By Nadia Yau
Some may remember Hae Bin Kim from last year’s THIMUN Singapore Conference. Hailing from the International School of Beijing, this unassuming 11th grader attended the conference previously as an advocate for the International Court of Justice. “My partner advocate and I prepared two full binders of research, speeches, and evidence – because I actually believed my ICJ student advisor when she said that I needed ‘two binders full of research’ to be even close to being prepared for ICJ.” Needless to say, things should be a little different at THIMUN for Kim this year. She has managed to by-pass the endless hours of research needed by moving to the post of President of the Advisory Panel on the Question of Kashmir. Kim cites AP’s intense and focused debate, and the overall aim of advising the Security Council as what stirred her interest in the forum. “I was also attracted by the fact that it’s AP’s inaugural session in THIMUN Singapore this year. I guess I wanted the tingling sense of adventure and challenge in terms of setting up a new session as a president!” Kim’s MUN experience began when she joined MUN as a freshman back in 2005. She credits her decision to join MUN to the fact that she “felt so out of touch with everything that was going on in the world.” Just as any other avid student, Kim was aware of global issues but recalls, particularly, that she felt left out at conversations at the dinner table. “MUN looked like a great way to get myself engaged in the world.”Though when she first began Kim felt intimidated by the endless amount of MUN jargon that she had to learn and didn’t quite grasp many of the MUN procedures for her first in-school MINI-MUN conference – “I just memorized ‘honourable delegates and esteemed chair’ just to not offend anyone” – she made up for what she lacked with infinite hours of hard work, just as she did later in ICJ. “I didn’t know what to expect for ‘points of information’, so I printed out pages of statistics [to] read off – back then, I thought reading numbers looked cool. So I ran off photocopies of the statistics for other people in my merging group.” Kim has come a long way from there, attending a total of fourteen conferences, from MINI-MUN at ISB, to THIMUN in The Hague during her freshman year, BEIMUN at Beijing, SEOMUN in her native country, Korea, MYMUN in Malaysia and, of course, THIMUN here in Singapore. Doubtless, her industriousness and astuteness in learning has paid off, especially – perhaps – from that one fateful MINI-MUN incident: “Luckily, one delegate in my merging group found [the numbers] helpful in answering a point of information, and he later thanked me for saving his face.”Though she needs not prepare binders upon binders full of information, nor run off pages upon pages of statistics anymore, Km’s assiduousness still shines: “This year, my APQK officer team put together a brief and a chairing book especially for APQK. It was neither mandatory nor necessary to do so, but we did it because we thought the resources would help APQK to be successful in the future THIMUN Singapore Conferences.” Certainly, hard work seems to be the key to Kim’s performance. Kim confirms this when asked what it takes to reach a position such as her, stating, “The answer to that would be just to keep trying, and trying.” She adds with a laugh – “Another would be to regard to MUN with love and care! I know it sounds cheesy, but, because I really love the MUN program, I am able to put an extra something into everything I do for MUN.”Concerning her original goal in joining MUN, Kim has indeed achieved her goal of connecting with the world around her through engaging in the world of MUN. Kim recalls her first THIMUN the Hague Conference, in which she was a delegate of South Africa in GA2: “Never before had I seriously thought about anything close to poverty, sustainable development, or human rights abuse. I never realized what a great economic force the African continent was.” Through Kim’s accomplishments, the claims of MUN as a program that turns students into world-conscious global citizens is, most definitely, confirmed. In addition to passion for the program, Kim also cites experience as a major ingredient to success in MUN. “I’ve been all over the place in MUN: regular MUN forums, Security Council, International Court of Justice, Youth Assembly, and finally, Advisory Panel…I learned so much from each of them.”
Some may remember Hae Bin Kim from last year’s THIMUN Singapore Conference. Hailing from the International School of Beijing, this unassuming 11th grader attended the conference previously as an advocate for the International Court of Justice. “My partner advocate and I prepared two full binders of research, speeches, and evidence – because I actually believed my ICJ student advisor when she said that I needed ‘two binders full of research’ to be even close to being prepared for ICJ.” Needless to say, things should be a little different at THIMUN for Kim this year. She has managed to by-pass the endless hours of research needed by moving to the post of President of the Advisory Panel on the Question of Kashmir. Kim cites AP’s intense and focused debate, and the overall aim of advising the Security Council as what stirred her interest in the forum. “I was also attracted by the fact that it’s AP’s inaugural session in THIMUN Singapore this year. I guess I wanted the tingling sense of adventure and challenge in terms of setting up a new session as a president!” Kim’s MUN experience began when she joined MUN as a freshman back in 2005. She credits her decision to join MUN to the fact that she “felt so out of touch with everything that was going on in the world.” Just as any other avid student, Kim was aware of global issues but recalls, particularly, that she felt left out at conversations at the dinner table. “MUN looked like a great way to get myself engaged in the world.”Though when she first began Kim felt intimidated by the endless amount of MUN jargon that she had to learn and didn’t quite grasp many of the MUN procedures for her first in-school MINI-MUN conference – “I just memorized ‘honourable delegates and esteemed chair’ just to not offend anyone” – she made up for what she lacked with infinite hours of hard work, just as she did later in ICJ. “I didn’t know what to expect for ‘points of information’, so I printed out pages of statistics [to] read off – back then, I thought reading numbers looked cool. So I ran off photocopies of the statistics for other people in my merging group.” Kim has come a long way from there, attending a total of fourteen conferences, from MINI-MUN at ISB, to THIMUN in The Hague during her freshman year, BEIMUN at Beijing, SEOMUN in her native country, Korea, MYMUN in Malaysia and, of course, THIMUN here in Singapore. Doubtless, her industriousness and astuteness in learning has paid off, especially – perhaps – from that one fateful MINI-MUN incident: “Luckily, one delegate in my merging group found [the numbers] helpful in answering a point of information, and he later thanked me for saving his face.”Though she needs not prepare binders upon binders full of information, nor run off pages upon pages of statistics anymore, Km’s assiduousness still shines: “This year, my APQK officer team put together a brief and a chairing book especially for APQK. It was neither mandatory nor necessary to do so, but we did it because we thought the resources would help APQK to be successful in the future THIMUN Singapore Conferences.” Certainly, hard work seems to be the key to Kim’s performance. Kim confirms this when asked what it takes to reach a position such as her, stating, “The answer to that would be just to keep trying, and trying.” She adds with a laugh – “Another would be to regard to MUN with love and care! I know it sounds cheesy, but, because I really love the MUN program, I am able to put an extra something into everything I do for MUN.”Concerning her original goal in joining MUN, Kim has indeed achieved her goal of connecting with the world around her through engaging in the world of MUN. Kim recalls her first THIMUN the Hague Conference, in which she was a delegate of South Africa in GA2: “Never before had I seriously thought about anything close to poverty, sustainable development, or human rights abuse. I never realized what a great economic force the African continent was.” Through Kim’s accomplishments, the claims of MUN as a program that turns students into world-conscious global citizens is, most definitely, confirmed. In addition to passion for the program, Kim also cites experience as a major ingredient to success in MUN. “I’ve been all over the place in MUN: regular MUN forums, Security Council, International Court of Justice, Youth Assembly, and finally, Advisory Panel…I learned so much from each of them.”
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