Week 8 -- Home

This week was our first week back from break! It was great to see everyone again. My family was reunited. Finally. But, I just need to highlight one amazing thing from break: The Newseum. If you are ever in DC, you must go to this museum or you will have severely missed out. Jorge and Aaron can attest to that because I dragged them along with me on Saturday and Sunday of last weekend.

Sunday:
Okay. So Sunday, we all arrived back in DC. It was a normal evening with dinner and a dorm meeting.

Monday:
Monday was the day that we chose our topic for our Collaborative Policy Document, one of three capstone projects of the semester. We chose the topic of Somali Pirates and Sea Law over Nuclear Proliferation. It was very close, but the pirates won because they are way more legit than nuclear weapons. We also had to get back into the swing of homework and school work and everything. I'm not looking forward to it.

Tuesday:
Every Tuesday we have school meeting, but the exciting part is: next week I'm leading school meeting! Excitement! We also had our Passover Seder. Kyra organized everything because she loves the food. Madame led the Seder and everyone really enjoyed it, especially the kosher grape juice. It's great that we are able to experience so many cultures, religions, life styles, and ideologies while we are here in DC. It makes the whole experience that much better.

Wednesday:
All day Ethics and Leadership! In the morning, we were split into our specific groups and then we worked diligently on gathering information for our policy document. My group, Isabel Kyra and I, is studying law of the sea.  After lunch we had Lissa Muscatine come speak to us. She is Hilary Clinton's speech writer. She was a really interesting speaker and I'm so glad we could have her speak with us about the Clinton's and speech writing and working in the White House. After Ms. Muscatine's talk, we were split into groups to work on our Social Entrepreneurship projects, another of the capstone projects. In the small groups, we helped each other strengthen our ideas for our projects. I'm pretty sure I know what I want to do and it's so exciting. I cannot wait to get the ball rolling on this project.

Thursday:
Happy April Fools! In spirit of the day, I had paper feet dropped on me from the second floor because I hate feet. Thanks guys. Great joke. :-) My neighbors were in town for the Cherry Blossom Festival so I got to have lunch with them which was great. It's always fun having visitors, so feel free to visit me any time! We haven't started the Chinese portion of Arabic and Chinese, instead we are practicing public speaking. Everyone had to give an impromptu speech that was video taped. Some time next week we will be analyzing our public speak styles... oh boy.

Friday:
Sick Day! 10/17 were sick so they cancelled school. I was sick so I slept and watched movies. The healthy kids spent the day chilling on the national mall.
We were supposed to volunteer at the soup kitchen but that didn't happen because of the illness. We still did get our catered meal from the soup kitchen people though.

Saturday:
Everyone was feeling a lot better. In the morning, Bill McKibben spoke to us about climate change and his mission with 350.org. I feel more inspired and now have a need to participate in this movement. Look out for this next year, AP Environmental class. In the afternoon, we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival. There were thousands of people and it was insanely crowded. But the cherry blossoms were beautiful so it was worth facing those monstrous clouds. We hung out on the mall all day and it was super fun. I love hanging out with everyone because they have become some of my best friends. In the evening, we watched a fireworks display and walked around all the magnificent monuments. I love this city! It's beyond amazing.

Sunday:
It was Easter. I spent the day with my DC relatives. I went to mass at St. Alban's and then to brunch at some old English place in Maryland. It was a fabulous day with beautiful weather!

That's all for now. I'll keep you updated on my exciting life here in the district