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ya hey.

So… I’m chilling in the coolest internet cafe ever, sipping a tasty americano, playing yahoo pool against nam pueng. Seriously– this place is swank. It’s a converted house, now equipped with comfy couches, modern art, good tunes (American, of course), neon, and fast, beautiful comptuers. Yeah, it’s nice to be using a decent keyboard with a 19″ LCD… this is quite a discovery.

today was spent in the first day of the World Youth Alliance’s (www.wya.org) Bangkok training session. The afternoon was spent in a simulation of a typical UN informal informal (no stutter). And really… god, I just need a drink. =) Heh. Most of the afternoon was spent arguing the functional differences between “manageable” and “sustainable.” It’s a 15 page bill, and in two hours, we almost made it past page one. Ug. I have the most sincere sympathy for delegates from less affluent nations, who get locked into 24 hour negotiations. More affluent nations often have delegation teams of 5 to to 500(!!) delegates, whereas poorer nations often have as few as one. Just one of the many blackball techniques used in the UN to force nations into accepting policy… force them to negiate for 24 hours straight, and then wait until 3:00AM when the translators are gone to bring up the most critical parts of a bill…

yeah. the un isn’t nearly the utilitarian, idealistic organization it seems. on balance, it tries to do good. or something.

more thoughts later. I’m running out of ‘net cafe minutes. tomorrow we’ll see if we can get past page two.