I just got back from New York City!! Last week was spring break, and with the student group Model UN on campus I went to a Model United Nations simulation in New York City! We were there for a full week, and our hotel was right in Time Square. This year we represented Panama. In our free time we did a lot of walking around and taking the subway seeing the cites. I went to two Broadway musicals! Chicago and Rent! Rent was amazing! wow. Alphabet City was really cool and Grand Central Station. On Saint Patrick’s day they had a two hour parade which was really fun to watch.
Monday we went to the Panamanian Embassy and spoke with the Ambassador from Panama. This meeting was really interesting because he told us the countries Panama tends to work with and those they are neutral with.
Tuesday was the opening ceremony. Both the opening ceremony and closing ceremony are in the actual United Nations General Assembly room! it was so cool. The Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon spoke. That night we had our first session. I was on the General Assembly Plenary. Our room was huge- because we had to fit all 181 countries plus NGOs. Our topics this year was Conflict Diamonds and the Role in Peace Keeping, Finding Alternative Sources of Energy, and Malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa. The first thing we did Tuesday night was to set the agenda. Procedures in committee is vary formal, and we voted on discussing Finding Alternative Sources of Energy first- which is the topic Panama felt most pertinent.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we had committe sessions and Saturday was the closing ceremony.

I must say the history department here at Augsburg is outstanding. As a history major, I have taken many history classes at Augsburg- all the professors offer something different to the department. Professor Lansing is problably my favorite professor, his classes have forced me to analyze the way I percieve history and how that impacts my life today. His classes are challenging and always have alot of work- but I've learned so much. I took Latin American History and Environmental history with him. Environmental history was my favorite class I've had at Augsburg. It was a United States history class where we looked at people's relationships to the environment. We looked at the race, gender and class relations to the environment. It was fascinating!
We also wrote the environmental history of Augsburg College, which was quite a task. My group looked at sociel hierarchies in environmental history. We spent alot of time in the archives at Augsburg- which was a ton of fun. We would spend hours and hours in there- and it was so interesting- looking at old Echos (our school newspaper) and seeing how Auggies from decades ago spent their time at Augsburg!