M: Throwback to March 2008 - Presidential Classroom
A while back I found my journal from Presidential Classroom - the week-long trip to DC that Honeywell sent me on in high school. It's nice to revisit these day-of writings for a few reasons.
- While I definitely have memories of this trip, they're admittedly fuzzy.
- Reading the raw thoughts of your teenage self is always entertaining.
- Yesterday I hung out with one of the people I wrote about 15 years ago.
I wouldn't live in Scotland right now had Maria not peaked my interest during the week of March 2nd, 2008. Butterfly effects are nuts.
---
We got on the plane at 1:00 and I found that, despite our early ticket purchase, I was 4 rows from the back of the plane. The seats were leather and pretty comfortable, though, and there were only two seats on each side, leaving lots of personal space. Our on-board snack was two fresh-baked hot cookies (chocolate chip)...oh-so yummy. Our flight pulled in at 4:30, but our bus to the hotel couldn't come until 6, so we got to get to know each other (12 from KC). The dice Mom packed came in handy, as I taught 5 girls how to play Liars Dice. One girl really reminded me of Katy Barnes. Another girl is named Katie and she's a senior at RayPec. We started talking when we found out we are both hypoglycemic, and she ended up being my first "friend". Once we got to the hotel (we were late), we checked in, had two minutes to run our stuff to our rooms, and return to a ballroom for orientation. Everyone was dressed up since they got there early, so wearing jeans, I felt quite out-of-place. Orientation was boring. And long. At 9 we gathered in our caucuses for the first time. Somehow I ended up in the same group as Nick Holle, even though we're from the same city. There are 40 in our group from these countries: USA, Puerto Rico, Italy, China, Argentina, Chile, Scotland, Czech Republic, Canada, Finland, Germany, and France. Some speak English better than others, but everyone knows a little. We were assigned our project for the week - coming up with a proposal for alternative energy. We voted for a team director and asst. director, then split into three branches: background; political; social/ethical. I'm in the social/ethical. We didn't have anything to do except decide a leader (I was going to volunteer, but someone else did first, so I decided to let her), so we just talked and got to know each other. At 10:45 we were allowed to return to our rooms, but for those of us who came late (and missed dinner) they gave us pizza. When I got to my room I met my roommates: a girl from Louisiana who doesn't talk much but I can tell is quite a pistol; an American-Greek girl who lives in India who told me right-off that she was drunk when she packed and wasted on the plane; a girl from the Czech Republic who speaks very little English. I went to bed soon after and was asleep by midnight.
DAY 2 Monday 03 March, 2008
Wake-up alarm went off at 6:00 and I got up at 6:15. I got ready and went down for breakfast. If felt like being in a new school, because I walked in with my tray and tried to find even one familiar face. I ended up seeing Nick, and I sat with him and one of his roommates. This was followed by our first seminar at 8:20. The info in the presentation was very interesting (such as virtual reality, etc.), but the presenter was quite boring, so I wrote my Day 1 journal entry. We were then all loaded onto buses and taken to the steps in front of Capitol Hill to take a group picture (this took quite a long time, as this is the largest Science & Technology group ever at about 450 students). After the picture we got back on our bus with our caucus and headed to Union Station for lunch. On the way I sat by a boy from France who understands more English than he speaks. We talked about gov't and he called the French president a "silly boy", which made me laugh. Once we got to Union Station, I ate whole-wheat penne pasta by myself. I lost Nick, so we both ended up eating alone at our own table. We left at one and drove to the Jefferson Monument, where we got to explore, then went to the Einstein Statue, then went to the Honeywell Experience at 3:15. Here we watched a movie over what all they make, then saw a miniature town display reinforcing what the video said, and finally got to play with the virtual flight simulator. Let me tell you, it's not easy to land a plane. After looking around a bit we went to a really nice conference room and listened to very informative Honeywell lobbyists. At 5, we returned back to the hotel for dinner. I had some fruit, but decided to spend my "extra time" in the room since I was exhausted. I came back down in time for the 7:20 seminar by a woman who talked about a business she started to help learning-handicapped children communicate and move better. This was followed by our first planning-caucus meeting where we figured out how we were going to conduct the doing of the project. We had a really good discussion in our group and finally went up to bed at 10. I was out by 10:45. Then at 11:30, a woman came to our door and made us all get up and show her our badges (we were all asleep though). When we complained, she said "Well, maybe you shouldn't go to sleep until curfew," which makes zero sense but whatever.
DAY 3 Tuesday 04 March, 2008
I got up at 7 and got in the shower. Even though breakfast was from 7:30-9, I decided to use that time to get ready and not eat breakfast. At 9:10 we were given an NSA (National Security Agency) briefing. I can't really tell you what it was about, because I was writing the Day 2 entry. Oops. Then we had two breakout sessions over NSA topics. The first one, over nanotechnology, was extremely boring. I think it would have been interesting if the presenter had known how to talk to teenagers and had used words and examples that weren't miles over our head. Our second breakout, though, was pretty sweet. It was about biometrics, which I had no idea existed before, but learned a lot about. The presenter was young and very enthusiastic, so we actually enjoyed it. We then ate lunch (I got Taco Bell) and a bunch of people from our caucus sat together and I was one of two girls. We just chilled in the cafeteria until 1:30 when we had to leave for the National Academy of Sciences, where we listened to four people drone on for an hour (in a warm, dim room, by the way), so it was quite difficult to stay awake. When we left at 3:30, we were told we would be given an extra hour to tour in replacement of a crossfire session (basically a big debate), so that was happy. We went to the Lincoln Memorial, which is right by the Korean and Vietnam. I walked with Nick and my Chilean friend Sofia up to look at the Lincoln, and then down to the Vietnam wall. It started raining, so I pulled out my umbrella and shared it with Sofia. When it began raining harder, Nick decided to run back to the bus to grab his, so Sofia and I decided to meet him at Korea. As we were walking there, we saw our Czech friend Jaroslav? (pronounced Jerick in English) and offered to share the small umbrella with him, which he accepted. Because of the rain, a lot of people had left, so we found ourselves to be the only 3 at the Korean Memorial - an English-speaking American, a Spanish-speaking Chilean, and a Czech-speaking Czech Republican. It was one of the neatest moments of my life as we laughed and attempted to communicate (Jerick taught us "rain" in Czech: brishie). Anyways, back to the bus we went to be at our hotel by 6 for dinner. After food, we watched a video called Kilowatt Ours, which was all about conserving energy. It really interested me and motivated me. At 9:00 we went to our caucus meeting, where we did research for our project until 10:10. Following this I went to my room to get to sleep in order to prepare for waking up at 5 the next day.
DAY 4 Wednesday 05 March, 2008
This was the morning from hell. Wake-up time: 5:00am. I didn't get up until 5:30, but that's still 4:30 Kansas time. We left for the Capitol at 6:45 and got there around 7:30. We then stood there for half an hour while they "swept" the house floor. We finally filed through security (very slowly), and found a place to sit in the seats of the House of Representatives. A former representative spoke to us for a while, answered questions, and then we left at 10:15 to leave for our appointments. Nick and I had to walk for about 20 minutes to the Senate building and we arrived at Sen. Pat Roberts' offices 20 minutes early for our 11 o'clock appt. Eventually the other three Kansans showed up and Assistant Josh talked to us and briefed us for fifteen or twenty minutes. He then went to talk to the senator and returned to tell us we were going to take a picture with Mr. Roberts. We filed in, shook his hand, and took a few pictures. Thinking we were done, we were taken aback when he offered us a seat and proceeded to talk with us for half an hour, despite the very busy day he was in the middle of. Afterwards, we rushed to Brownback's office, where we talked to an assistant the whole time (about irrelevant things mostly) and then shook Brownback's hand on our way out...Roberts seemed more real and less fake than Brownback. The five of us went down to the Senators' cafeteria for lunch and then broke into two groups (4 and 1) to visit our district representative. We originally got lost in their maze of hallways, but finally found our way out and walked all the way back basically to where we began. (On our way we stopped in the Library of Congress...beautiful.) We got to Rep. Moore's office and met with one of his assistants who was a KU grad, by the way. We talked a while with him and he seemed extremely impressed with us and our ideas. After 30 minutes of talking with him, we got to talk and picture-take with Moore at 1:30 for about 5 or 10 minutes. When done we went to the botanical gardens, where I looked around a little, then sat because my feet hurt more than words. At 3 we got back on the bus and drove around a bit before getting back to the hotel for a seminar by Discovery Channel's Phillipe Coustau (worked w/ Steve Irwin, grandson of Jacques). I got bored sadly, but we eventually went to dinner at 6, followed by Crossfire over energy for an hour. Our group just talked in circles, so it's not really worth discussion. We then went to Caucus, where we finished our project. I talked w/ Maria from Scotland for a long time about cultures, which I loved hearing. Then I went to bed by 11.
DAY 5 Thursday 06 March, 2008
I woke up and showered and skipped breakfast again. We met at 9:00 for a brief thirty minute caucus meeting to prepare for our project presentations later that day. We then listened to a Honeywell scientist named Dr. Igor Palley (and I caught up on my journal) and immediately after listened to 5 volunteer instructors answer any questions we threw at them. Following this was lunch, where our group sat together and went over our presentation while we ate. At 1:30 we started our presentations and voting. Topics, propositions, and results were as follows: stem-cell research (that we should allow use of umbilical cord) - accepted; nanotechnology (funds should be allocated for research) - accepted; global warming (100% of funds for bettering the earth should go to research of global warming) - denied; genetically modified foods (put halt on production) - denied; alternative energy (ours - all countries should change, but choose their own way) - accepted; space colonization (we should not pursue at this time) - accepted. At 4 we all went to the White House to take pictures for only 10 minutes, then went to Union Station to grab a snack or shop for 20 minutes. When we got back on the bus we went to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum and watched the 3D Space Station movie narrated by Tom Cruise, then listened to former space commander and astronaut Eileen Collins (the first woman space commander). She talked to us for a little over an hour and showed us some beautiful pictures of earth from space. When she finished, we were informed that the entire museum was shut down to the public, so we had free reign with a super-fancy buffet downstairs. After eating, Nick and I decided to do the flight simulators (not a smart idea to do those in that order). First we did the video one, which was like a roller coaster on Mars, but it only moved side-to-side and forward and backward a little, with some banjo-techno music playing in the background (kinda lame). But then we got in line for the one you can control. We had to be "trained", so I learned how to shoot the missiles and machine guns and Nick was the pilot. Oh. MyGod. It was insane. The thing would flip all the way upside-down when you told it to. After the 3 minutes, we got 5 kills (which is really good). It was so intense, and so worth it. (We were pretty buzzed after.) Then Nick and I found Jarek and walked around for a bit before we had to leave at 10:20 to return to the hotel.
DAY 6 Friday 07 March, 2008
Best day,
Funnest day,
Saddest day,
ever.
It was a life-changing, eye-opening, wonderful trip.
One I will never forget.
Reunion in Madrid
(do it. seriously. don't blow it off b/c you moved on with your life. please.)
Comments
Post a Comment