Model UN

Confessions of a high school loser

When I was in high school, it would be safe to say that I was a bit of a loser. I never thought so, since my self esteem was always through the roof, but in retrospect and through other people’s eyes yeah, I can see it. No story demonstrates this more than the time I went to Model UN.

Model UN was an extracurricular activity where students portrayed the role of different countries in the United Nations. The idea was to learn about politics and diplomacy. An extra nerdy function for the most part, but I’ve never been one to be ashamed of my intelligence, so when they asked me to join, I did.  Model UN also drew students from all over the region, so we had the opportunity to rub elbows with people that we normally would never meet. The country I was representing was Algeria, which was cool because it was in Africa, but not so cool, because it wasn’t the real Africa to me. You know Mr. Militant wanted to rep a Sub Saharan (AKA black) country. LOL. Anyway, the first night there, we got grouped together randomly, first in a group of 4 kids per country, then in a group of four countries. All together 16 kids sat to a table and talked about oil prices, and political prisoners and going to war. It was pretty cool, if a big nerd does say so himself.

One of the girls from my table was repping Portugal. She was, in the vernacular of my youth, “slammin’!!!” I can’t remember her real name, so I’ll just call her Portugal for the rest of the post. Anyway, me and Portugal got to talking during the work session, and hit it off. She was from Whitfield county, which I still don’t know where it is to this day. All I know is that she was country, and tall and light skinneded with long hair. Not my type now, but back then, you better believe it. She looked like a younger version of a video model. So we’re talking and she asks me if I want to sit with her and her friends at the banquet.  Ummm…. Yeah. Let's do it. 

We had fun at the banquet then it turned into a dance. One small problem: Rashan does not dance. I tried to avoid the dance floor for as long as I could until Portugal forced my hand. "Come On, Algeria...let's dance" She grabbed my hand and guess what I did... I danced with her. Yeah, I was a loser, but not that much of a loser. Hot chick wants to dance with you, then you dance... The loser part comes later after the banquet/dance was over. We were staying at the Jameson Inn in Statesboro, Ga. She invited me to come back to her hotel room. I had to go check in with my chaperone and was supposed to sneak out and go to her room at midnight. My roommate was scared of me and wouldn't snitch, so that would be no problem. Her roommate was inviting someone over too, so that was no problem. But when it came time for me to do the actual sneaking out, I got scared. It took forever to actually work up the nerve to leave the room. I made it all the way to her room, but I never knocked on the door. Yep, Rashan was a high school loser who was scared of the hot girl.

When I saw her the next day at Model UN, I made up a story about our chaperone watching us closely, and made my roommate back me up, but I think she knew I was lying. Me and Portugal barely spoke for the rest of the day. I can't believe how much of a loser I was that trip.