The State of the Union I: Personal

From a personal perspective 2013 for me was year of achievement. At the start of the year I was enjoying my second term of my Masters course in International Development and Security at the University of Bristol. Bolstered by my unexpectedly very good essay results from the previous term I began this one with my head held high. My initial optimism was slightly dented at the start with a quick switch of modules. Long story short I didn’t think I could maintain my uni work/paid work balance with this module. It was a hard decision to make, especially since vocationally it may have opened up more pathways to me in the future. As a kind of karmic retribution for this quick change, I ended up with a fellow comrade having to cobble together a presentation about the foreign policy of Small Nation-States in a week. We pulled it off with lots of work mixed with charm and confidence. I initially felt bad since I seemed to be bossing him around to get the presentation together. But he gave me a bottle of wine for myself and my fiancée to say thanks for my work, so I guess I didn’t wear him down too much. I wish him well wherever he is now.

My favourite module was by far the Politics of Latin America. I won’t name my tutor since I don’t want to embarrass them. But take it from me, their charisma, their personality and their passion for the subject matter made the module hugely enjoyable. I always looked forward to the seminar on a friday morning. I find the region a fascinating one and would very much like to visit it again once my financial position improves. I have visited Cuba with my Mum and sister and would love to go back. If only to do Havana again, half of which I was prevented from seeing due to being stricken with food poisoning. Learning Spanish is on my to do list. Lord knows when I will actually have a chance to follow up on that.

The decision to change my module seems to have set a trend in myself making sudden decisions that have paid off. My decision to go on my Masters course in 2012 was much like that. The message was clear to me then, "something has to change", I thought. And so it has. In a delightful twist continuation of this trend, myself and my fiancée decided to become engaged last January. It was an unconventional proposal to say the least, suitable for a very unconventional couple such as us. We were watching the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode about the Incan mummy who comes alive and disguises herself as a foreign exchange student, surviving by sucking the life out of school boys who fancy her. "Do you want to get married?" She asked me. "Are you serious?" I asked, thinking I completely misheard her. She repeated the question. "Yes. Yes I do". And that was that. No ring, no going down on one knee. In truth I was pondering when the best time for a proposal would be, and how I was going to do it. In those few seconds all of those worries disappeared. All that was left was us smiling, looking forward to a similarly unconventional but very fun wedding day and future together. We decided that was how it should be and we went with it. Caution was cast aside and yet again it paid off.

The exit from student life and re-entry to working life was rough thanks to a sluggish jobs market in Bristol, interesting since our Chancellor is full of boasting about our apparently "strong" recovery. Yet again I was tagged and sent in to the crawlingly inefficient, severely demoralising and insane Jobseekers Allowance system. I could write a book (a large angry one to be delivered to IDS via brick through his window) about what is wrong with the system according to my personal experience, suffice it to say that the system is worse under the Coalition in my experience. Despite a few false starts I eventually ended up getting some Data Entry work for EE via an agency. The contract is ongoing. So now I am in the more beneficial position where I can claw my way out of debt to my relatives and look for a job related to my degree. A good position of advantage.

Acutely aware that I am not yet working in the field I want to be in I have occupied myself with various distractions. I have left uni, but very kindly I was welcomed back into the two uni clubs that I have spent most time in and got the most out of during my Masters; Public Speaking Society and Model United Nations Society (MUN). I particularly had fun with the latter this year. Long story short but basically the more international conference's you go to, the more powerful countries you can be in the future. I had been patient. At the first conference I was the not so mighty Togo. At the Bath conference of 2012 I was Egypt. Both debates involved P5 stitch ups. And so it was at Reading's 2013 conference I came in as the delegate for Russia on the Security Council, P fived and ready to go with my Russian flag button on my chest. The first topic was going to be Syria, when I heard this I knew it was going to be a lot of fun.

I am by my own admission socially awkward, making meeting new people sometimes haphazard with regards to first impressions. But as soon as I started talking to people at the conference, some of whom kindly approached me after recognising me from the last few conferences I felt like I belonged there. In the past I had joined groups where initially I met many people who would become friends for life (one of whom introduced me to my fiancée), but then stayed well past the time it became enjoyable, becoming the butt of jokes to certain shallow and vain people. I knew instantly this was a break with that unhappy past, not a return to it. I am very grateful to those who people who made me feel welcome, you know who you are. I hope to see you all again some time soon.

Anyway, enough of the self deprecating nonsense. The next day it was time for action! I listened to angry music as I walked to the campus, I couldn’t let my personal fondness for the delegates I had met before the night before get in the way of my country's hard line. The MUN Security Council convened. Straight away countries willing to join in my appetite for obstruction helped me as Russia vote down pretty much anything the opposition wanted to discuss, there was no real point in it, other than to make a statement and show that we weren’t going to make the day easy for them. My method was simple, demand something, get it, then ask for something else and threaten to Veto if I didn’t get what I wanted. For the most part it was an effective strategy for getting what I wanted. Not the easiest strategy for making friends though. But mercifully my colleagues away from the negotiating table did not take my antics personally.

Towards the end of the Reading MUN council things got a bit heated. The reasons were both personal and political. I knew that ambitious people wanted to get prizes at the end of the conference, and I knew that those who inevitably (and unfairly in my opinion) be those who wrote the resolution. I sensed that some slimy trickery was going on with the resolution, so I thundered to them at the session the next day that I sensed a "plot". It got pretty heated at one point. Voices were raised and I walked out with the P5 to cool off and lay out my terms. It turned out in the end that I was right to be suspicious. 3 traps were hidden in the resolution. I found 2 of them. Arguably what I voted through could conceivably have authorised force against my ally Bashar Al Assad. I congratulated the delegate who thought of that bit of trickery. After having said that, how many countries have completely ignored inconvenient parts of UN resolutions? Bloody lots is the answer, I am sure Russia would not behave any differently. I didn’t get any awards but two Russian's at the conference were so impressed by my performance that they asked to have their picture taken with me. I obliged my fans. The whole experience was exciting and confidence boosting. I knew I had people's attention when I sent ripples of panic through the Council, changing my status to the resolution from sponsor to signatory. After that many delegates eyed my like some sort of Darth Vader-like figure.

My political activities have also acted as a confidence to booster to me in what has turned out to be an eventful year. More of that will be addressed in my next post, Part II of my fairly pretentiously titled State of the Union. If there is an overall moral I have learnt for 2013 it is to be confident and seize opportunities. They are everywhere if you look for them. One of my near future opportunities to seize is to do a PHD. I am greatly looking forward to 2014. After years of settling for what I can make do with as oppose to what I want I know I am closer to getting the latter. Half the fun is the journey, not the destination itself.