group of people who were far more experienced than me in the world of MUN. Okay, so Jing (who is - no surprise - younger than me like how everyone else is) is a sweetheart, but she can be pretty badass and eloquent in debate if she wants to. I've learned that during the course of our 3-day friendship lol. Anyways, the experienced ones took charge immediately, coming up with the resolution's format and firing suggestions. I gave feedback and tried to insinuate myself into the group as much as possible, not wanting to look like the useless one. We were given time to prepare and finish our resolutions at home, so we can present it in the following 2 days.

So that's my first, eventful day of HELP MUN. If anyone were to ask me if they should join MUN, I would straight up tell them: yes! I learned a lot and was exposed to a whole different ball game I wasn't aware of. It made reality outside MUN a little mundane and insignificant. I felt like I was making a difference and changing the world for the better, even if it was just a simulation.

More about Day 2 and 3 soon!

January food porn

The thing about silence

Silence scares me.

You don't know what's happening when it's silent. For example in horror movies, if there is just silence, the main protagonist doesn't know what's going on. He doesn't know what's around the corner or what's going on in the next room. Or when someone is silent, you don't know what they're thinking or what they want to say.

Also, silence is so empty, it just makes you feel awkward. When I sit beside someone I know, and there's silence... I find it extremely awkward. Even more so when I'm in a group and no one's talking. I always feel the need to say something or ask them something about what's going on in her life, even if it's small talk.

But the most terrifying thing about silence? It's too tranquil. Maybe I tend to relate liveliness to positivity, and silence to negativity. My mind drifts to the negative things during quiet/silent times. When it's too quiet, I overthink, or I just dwell on sad stuff. That's when all my frustrations and sadness of life manifests into this depression that overtakes me.

That's why I always need some kind of background talking/singing. Whenever I'm in a quiet place especially my mum's office when it's TOO quiet, I play videos. Usually I would watch them as well, but when I'm doing something else, even the background noise helps.

Even when I am here writing this blog post, I have some audio going on as background noise even if I'm not exactly listening to it. It doesn't even help 100% to distract me from falling into that vortex of sadness. Ugh. But it's better than nothing. Even music is dangerous. Some songs just hit me right in the heart in a bad way and remind me of sad things.

The right kind of porn - Food porn

Everyone who knows me know I love food. I am a total foodie. I live to eat.

I also just finished my A-level, and I have 2-3 months of break before I start my new life (but at the same place -.-) in university.

So I thought maybe I could try my hand at cooking. I am surrounded by the best chefs. My 2 grandmothers, my mother, my aunties... their food taste like food of the gods. Even my dad can cook a mean fried rice. My brother loves to cook as much as he loves to eat. And surprisingly what comes out tastes pretty good most of the time. (Don't tell him I said that)

That's where I fall short. Making my own *good* food. I don't know, maybe I didn't get that 'good-at-cooking' gene. I used to think I can't cook to save my life and I'd probably burn the house down as soon as I turn up the fire on the stove. BUT I took a risk and tried learning a few recipes. I realize I'm capable of making my own edible food! However, the quality of the food made is very questionable. 

I'm going to give you a glimpse into my cooking/baking experiences! If you want to learn how to make them from what I'm showing you, you are at the wrong place. But if you're here to learn from the mistakes I've made or laugh at my shortcomings and misfortunes, read ahead!

So, the latest thing I made is chocolate chip cookies. I literally made it an hour ago and the pictures below were taken a few hours ago. The first and second batch did not turn out as what I hoped it would be due to the dough being way too soft. However, I followed the recipe and it's measurements to a tee. At least I think I did. The measurements are confusing, I don't know if they're in metric system or US system, they won't tell me. And everyone on the internet seems to have different cup measurements ugh. BUT I did it, improvised and voila, came out with solid individual cookies which didn't taste bad at all.

Baking cookies can be so troublesome, dirty and expensive tbh

So this was the 1st batch, which was too soft! :/

Messy!

Looks like bread instead.

1st batch of... idk what this is.

So I added more flour. 2nd batch of 'cookies'... still odd-looking, but it's getting there!

Then I added even more flour! And yay! 3rd time's the freaking charm. (Lol one's half-eaten)

Also I made cupcakes! These are butterbeer cupcakes. Tried is the big key word here. First few batches turned out undercooked. But the next few were okay. And, what better frosting to top off your cupcake with other than cream cheese frosting? Tried making my own. But it got too granular because of the type of sugar I used. Don't be stupid like me and not follow instructions. DON'T USE GRANULATED SUGAR. USE CASTOR SUGAR. Otherwise, your cream cheese will be meant to be doomed from the start. I tried to melt the sugar in the frosting by heating it up, it turned too water-y and I made it worse lol. Then I put it in the refrigerator, but the consistency didn't change. So to those who want to make actual cream cheese frosting, use castor sugar. I beg you.

Butterbeer cupcakes with the perfect cream cheese (which I got from my godmother, I did not make it!)

Tried making my OWN cream cheese frosting. IT FAILED TERRIBLY.

This is baked egg with stuff in it. It was over-cooked, but it tasted good! I added spinach instead of brussel sprouts. I steamed it instead of baking it.

Garnished it with bacon. Because everything tastes better with bacon.

TADA! PIZZA! This one was the most troublesome. You have to leave it in the fridge for the dough to rise. Also, many things went wrong. 5 things that went terribly wrong with this pizza:

• The salmon I used was expired. The last time I ate that salmon (which was few days before), I got diarrhea. But YOLO I used it for this again. Luckily, didn't get diarrhea for the 2nd time.
• The potatoes were undercooked! So I put them back in the oven so it can be cooked, but then the onions started to burn...
• The caramelized onions, was not caramelized enough. I thought the onions would continue to cook in the oven! But it didn't do much in the oven.
• The pizza bread was way too thick, therefore it became rock hard. It was pretty hard to make it thin!
• The bottom crust was burnt. I just couldn't remove the pizza from the baking paper. It STUCK to it like elephant glue.

I had extra potato slices, so I made roasted potatoes!

There were other stuff I made. But I didn't take pictures of it because I was busy trying to not burn things and set my house on fire you know. Hope everyone learned a few things from my cooking failures.

Next thing I'm going to make is, smoothies. Healthy smoothies of course, to compensate for all the fatty sugar-y stuff I'm making. Just bought almond and soy milk yesterday, so I'm gonna make myself some mean smoothies.

Update on life:
Currently feeling like crap. As usual. Something just happened a few minutes ago which made me feel even crappier. All I can say about it (or sing, in this case) is: "Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend...."

But I've stumbled upon a wonderful thing too: Rick Warren's Daily Hope blog. I love the messages on it everyday. They also have an audio version of it. I admit, I'm pretty inconsistent with my daily devotions because I didn't follow a fixed devotional plan. But most of the topics discussed at the blog, really relates to me and my situation. It motivates me! I look forward to seeing it in my inbox everyday. So it's great to finally find one which I can permanently use.

Okay enough melancholy and sadness. Good night everyone.