Experience a day of Colombo Modle United Nations hosted this year by OSC for the 30th session.

Earlier in the school year, I was approached by Aura the COMUN secretariat of 2023, she asked me if I wanted to be part of the tech team head of publications and media to help promote and advertise the MUN program to schools around Colombo. Of course, I said yes as I have had previous experience being in a Modle United Nations program. After completing The musical  “Little Shop Of Horrors” I dedicated all my time to MUN we spent 1 and a half months planning with the tech team on our future posts, timelines, dates, etc. Our first task as a Tech team was to get everyone “hyped” for the conference and get people signed up. As head of Publicity and Media, I set up an Instagram account as well as a Tikok account to get students from all COMIUN participating schools to sign up and be aware of follow-up events. This also made sure our sponsors, the US Embassy, Power Tech Cement, Fonterra, and Lanka IOC were mentioned on our page and were recognized. We also posted videos during the conference as a summary of the event. The first two days of COMUN were hosted at OSC then the last day was hosted at the Taj Hotel where we also held the closing ceremony.

My job as Head of Publicity and Media.

I was in charge of gathering photos and videos as well as one of the editors editing 5 videos. You can imagine this was very stressful and my team went through difficulties and stress while doing this.  One of the most major challenges was editing the videos and getting them in on time for the ending ceremony which was a bit delayed due to the secretariat.  Me and my teammate Dimath who was another person in charge of editing where put under a lot of stress as we were missing videos and the slides had changed last minute so we were cramped next to the main stage and you could tell the panic on our faces as we had realized we where missing one video completely. Luckily we had found it and had the videos repaired in no time. I was in charge of the slides for the ending ceremony as people such as the secretariat and the ambassador of the US were also there to express their gratitude for the diplomacy shown by the students there. Having had meetings and conversing with the people in charge of the live stream setup and the setup for the presentation in general for Taj was an interesting experience as I could experience what goes on behind the scenes when planning large events and presentations. To put it simply this entire experience felt like a job or an internship. I also found out that I work super well under pressure and stress as I get things done well and also look for the most efficient way to do things.

Takeaways.

I believe that this experience was one that I learned a lot from, and also learned more about my flaws and strengths that I can work on strengthening in the future. I  met new people who were significantly older than me and more experienced which also taught me a lot. Having meetings and coming up with creative ideas in the field of marketing and media is something I enjoy doing so this experience has made me realize that this could be enjoyable for me in the future as well.

Helga’s Folley and More …

Waking up at 5 to get ready for school had its challenges but nothing prepared me for the adventure this trip would take me on. I arrived at school at 6 and we got on a bus heading to the train station where we would take a train to Kandy. The ride was bumpy one might even compare it to a rodeo, nevertheless, it was enjoyable as the very was great!

After arriving at the train station we stopped to get a few refreshers and continued to walk to the temple we would be visiting. Once in front of the temple we put our bags in vans and headed inside, it was my first time in a Sri Lankan temple especially such an important one where Buddha’s tooth lies. I would say I was a bit shocked when I had to take my shoes off to enter and there were so many strict rules we had to follow for example the separation of male and female as entering the temple through a security check. Once inside the temple, it was hard to move around as everyone was in the temple, apperiantly we had decided to go at the time when the temple was most busy. Nevertheless, we found an area where my friend Naomi and I could draw some of the interesting architectural structures. After having finished visiting the temple we headed to the vans to a pizza place where we enjoyed 5 big pizzas that Ms. Eagle had paid for (Thank you so much, Ms. Eagle!).

After arriving at Helga’s Folley a hotel with the most unique displays I have ever seen, every inch of this place was covered in paintings art sculptures and broken glass shards it was truly an amazing yet kinda creepy place. We unpacked and headed to the main area to create some art, using acrylic watercolor and crayon we all made some pieces of art. Afterward, we went and changed into our PJs and explored a bit, we ended up watching a movie in the home theater until dinner was served. Afterward, we headed to bed and it was time to call it a day.

For the rest of the trip, we visited interesting historical monuments, such as an ancient city and more. I got to experiment with a lot of different art forms on this trip but ‘Helgas Folley” was my favorite and the place I learned the most. As this was my first and last WWW in this school it was an experience to remember.  I made new friends from other grades that I am still close to this day, the other day we reunited for dinner to catch up. I also had a few shocking things happen during the trip such as waking up with a dead bird on our mosquito net. or when we bought ice cream for the students and got robbed by some monkeys who stole an icecream.

🥀Little Shop Little Shop of Horrors 🥀

I started this journey in August, as a new student I wanted to be included in this year’s musical. A great way to get to know people more was presented in front of me and I did not hesitate one bit! Having had previous musical experience from my last school (UNIS) this was a great opportunity for me to share my past knowledge and provide insightful observations and ideas to help make the production even better.

Practice Day!

When I auditioned dates were published I was nervous because I didn’t know either Mr. Kim or Ms. Jackson, I spent the week practicing “Suddenly Seymour” a love song that Audrey and Seymour sing. I went to my audition and told both of them that I didn’t mind what character I got and that I was just hoping to be in the play.  I was very nervous when singing and did not do my best but that did not hold me down. Then a week later the roles had been published, I had gotten an ensemble, and I was so happy and ready to start rehearsal the next Monday. If I had to be honest I was very nervous first rehearsal as I didn’t know anyone and I was a bit scared of Ms. Jackson (I am sorry Ms. Jackson if you reading this I truly like you!). Well, that’s beside the point… as rehearsals began I got to know a lot of people better like Akhil, Sofia, and Naomi as well as Anais who I was best friends with by the end of the show! Rehearsals got more cramped and before I knew it it was show time. We had the Wednesday before to go for a full run-through of the show, which took up the entire school day and I was so proud of the entire production team for working their best and hardest to make sure that this would be an amazing show. Our work all paid off, other than having the satisfaction of finally completing all performance days. I wish we would be able to have another production after this one as it was so much fun I would want to do it 100 times again.

Production Team