Sorry I haven't been blogging but I've been super busy lately! This is the past week in a nutshell:
Wednesday: 2/2
Today, since it's Wednesday, we had Ethics and Leadership. First we went to Bud Krogh's office building, where he talked to us about his time in the Nixon administration, his arrest, and how he got his life "back together" after being arrested! This is his mini-bio from Wikipedia: "Egil “Bud” Krogh, Jr. (born August 3, 1939) is an American lawyer who became famous as an official of the Richard Nixon administration, and who was imprisoned for his part in the Watergate scandal." So yeah, he's awesome! He was so much fun to hear talk and it was a really awesome learning experience. And he knew all our names by the time we left. Then we went out to lunch, specifically to Julia's Empanadas, this small empanada/Mexican place. Then we went back to the academic for our next speaker. His name is Michael Kerrigan, who wrote the book 10 Characters with Character and was also a lobbyist in Washington, DC. He was....interesting, and people had some very intense questions for him after he had finished talking. He left and we debriefed the whole day and talked about what we liked and didn't like so much about the day!
Thursday: 2/3
Today was the usual day at school! Always a fun time :) We also had our first Arabic class with Mr. Warren, my Latin teacher, and it was really interesting. We learned a lot about the Arab world and some first phrases in Arabic! Mr. Warren is crazy, he knows so many languages. It's ridiculous. We also went to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace building which is right down the street from us, and we watched the CSPAN special about Egypt. There was a panel there and we listened to them talk about Egypt and some more facts about what's going on there. Then we talked to a man in Egypt and got some first hand talking to someone there. It was really interesting!
Friday: 2/4
Today was also a regular day until we met with Bud Krogh again to do a simulation about the BIA issue during the Nixon administration. It was really interesting and we played the "Crisis Committee" in the white house. It was really cool and Bud is awesome! I always learn so much from his visits. Vanina is awesome! Then we went to my Latin teacher, Mr. Warrens, organ concert near Chinatown. Someone jumped onto the third rail or something, so the Metro stopped (obviously) and we had to walk 25 minutes in the freezing cold to the church where it was at, but it was so worth it. The concert was so amazing and Mr. Warren was awesome at the organ. We all had an awesome time at the concert and there was a dinner afterword of fried chicken and we got to meet lots of Mr. Warrens friends and people talked to us about the school. It was a really nice night and everyone really enjoyed it.
I'll finish this in the morning!
I need to go to bed.
Goodnight!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Day Eleven
2/1/11
Today was also just a regular day of classes. Accept I woke up before 8 o'clock today, which was the first time I have woken up before 8:10 since I've been here! Note: We leave the house for school at 8:15. Anyway, this morning, and every tuesday, we have school meeting in the morning when we first get to school. We discussed leaving during free periods, Library of Congress studying, going to a blood drive, and technology. We all want to have technology taken away to some extent so we can all bond together more, which is such a good idea that I love. After that I had precalc where we learned about logs and did some graphing. English was next we were discussed the letters from the Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr. Lunch was Chicken Masala? Some kind of Indian food that we had last week that was so good! Right now it's my free period right after lunch so before writing this, I read some CoGoPo, worked on my Precalc homework, and wrote a thank you note to Andrew Brandt, the republican from Texas who we met with last week when we lobbied our ideas to them. After this I have CoGoPo, US History, Latin, then chores and then we'll head home for the night!
Today was also just a regular day of classes. Accept I woke up before 8 o'clock today, which was the first time I have woken up before 8:10 since I've been here! Note: We leave the house for school at 8:15. Anyway, this morning, and every tuesday, we have school meeting in the morning when we first get to school. We discussed leaving during free periods, Library of Congress studying, going to a blood drive, and technology. We all want to have technology taken away to some extent so we can all bond together more, which is such a good idea that I love. After that I had precalc where we learned about logs and did some graphing. English was next we were discussed the letters from the Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr. Lunch was Chicken Masala? Some kind of Indian food that we had last week that was so good! Right now it's my free period right after lunch so before writing this, I read some CoGoPo, worked on my Precalc homework, and wrote a thank you note to Andrew Brandt, the republican from Texas who we met with last week when we lobbied our ideas to them. After this I have CoGoPo, US History, Latin, then chores and then we'll head home for the night!
Monday, January 31, 2011
Day Eight, Nine, and Ten
1/29/11
Today was the first full Saturday! I got up at around 7:30-8ish because I had dish crew. When I finished I read my articles for English that we had to read for class today. Noah arrived at 10:50 and we started class at 11. We discussed 2 articles that we read with very different views about where to spend your money, etc. One article basically told you to give away a significant amount of money to charity and we discussed our views on it. Then we did some examples and role-playing with the “lifeboat” and the “train track” metaphors. It was an interesting conversation that ended up being very heated in the end. Then Noah read some journal entries from this week. We have to write in our journals weekly and give it to Noah every Friday so he can read some of the excerpts on Saturday class. We then split up into two groups for afternoon activities after lunch. Some of us went to the Air and Space Museum, and others went to the Natural History Museum. We were supposed to go to the Art Museum, but Robbie decided he wanted to take us to the Natural History Museum instead, even though we all think he just got us lost and it was a cover up. We stayed there for about an hour and a half to 2 hours, then walked home. Marcy, TJ, Jon and I had a long, 3, almost 4 hour, conversation and then we all went to bed!
1/30/11
Finally, since today is Sunday, we got to sleep in. I slept in until about 10:45. I would have slept longer but Tony woke me up and asked me if I wanted to go to Starbucks with him, Marcy and TJ. I didn't end up going but I went downstairs with my computer to skype friends and talk to people. Then at around 2ish, we had a choice to either go to the East Market or just a quick run to CVS and back home to the dorm. Since I was feeling gross and sick, I just went quickly to CVS with Andy, Erica, Doris, Yiwa, Vanina, Olivia, and Sara, and then went back to the dorm to just hang out and work on homework. I did homework with Andy while we waited for everyone to come back to the dorm from the East Market. Then we did more homework at the house and it was time for dinner at around 6. We had dinner and then played a huge game of Apples to Apples in our room. It was hilarious, mainly because Tony had no idea who Claude MoneT was. It was a really fun game, and Vanina obviously won, because she wins every time during that game. Then we were interrupted by Robbie because we had our second dorm meeting of the semester! It was interesting and we talked about the idea of having our technology taken away for 10 days, which was a great idea by Jon, and just some general dorm announcements. Then Tony dressed up for the fashion show, which we have weekly of random items found in the laundry room. It was histarical. Then we played more Apples to Apples and I eventually took a shower and went to bed.
1/31/11
Today was also a regular day of classes. Accept I didn't have Latin! YAY. I also went on a night walk with Marcy, Tony, and Jon down by the Capitol at night. We just sat down on the area in front of the Capitol and looked at the Washington Monument. It was one of the first times I've seen all of those places from that angle since I've been here and it was beautiful! I love DC. Also, Olivia just got out of the shower and cut her knuckles with her razor and it rummaging around the room trying to find something to wash the blood off. She wanted me to write that in my blog for some reason. I love my roommates!
Today was the first full Saturday! I got up at around 7:30-8ish because I had dish crew. When I finished I read my articles for English that we had to read for class today. Noah arrived at 10:50 and we started class at 11. We discussed 2 articles that we read with very different views about where to spend your money, etc. One article basically told you to give away a significant amount of money to charity and we discussed our views on it. Then we did some examples and role-playing with the “lifeboat” and the “train track” metaphors. It was an interesting conversation that ended up being very heated in the end. Then Noah read some journal entries from this week. We have to write in our journals weekly and give it to Noah every Friday so he can read some of the excerpts on Saturday class. We then split up into two groups for afternoon activities after lunch. Some of us went to the Air and Space Museum, and others went to the Natural History Museum. We were supposed to go to the Art Museum, but Robbie decided he wanted to take us to the Natural History Museum instead, even though we all think he just got us lost and it was a cover up. We stayed there for about an hour and a half to 2 hours, then walked home. Marcy, TJ, Jon and I had a long, 3, almost 4 hour, conversation and then we all went to bed!
1/30/11
Finally, since today is Sunday, we got to sleep in. I slept in until about 10:45. I would have slept longer but Tony woke me up and asked me if I wanted to go to Starbucks with him, Marcy and TJ. I didn't end up going but I went downstairs with my computer to skype friends and talk to people. Then at around 2ish, we had a choice to either go to the East Market or just a quick run to CVS and back home to the dorm. Since I was feeling gross and sick, I just went quickly to CVS with Andy, Erica, Doris, Yiwa, Vanina, Olivia, and Sara, and then went back to the dorm to just hang out and work on homework. I did homework with Andy while we waited for everyone to come back to the dorm from the East Market. Then we did more homework at the house and it was time for dinner at around 6. We had dinner and then played a huge game of Apples to Apples in our room. It was hilarious, mainly because Tony had no idea who Claude MoneT was. It was a really fun game, and Vanina obviously won, because she wins every time during that game. Then we were interrupted by Robbie because we had our second dorm meeting of the semester! It was interesting and we talked about the idea of having our technology taken away for 10 days, which was a great idea by Jon, and just some general dorm announcements. Then Tony dressed up for the fashion show, which we have weekly of random items found in the laundry room. It was histarical. Then we played more Apples to Apples and I eventually took a shower and went to bed.
1/31/11
Today was also a regular day of classes. Accept I didn't have Latin! YAY. I also went on a night walk with Marcy, Tony, and Jon down by the Capitol at night. We just sat down on the area in front of the Capitol and looked at the Washington Monument. It was one of the first times I've seen all of those places from that angle since I've been here and it was beautiful! I love DC. Also, Olivia just got out of the shower and cut her knuckles with her razor and it rummaging around the room trying to find something to wash the blood off. She wanted me to write that in my blog for some reason. I love my roommates!
Days Six and Seven
1/27/11
Today was a completely normal day of classes at school. Nothing out of the ordinary happened today!
1/28/11
Today was all regular classes until lunch, which was shortened because of our afternoon adventures. We had our regular afternoon classes and then walked over to congressional building where representatives from all different states have their offices. We met with Robert Bacon, Tim Ryan’s (D-OHIO!) assistant and did a mock lobbying project for them where we presented our ideas about how to solve climate change in China. Then we met with Andrew Brandt, Randy Neugebauer’s (R-Texas) assistant. It was really cool to lobby to them because they gave the people who spoke criticism and good comments about their lobbying, and they thought we did pretty well for our first time! Especially having only 2 days to prepare for our presentations. Then we came home and just hung out for a while before dinner. At about 9ish, we all went to Good Stuff Eatery, this awesome burger and shakes place, owned by Spike from Top Chef, and got shakes and hung out at the restaurant. We came back home and al went to bed fairly early because of the day’s activities. It was a really interesting day!
Today was a completely normal day of classes at school. Nothing out of the ordinary happened today!
1/28/11
Today was all regular classes until lunch, which was shortened because of our afternoon adventures. We had our regular afternoon classes and then walked over to congressional building where representatives from all different states have their offices. We met with Robert Bacon, Tim Ryan’s (D-OHIO!) assistant and did a mock lobbying project for them where we presented our ideas about how to solve climate change in China. Then we met with Andrew Brandt, Randy Neugebauer’s (R-Texas) assistant. It was really cool to lobby to them because they gave the people who spoke criticism and good comments about their lobbying, and they thought we did pretty well for our first time! Especially having only 2 days to prepare for our presentations. Then we came home and just hung out for a while before dinner. At about 9ish, we all went to Good Stuff Eatery, this awesome burger and shakes place, owned by Spike from Top Chef, and got shakes and hung out at the restaurant. We came back home and al went to bed fairly early because of the day’s activities. It was a really interesting day!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Day Five
1/26/11
Today we woke up to a ton of snow. It was awesome and it looked just like Cleveland. We walked to the Metro and got to the 4th stop before getting off and there was a fire on the metro so we had to walk the rest of the way to school in a snowstorm. It was awesome though. Then we had school meeting, which Andy led. Then we had rotations where we talked about climate change and pollution in China. There were four different rotations before our speaker Todd Stern, the US. Special Envoy for Climate Change can and spoke to us. Our first station was with Kat, and we just basically discussed issues the entire time. Then we went to Robin downstairs in the science room, where we looked at charts, and basic data regarding China and the pollution there. We had a break where we talked to Gray and told him about the stations and he taught us more on the issue and about Todd Stern. After the break we went to our last two rotations, first being Noah, where he asked us questions about what our ideas were on the issue and thought of questions we had for Todd Stern. Then Lucy was the last rotation and she gave us a mini college course on Ethics, possibly? I really can’t remember, but I remember at the time I really enjoyed it. We had lunch; I had a crunchy peanut butter and Nutella sandwich. Were all pretty crazy in love with Nutella here. Next Todd Stern came and talked to us about his job, everything he does, and plans for the future. We then worked with our groups, mine consisting of Yiwa, Jacob, and Jessi, on our case study. We are meeting with 2 Representatives, a democrat and a republican, and are lobbying them. So we worked on our scripts and collected more information about the two people who were going to be speaking with. One being the assistant to the representative in Ohio! We then had chores and left for a miserable walk to the Metro in a huge snowstorm. Oh, and we also had a huge snowball fight outside the academic before walking to the Metro. We came home and just hung out until dinner. After dinner of stir fry, I worked on CoGoPo with Jon and hung out with everyone down in the common room. The humble was my blog….After dinner we hung out in the mancave and finished last minute homework assignments. Then I skyped with some of my friends back at home and went to bed!
Day Four
1/25/11
Today I woke up at around 7:45, which was the earliest I’ve woken up here so far. Tony and I decided to wear shorts today, which was an interesting experience! When we got to the Metro, it was crazy as usual. Once we got to the academic, we went straight to the parlor for school meeting, which is every Tuesday for about an hour. We talked about chores at the academic, and this weekends activities. I had Precalc first, where we looked at our diagnostic tests which we had for homework. Next I had CoGoPo with Gray, where we learned about Britain and then Gray taught us how to speak like a royal British person by saying “AirHairLair.” It was quite interesting and Tony says it all the time. Then I went to US History with Gray, which is always an interesting class. Last period I had Latin class which was obviously extremely intimidating, again, but I feel like I am learning a lot. Then we had chores, but I couldn’t do mine because Mr. Warren insists we continue working on Latin, even during chores block. Then we went home and TJ, Tony, Marcy and I got ready for our jog near the Capitol and some of the monuments. We saw tons of police because the State of the Union was going on tonight, which we watched when we got home during Flex Period after eating amazing chicken fajitas for dinner! After watching the State of the Union, which basically took place right next door to our house, we discussed quickly about wheat Obama said, and Andy and I had a facebook war. Then we helped the boys pick out their clothes for school Wednesday because we had to dress up since we have a guest speaker coming to talk to us. I took a quick shower and went straight to bed!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)