3 Feb
15:36 JFK local time

For those of you who are wondering why I haven’t updated my blog in recent time, I’ve been occupied with my trip plan to the United States for the HNMUN.

I’m writing this post on a flight to New York. Still 4 more hours to JFK.

Its quite an experience to have my first trans-atlantic flight. I think the last time I had a long flight was when I went to Europe ten years ago. 18hours straight and I was just a kid at that time, so I wasn’t quite paying attention to the flight.

Now I’m having my 14 hours flight from HKIA to JFK. At first I thought this will be a devastating flight, because my Jakarta-Hongkong plane was a bit uncomfortable. Fortunately, Cathay use a different plane to take me to JFK. Its packed with great private entertainment system eventough Im in the economy class. You can watch their vast collection of movies, TV drama and news with your own LCD and remote. I spent my early hours watching FRIENDS and the Simpsons. You won’t notice that you’ll be flying for 14 hours across the arctic outskirt.

As I check the inflight information, the temperature outside the plane is now -64C. I’m near above the border between US and Canada now. Its getting freezing inside the cabin. Just before I started to write this post, I put my winter gears on to avoid long-line outside the toilet before the landing.

Anyway, my trip plan for the next 2 weeks would be packed with interviews schedule for my thesis. I decided to write about the US foreign policy decision making, so I wouldn’t waste this opportunity to get the words from the source.

The last days of my 2 weeks would be in Boston as I will be attending the Harvard National Model United Nations. Delegates form UNPAR got to represent Senegal in this year’s HNMUN. And me myself will be in the Historical General Assembly, simulating the past UN conference. What makes me so excited about this MUN is that the topic in my committee would be the Arab-Israeli Six Days War in 1967 which I think pretty much relevant with present condition.

Well, I think that is all for now, hopefully I can continously documenting my trip to this blog as soon as I can find internet connection to send my post. I’ll spend my last 3 hours in this plane to watch Eagle’s Eye.

This post is a short version of my assignment given by Prof. Banyu for his Strategic Studies class.

“It has become cheaper to look for oil on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange than in the ground”

T. Boone Pickens, Jr.

U.S. Business Executive—oil speculator

“Nothing is older to man than his struggle for food.”

Quoted from TIME magazine article

Much of the world’s energy comes from nonrenewable resources and oil is now the main source for the world’s energy consumption. Petroleum industries believe that the world oil supply will peak around 80 million barrels per day between 2010 and 2020. But in 1998, many geologists challenge the recent statistic. An over-consumption behavior from industrial country has dramatically changed the calculation. Global production of conventional oil will begin to decline sooner and lead us into a major energy crisis.

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