Today was another decisive diplomatic victory for the Russian Federation...

Czech word of the day: Today we actually have a phrase: "Miluju tě."
Meaning: "I love you."
Pronunciation:: "Mee-loo-yoo tye"

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Sure enough, it snowed again in Brno, both yesterday and last night. This morning I left my dorm at 7 A.M. to go to the first session of my model United Nations course. My dorm is situated on a huge hill, and the city hadn't spread salt on the roads yet at 7 A.M., so I slipped on the icy snow and fell on my butt - not once, but twice. Some people saw me and inquired whether I was okay, but of course, I couldn't answer them, because I can't speak Czech.

The UN simulation was awesome, though. The topic was an imaginary outbreak of violence between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo, and I got to represent Russia - the dream of every UN simulation participant, since Russia gets very antagonistic over the issue of Kosovo and, of course, has the power to veto any United Nations resolution it disagrees with. Russia and the United States are always the most fun countries to play in any UN simulation, because you get to throw your weight around and make other countries agree with you. Russia is also my personal favorite because I have a soft spot for Russia, the big, bad bully of the international system. When you're playing Russia, no threat or demand is too outrageous.

So my partner and I met yesterday and drew up a list of Russian demands, and we included them in our opening speech to the UN Security Council this morning. The United States, of course, had a diametrically opposed proposition, but my partner and I essentially threatened to veto the resolution every time someone proposed something Russia would have disagreed with, and in the end, we got pretty much exactly the resolution that we wanted.

I also wrote the entire introductory preamble to the resolution by myself, and all the countries accepted it in its entirety, which I was extremely proud of.

In all, the simulation took about five hours and it was loads of fun. I was the only native English speaker in the room, so the chairperson (the professor) kept having to ask me to speak more slowly, but on the other hand, I made sure that the resolution had perfect grammar. =D

I'm really excited for the next simulation, even though I will probably be assigned a small country this time, having already represented a veto power. But that's the beauty of UN simulations: you never know what might happen. Most of today's resolution was drafted by Uganda!