Today I started off at work a bit late and was exhausted. Bad way to start the week guys - protip, don't party hop no matter how cool you think it is. Even if it's events with diplomats and delegates. Though I didn't feel bad or anything, I was actually just tired.
I went into work and started doing a bit of research... and then started getting e-mails for this project and I had no idea what it was or what was happening.
Turns out I got put out on a team for a new project and I had no idea.
This, this is how work should be! I made a template of it quite quickly and sent it back to my boss (Don't ask questions, just do).
I didn't have too, too much to do actually, so I ended up going down to the General Assembly to where the Security Council elections were being held (which is why they've been hosting so many parties and doing so much promo work - to get themselves elected onto the council.
When I got there, it was on break, they were tallying the first results of the votes. What was supposed to be 45 minutes actually ended up being over an hour of counting (and I guess recounting votes). I noticed that on every single Member state's table, there was some sort of gift or other from every single member state. There were bags of candy, water, gifts galore, just as a last ditch effort to win over delegate's votes.
So who won the security council seats?
Capitalism.
I sat and listened to the various delegations win their seats. It was quite interesting actually, since these countries actually have to be voted in by 2/3rds majority and the 5 empty seats are decided by the region that nominates them (so Europe nominated Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands while Asia had Thailand and Kazakhstan, for example).
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| Security Council seats |
It was tense. After the first round, only 3 seats were filled and the rest were not.
After the second, only 4 seats were filled and it was a race between the Netherlands and Italy. The twitter campaigning was fierce. I had to go back to work though, so I headed back upstairs, only to be sent down to the basement to grab something. I actually ran into a few other people (and it was quite nice to see them since I had seen some of them already in the security council)f and ENDED UP GRABBING SOME SANDWICHES.
100% this is how life should be lived.
I kept up with the voting a bit via twitter (you can also live stream stuff if it's an open meeting) and found out that the Dutch and the Italians were tying each other. Hard. They had 3 more rounds of voting that all ended in either 94-96 or 95-95. Dead tie, when does that ever even happen?! How crazy is that?
In the end, they made a real diplomatic situation. They decided that they would split the two-year term (which thank god, because there was one time in 1979 where they had a 3-month process voting with over 155 polls and it was between Colombia and Cuba and eventually gave it to Mexico).
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| The very sparsely spread amount of people there |
Good for them because I don't think they would be able to afford to bribe gift the diplomats for 3 months.
After work, I headed out a bit late and joined a friend in the Delegate's Lounge where we sat and talked for a bit and then were joined by another friend.
We then headed up to the dining room where many people were actually lining up to get inside sincethere was an "After party" of all the candidates. It was actually quite empty, not a lot of people and no speeches or music. But it was nice to stand around and talk and met some new people
It actually ended on time while people were being kicked out...
After the parties I had had last night... this was unfortunately 'boring.'
