Before I talk about my trip, I want to ask this question. The question is if you had one shot, or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, one moment, would you capture it or let it slip? (Eminem, "Lose Yourself") Well, I took my opportunity. It took a lot of hard work, but I got it done. Now it's time to tell you about my trip to D.C.
It all started one day in class. I was in advisory when this man came up to me named Mr. M. He came and took me out of class to talk to me for 5 minutes on if I want to go to Washington D.C. When he told me, I didn't know what to say. I was scared that I would have stage fright, even though I'm not going to be on stage, to meet the president. But instead, I realized that this will help me get into the school I want which is UC Berkeley, and have people proud of me so I said yes.
When my mom came home at 8:35, I told her the good news. She was excited for me and told me that I can go and since I was one of the two from my school going. She said I had to represent my school. A week later, it's time for the big trip. I bring my luggage to Mr. M's office and went to class. Now at 12:50, I leave my 6th period class. My mom comes to tell me, "Don't be over there acting ignorant," kissed me on the cheek and gave me ninety dollars. Soon she left and I left with this one kid from my school and two others. We all got to the plain and took off. The plane sucked, but I was able to get all my work done.
When I got to my room, I had met up with some of my roommates from different schools. They were cool and fun. The weird thing was that they were different. Even though my best friends are just like me, it was cool to hang out with others that were different. When I got to my dorm, it was 3:00 in the morning. I went straight to bed. The next day, in the morning, I always went to this breakfast room that sucked. They had weird things like broccoli and eggs mixed together, something you don't see people eat everyday. After I just went around town and checked out D.C.
At night time we played in a place where I played one of my favorite sports which was air hockey. The place was the rec room. The next day I went to some museums and just bought gifts. I saw the Empire State building* up close and this Indian culture museum. On Friday, we practiced on how we are going to talk to first the person that works for the Senator of the US and I went on the White House Tour. Oh yeah, we also everyday only ate beef burgers and fries to every meal we ate ate a restaurant (except breakfast). We ate at a lot of restaurants, one of the names was Hard Rock!
On Saturday, it's now the big day. I look as spiffy as I can. So I'm in, I'm officially talking to Mr. Obama, the President of the United States. When I was talking to him, I asked him many questions. One of them was why do private schools get more money than public schools? Are they better than us? He laughed, but he couldn't answer for some reason. What I noticed was he was no different from us today. Except he's not ignorant and mean towards others.
After I was done we had went to this event called National Youth Summit. At that event I saw some actors, some singers, and others. The point of the summit was to involve students to the situation of us not being able to graduate and succeed in life. After it was all said and done, it was time to eat my final beef burger and fries. I knew I wasn't going to have a beef pattie until the upcoming thanksgiving or New Year's Eve. It was going to be hard but I can get through that. The hard thing was leaving my new friends. Time for me to say the final goodbye to my roommates. I said bye, hugged them (hand shake) and told them I was going to miss them.
So I went back home and they did too. When I got picked up, my mom was excited to see the pictures and know about what happened on the trip. Since I forgot to tell Mr. M thank you for taking me on this trip, I called him. I told him, "I am very thankful for taking me on this trip." He said, "It wasn't me that gave you this opportunity, it was you." I still said thank you, he said you're welcome, and we hung up this trip started to get to my head that I learned not just how to be confident in words, but also confident in what I can accomplish.
THE END
P.S. Yes I did have jet lag after the trip.
*I have no idea what building he's talking about. he was in DC, not New York.
Four years ago: Updates
Five years ago: Class Pets!
Comments
I'm sad that the president didn't know how to answer his question.