New York - Day 5

There's really not much to write about today. I think everyone spent at least twelve hours in committee meetings and caucussing. My committee is having some problems, because the chair isn't accepting any of our draft report segments. I'm a signatory on four or five of these reports, so that's good. I'm not allowed to be a sponsor on any, since the Czech Republic is only and observer in the UNHCR. Anyway, the chair called the Undersecretary General to come talk to us and get us on the right track. Essentially, she wanted us to consolidate our ideas and efforts. We had around 20 or 25 working drafts, and we needed to have a maximum of ten. The rest of the day, then, was spent merging papers and cooperating among the groups. Finally, by the end of the night, we had our first draft report accepted by the dias. Everyone was so happy that they started clapping. It was pretty funny to me. There was even applause for the next few delegates on the speaker's list! The chair finally got us all calmed down and order was eventually restored. ("Decorum, delegates!")

For lunch today we went to a great Chineese place with the WSU gang. Everyone ordered an entree and shared. People got full quickly, though, and we had a bunch of food left over. I did what I could to help and ate a good chunk of the leftovers. We didn't have much of a break for dinner, so Weston and I swung by the famous Times Square McDonalds. I don't know of any other two-story McDonalds' in the world, and it had giant neon golden arches outside. This evening we went to an Irish pub called O'Neill's. Some of my UNHCR friends were there, and we had some fun "caucussing." I tried a little bit of Foster's, which was pretty good. We left early, though, because we have an early meeting tomorrow.