Mock Mediation

For the next three weeks, my masters program will delve into the "conflict cycle". This week's specific theme is "Preventing Deadly Conflict and Conflict Management". Like every week, we have 8-10 guest speakers who arrive at the GCSP to offer valuable experience and insight as renown practitioners and academics.

The guest lecturers from the Humanitarian Center for Dialogue put us through a mock mediation exercise on Tuesday as part of their presentation. My class was split into three groups, with my group representing the government and the other two groups representing the rebel faction and the African Union as mediators. We had about twenty-five minutes to prepare ourselves for the mediation; including what we wanted and didn't want from the negotiation, the history of the situation, and to elect leaders amongst ourselves. I asked Eric, the Belgium, to be the president of the government, while I agreed to be one of four presidential advisers. The rest of our group (7 people or so), remained in the audience as observers to provide feedback.


The AU (left), the rebel group (below right), the government (below center)

With the help of the AU (my Indian classmate was a very straightforward and intelligent mediator, who actually triangularized the dispute to an extent, but none-the-less got a satisfactory agreement for all sides), we actually surprised the HCD with how flexible and swift we were with the mediation. They said they hadn't ever received a mock negotiated agreement that quickly, and I couldn't tell if they were slightly disappointed with our success or just surprised. What they didn't know, is that we all had intensive negotiation training our third week of the course--and most of those principles came into play during this week's mediation exercise. :)

Victoria Hall

Last night, I attended the most beautiful orchestral concert on behalf of my former mentor (a freelance journalist at the U.N.) who received two tickets to the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande at Victoria Hall.

For those classical music gurus reading this blog (and who also read French), I had the wonderful opportunity to hear Gioacchino Rossini's "Guillaume Tell, ouverture en mi mineur"; Claude Debussy's "Rhapsodie pour orchestre et clarinette principale en si bémol majeur"; Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring", suite pour orchestre; and Piotr Ilyitch Tchaïkovski's "Symphonie No. 4 en fa mineur op. 36".

Leonard Slatkin was the conductor, and Michel Westphal was the solo clarinetist in Debussy's piece.

The conductor's ability to easily invoke imagery by sweeping the violins and brass into a giant swell and then releasing them into a flute, oboe and clarinet's cascade of soft, white foam was mesmerizing.

Someday, I hope to be the chic, white-haired lady in the balcony seat, who has season tickets.

Fall soup

At the risk of this entry appearing like a 1960's Ladies Home Journal article, I'm going to promote a recipe!

I made soup tonight--in part because I had a leek wilting in the fridge, but also because the crisp fall air made me want to curl up in a cozy room and drink hot soup in front of a movie/good book. (I went for a run instead...)

So--tasty and easy--here's a recipe for Fall Leek soup!

1 leek
2 carrots
1 zucchini
salt, pepper and herbs to taste

1) Chop all vegetables into small pieces
2) Put carrots into a pot. Pour cold water until it reaches the top of the carrots. Simmer at medium heat.
3) After 5 minutes, put the other vegetables into the pot. Pour cold water until there is a thin layer of water over the vegetables.
4) Cook until vegetables are soft (15-20 minutes), then blend using a hand-held blender, or a masher.
5) Sprinkle pepper and other herbs as you like. Ready to serve! Makes 4 servings.

Hanging by a rope...

So, two weekends ago, I traveled with a couple of my Scandinavian military classmates to France (only twenty minutes away), to dangle 15 meters (45 feet) above the ground while attempting to cross rope ladders, wires, swinging (and wet!) logs.

First we had a safety training, where we learned how to clip in our two carabiners and how to use our pulleys for the zip lines. Then we started on our own...first with the 4 meter course, and then the 10 and 15 meter sections. The whole course lasted a couple hours...and by the last couple exercises my arms and legs were shaking from fatigue. The most intimidating part was walking across a wire with nothing but a vertical rope that moved as you walked across. (The third picture shows my debate about doing it.)

I had an absolute blast, though, and look forward to testing out the newly built adjacent course, when it opens next spring.