Princeton played host to students from colleges across the US and from different parts of the world, including India, Singapore, China and Germany for this year's Princeton Interactive Crisis Simulation (PICSim 2010), held on 25th - 28th February, 2010.
PICSim is an annual conference organized by the International Relations Council (IRC), and though it comes close, it's slightly different from Model UN. Delegates are assigned different committees (which are countries in this conference). Each delegate within each committee is assigned a position -- say, Minister of Finance, Minister of Defence - you get the idea. 3 - 4 committee sessions are held everyday. In these committee sessions, pressing issues of international as well as national importance are discussed. Topics range from epidemic outbreaks to local riots, from pain-in-the-butt neighbors and border disputes to nuclear weapons and concerns about them. A live conference website carries details -- press releases by the various countries involved, press articles which provide a third person view of the goings-on in an area, news videos that simulate various situations (for example, riots in an area leading to escalating local tension).
So yes, it does get pretty intense. You can see the potential.
I participated in PICSim 2010 as I'm a part of the IRC, and I was looking forward to PICSim. I had helped organize PMUNC 2009, Princeton's Model UN conference for high-school students held in November 2009. While that was a great experience, it was a conference of high - school students, and ccl-ing (fellow-organizers will get this term) is not really the most fun thing to do. [To the person who actually wrote all those humongous LEGAL papers and resolutions, I'm still looking for you!!] So I was positive about playing a more active and instrumental role in PICSim, and interviewed for positions in mid - December.
I came to know in December itself that I had been appointed to be the Director of India, and that did get me excited. It was finals-time however, so I didn't really have time to give much thought to this appointment at that time.
I had to skip the first evening of PICSmi (a Thursday) as I would be missing all classes on Friday, and I had shifted some of them to that Thursday, and I wanted to get as many pending things done as I could before I began the conference.
Coming into the first day, I didn't really know what to expect. I was certainly expecting debate of good quality, knowing that delegates from reputed universities from all over were in attendance. I was also feeling slightly guilty, as I hadn't done as much research as I should have on my region - India, but that turned out to be okay because I knew enough already. Oh, and I was slightly heckled because of the reporting time for the staff - 8.30 am. Yes, when it was snowing outside. Plus, I had a writing seminar final paper due - no joke - Friday at 6 pm. So yes, a lot of things went through my mind as I came in for my first session as director on Friday, the 26th.
Slowly, the room (the "Den" at Campus Club) filled in. It seemed to be a nice group and I could definitely see the scope for some good discussions in the following sessions. Meanwhile, I familiarized myself with my role as the director -- confirming what was required of me, and trying to get comfortable with the many things I was supposed to be managing. Oh, and how can I forget the projector -- every time we shifted, there was a new projector, and you had to figure out how to set it up all over again. Evan, serving on the technical staff, seemed as clueless as I was the first time I called him at the Den, but we finally managed to get the projector up and running in that first session and even in the subsequent sessions.
Introductions, slight overview by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a.k.a. Vinayak Venkataraman, ELE Junior. (who I thought was really well suited to the role, by the way, given how soft-spoken he is and how he can keep his cool when all around him are loosing theirs). Went through a few action orders, I think a couple of press releases, and that was about it.
Our entire committee went out for dinner to Thai Village, which turned out to be fun. You could sense the energy, and the excitement of the delegates. At dinner, I talked more with delegates in my committee from India and Germany. Post dinner, another session, and then I went back, glad to be home after a long day out.
Day 2
Day 2 was THE most exciting day.
To be continued..
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