Makin' history, nbd.

So, I just came back from the first international human rights conference in Southeast Asia. You know, no big deal.

These past few days have been a whirlwind experience for me. First of all, I was one of the facilitators (every unit has 3.. so I did this one and will do the mining unit later in the semester). That includes helping the group through the ~process~ of getting the most from the unit and planning briefings and workshops and all that stuff. So that also entails working with 2 other people and 2 program interns as well as really, REALLY long planning sessions. Often, we wouldn't get to go home until 1 or 2 in the morning because we were planning a particular session. Never have I ever specifically scheduled time to take a shower in my planner. Never have I ever specifically set aside time to take a poop. Until now. So... I basically learned a whole lot about how I deal with certain situations and stress and... yeah, just a lot about myself in being a facilitator.

So for the human rights unit consisted of one day of prep, 3 days of going to Bangkok and going to the human rights conference, and one day of debriefing of sorts and writing a group paper about our experience.

The going to Bangkok bit was great. The conference itself was also super interesting; the 2 days of the conference were split up into 2 keynote speakers, 2 plenary sessions (one about ASEAN and the other about sexuality an human rights), and 4 groups of parallel sessions which included about 6-7 focused panels in each session. I attended panels on the rights of indigenous people and ethnic minorities, self-determination and development, rights of children and disabled persons, and rights-based approach to economic and social issues. I would say that I'm satisfied with going into those sessions, and I definitely learned a lot. Even though I didn't get to go out into Bangkok because we were planning so much (sorry grandma, aunts, cousins, Phan, and Tana!), I was still okay with the trip as a whole.

So the drama mainly came when the group wrote the report about the conference. I love the other two facilitators like they're my own brothers. I have absolutely no problems with anyone in the group. But the fact that we facilitators had an aggregate 5ish hours of sleep every night or less mixed with the fact that all three of us were sick BECAUSE of the stress and lack of sleep (currently, one has acute tonsillitis, one has an infected eye, and I have hopefully just a cold) made for a day full of emotional breakdowns (for me) and a not-so enjoyable experience for the rest of the group members. But I guess from all of that, I learned a lot about myself and my limits, as I mentioned before.

Sorry guys, I'm really, really sleepy now. Tomorrow, a few of the members of the group and I are taking an overnight bus and going to Chiang Mai for 4 days! And we also have to finish like, a zillion assignments before then. So time to get those done and finally take care of myself! Yay!