I don't wanna battle from beginning to end, I don't want a cycle of recycled revenge
Last week was the week I went off to Washington, D.C. for the National Peace Essay Contest convention. To say it was the most amazing week of my life would be a major overstatement. Truthfully, while I'm not necessarily sorry that I went, the whole was really just that - an interesting experience. I wouldn't call it "fun" nor "eye-opening", "inspiring" or "amazing", as others have called it. It certainly wasn't "life-changing" or "the most amazing week of my life", either, all words and phrases used by others to describe the week. I would describe the week as a mildly interesting experience where I picked up a few bits of useful information, got a better inside look of what life is like in Washington, and found myself able to do a few cool things to talk about when I got back home. All-in-all, though, I was actually a little let down by the whole experience.
Part of it may have come down to that I never really felt like I fit in. At the banquet at the end of the week, one of the student winners who was selected to give a speech said that he "felt closer to some of the people he'd only known here for a week than to friends back home". I certainly didn't come into the whole experience with the idea that I was going to make life-long friends that I'd know for the rest of my life, but knowing me and how well I tend to get along with others, I figured that by the end of the week, there'd at least be a few people I could call my "friends". I didn't even get that.
I never felt like I fit in with everyone else. I can't really explain why - I couldn't then and still can't now. I guess me and the rest of the group just never "clicked". It wasn't that people there were unfriendly towards me; I just never felt as if I was really part of the rest of the group like everyone else was. For someone who's gotten used to having someone to hang out with almost every night, this was a new and, frankly, unsettling feeling, especially considering how I'm going to college in about 6 weeks where making new friends is gonna be a neccesity.
It's a bit ironic, then, how something that's supposed to be such an honour shot such a huge hole in my self-esteem and confidence.
Anyways, overviews aside, here's my week, day-by-day.
Day 1
Sunday, my dad and I were down at the train station by 11:30 for my train. I'm probably the only state winner of the group to take a train there; virtually everybody else flew. This was due to the fact that I'm only about 90 minutes outside of D.C. by car, making me only the second-closest person there (the girl from Virginia only lived about 20 minutes or so outside the city, so her parents ended up just driving her there).
Of course, the train ended up being over an hour late. In the mean time, my dad and I went around the corner and grabbed a quick bite to eat at a nearby diner. I've driven by this dinner dozens, maybe hundreds, of times, but never actually ever went in there. The food was mediocre although not bad for the price. At just after noon, the I boarded the train with my two bags of luggage - one a suitbag with all my dress clothes and the other a bag with casual clothing, toiletries, and any other stuff I thought I'd need for the week - and was off to Washington.
Even though this was only my second time riding the train, I've really come to like riding the train. It's really such a shame it's a quickly dying form of transportation in the United States today. Then again, it's death is a bit understandable. In today's world, trains are just too inefficient. They're not so good for long-distance travel since it literally takes almost a day to go from, say, Martinsburg to Rochester, Minnestoa. And for shorter distances, it's usually just cheaper to take a car (for the $34 bucks my ticket cost, it would've been cheaper to have just driven to Rockville and then took the subway into Washington, not that it really mattered either way in this case since the USIP paid for the ticket anyways). In fact, it's usually no more expensive gas-wise to just take a car no matter where you're going. Plus, when you get there, you have the added comfort of having a vehile already with you, an especially useful facility if the city you're going to is a less-than-major city and you're not 25 yet.
Comfort-wise, though, there's no comparison - trains are far more comfortable than planes. On trains, you actually have room to stretch out and take a nap. I usually don't even mind sitting next to someone, since you have so much room, you often don't even notice they're there. I only wish someone could make the train system cheaper and a bit more effecient. In this age where airlines are suffering and people are just getting fed up overall with the whole airline system and how they're starting to price gouge people, I think there's really an emerging market for trains again, if only someone knew how to make it profitable...
The train ride was comfortable and uneventful. I spent part of it napping (I'd been up late playing Risk with my friends the night before) and part of it reading over the simulation materials I'd gotten (more on that later).
We pulled into Union Station in Washington, the city's major train station, disembarked, and proceeded to wait at the arrival gate, expecting someone from the Institute to be there to pick me up.
And I waited.
And waited.
For almost half an hour I waited. During this time, I pondered over how the hell my bag had gotten so damn heavy being full almost entirely of clothes. Did I really have that many clothes? Why had I brought so many clothes, especially considering that most of the time I was going to be dressed in "proper" attire anyways? Did this make me a woman?
Finally, I decided that someone was wrong. I had assumed someone would be there to pick me up and take me to the hotel. Since my train had been delayed, though, it's possible, I figured, that whoever was supposed to have been there might have waited for me and, seeing me not arrive at my designated time, assumed I simply had changed my mind at the last minute and left.
I was about to take a taxi to the hotel when I decided to take a stab at calling and trying to get ahold of someone. I called the hotel and immediately got connected through to Raina, the woman from the Institute who was coordinating the whole program. Apparently, there was some confusion with who was picking up whom from where, and since I was the only person arriving by train, they hadn't designated someone to wait at Union Station for me. Exactly what they had expected me to do when I arrived I'm not sure. Within a half-hour, though, I was being picked up by one of the half-dozen University of Virginia students they had volunteering with the program and was on my way to the hotel.
The entire program was held at the Kellogg Center at Galladuet University. Galladuet, I soon learned, is one of the first and best universities in the world for the deaf and hearing-impaired. It was a pretty classy place with tons of meeting and conference rooms and even a small bistro-type restaurant attached to the center. It's deaf-foucused status made for some awkward sitations, though, especially when I'd try to speak to one of the staff members only to be answered by hand gestures and finger-waving.
As a whole, I wasn't overally impressed by the establishment, although I really nothing to complain about, either. It was pretty much standard hotel quality, with perhaps a few extra ammenities thrown in (the hotel provided us breakfast every morning and even, a few times, dinner). It was certainly better than my last hotel experience, though - at least this time, I got to sleep in an actual bed rather than just a mattress on the floor.
When I arrived, I checked in with Raina who greeted me warmly and handed me my roomkey while pointing out my roommate. My roommate was an Indian guy named Janish. I had a hard time remembering his name, though, so I often resorted to just calling him Dr. Sanjay Gupta in my mind. Our opening conversation went something like this:
Janish: So, what grade are you in?
Me: Oh, I'm gonna be a college freshman this fall.
Janish: Oh really? Me too! What college are you going to.
Me: WVU. You?
Janish: Oh, I'm going to Duke.
Me: ...Oh...
This was pretty much the story of the week. Everyone there, it seemed, was going to some ivy league or prestigous university. Yale, Stanford, Brown, MIT, Duke, University of Chicago, they were all represented. I have to admit, it was a little bit intimidating to be surrounded by people going to such high-level universities while I'm going to a comparably-lesser one. I mean, I've never been one to be overly impressed by ivy league colleges myself - personally, I think they're all a bit overrated for what you get in the end anyways. Still, it's hard to not be impressed at least a little bit.
I couldn't help but think of Ducky when I met Janish, though. A smart, good-looking Indian guy as my roommate? She'd probably have given her first-born to be in my spot. Oh Ducky, how you love the exotic Indian guys...
We spent the time until dinner just sorta hanging out. Me and a couple other people went to one guy's room and we sat in there watching soccer and playing some card games. Apparently, soccer is very popular among these people.
Dinner was amazing. Salad with raspberry dressing, chicken with spinach stuffing, and a red velvet cake for desert. There was also available, as there was for every meal we had that week, vegtarian alternatives. Important, since nearly a quarter of the people there were vegetarian. We sat through nearly an hour of speeches from various people involved with the Institute and the program, a foreshadowing of the week to come. None of the speeches were noteworthy or interesting. After dinner, all of us went upstairs and played some get-to-know-each-other games. Much fun and laughs were had, especially at the part when I stood up at the call for anyone whose favourite movie is The Notebook (it's not really my favourite movie - in fact, I don't even think it's all that great - but it got a set of laughter and applause all the same).
We all turned in for bed fairly early, partially because we had such a huge day before us tomorrow and partially because we didn't have much of a choice. That night, like every night onwards, there was a set time for room check when we were required to be in bed by. My roommate and I got along fairly well. Truthfully, we talked very little, although he spent most of the time just flipping through channels. I started to just wish he'd pick a damn channel and leave it there, but I didn't say anything. Not that it mattered; I was asleep soon anyways.
Day 2
Janish and I were up by 6:30 to be down at breakfast by 7:10. Yes, the itenerary we had - everyone had a copy of the week's activities broken down day-by-day - was that specific. Things were scheduled specifically down to ten, sometimes even five, minute intervals. I suppose that that's just the nature of D.C. - people are so busy that things are scheduled, not by half-hours, but by five-, ten-, and fifteen-minute blocks of time.
Breakfast was more medicore than I expected. It really wasn't so much the food as it was the drinks. I'm a milk-lover myself. It's hard for me to eat breakfast without milk. But for some reason, they never had milk. This morning, like every morning this week, was absent of any cow juice. They had orange juice, apple juice, and cranberry juice, by no moo juice. I never figured out why they had never had any milk - or even lemonade or tea, as I'm just as big of fans of those, too - but they didn't. Crappy drinks managed to make good food taste, well, crappy. I settled for orange juice, not because I necessarily like it but simply because I dislike it less than the other two options.
After that, we began to work on our simulation. Oh, the simulation...
The scenario was this: The province of Aceh in Indonesia was just emerging from a decades-long civil war with the main Indonesian government. Aceh had sought independence for much the same reason smaller provinces ever seek independence from the larger nation (feelings of mistreatment, differences in culture, etc.). In 2005, in light of the tsunami that occured, the main secessionary group signed a treaty with the government which effectively ended the war. However, certain issues within and around the "Memorandum of Understanding" were left open. Thus, in the simulation, we were all given a role of a person in charge of policy-making for either Aceh or Indonesia and tasked with coming up with changes that would ensure a more lasting peace. While we had to come together as a group to implement changes, individually, we were given personal goals and objectives to attempt to accomplish throughout the course of the negotiations.
I was given the role of Azhari Agus Budi, the Achenees Chief of Police. My peronal objective was to play down police corruption and try to gain more money to strengthen the department so as to lower crime. I also had to try to get the more than 14,000 government troops stationed in Aceh out, since much of the anger and discontent among the populous came from the feeling of oppresion and resentment that came from the troops' presence.
After we were all split into two groups (there were too many people to have us all as one big group, so each role was given two people with each person in one of the two groups; this was for the best, as I can only imagine how much of a nightmare if all 40-some of us each had been in one large group), we went to our respective meeting rooms and open the negotiations. The tone of the meeting was immediately set, though, when the Indonesian Minister of Defense stood up and boldly proclaimed, in the first statement of the meeting, how corrupt my police department was and how, under no circumstance, would Indonesian troops leave Aceh.
For another nearly two-and-a-half hours, we went around and around the table, politely arguing and debating over what the issues, trying to figure out the problems, where each of us stood, and trying to see if anyone had any possible suggestions. While it was an interesting, insightful, and sometimes heated discussion (especially between myself and the Defense Minister, who took every possible opportuinity to criticize my police department as incompetent and corrupt), at the end of the two-and-a-half hours, we had no possible solutions to any of the problems presented. More or less, we took the time to simply figure out what the problems were, try and present every possible side to each of them, and figure where everyone stood. Still, very little tangible progress was made.
Politics at it's best.
From the simulation, we left and went down to the United States Institute of Peace building which is currently housed unceremoniously in the National Restaurant Association building. Supposedly, they're currently in the process of having their own building built just off the National Mall, but that's still a few years away from completion.
Here, we sat and listened to Dr. Soloman, the President of the Institute, talk. He's apparently been all around the world as a diplomat, mediator, and negotiator in international disputes, including the real-life incident our simulation was based around.
The activity of sitting and listening to speakers would become the crux of what we would do during the week. I feel bad in saying this, as I know I'm supposed to be impressed to Hell and interested as a 12 year-old boy reading his first Playboy, but many of these speakers and speeches were just... well, a bit boring. To begin with, the subject matter was often very dry and the speakers rarely made much attempt to make it anymore interesting than it naturally was. It was often the kind of stuff that I wouldn't have had a problem reading about or even listening to for 15 or 20 minutes. But when you spend an hour to an hour-and-a-half listening to someone talk about economics (an already dry subject to begin with for anyone not fascinated by economics walking into the room) or how environmental factors affect security, it's hard not to get bored. Most of these people were used to speaking to experts in the field and really made no attempt to "dull" the material down to someone like me, who is really more of a casual observer rather than a well-read, well-paid expert.
As for Soloman specifically, he was middle-of-the-road as far as speakers were concerned. Spoke about some interesting stuff, but like many of the other speakers, he over-spoke and really made no attempt to "liven up" an already dry subject. I wouldn't classify him as "boring"; just "dry".
It was about this time, too, that I started to feel sick. Not vomit-sick, more like sore-throat-and-headache-and-feverish sick. By the time we got to the Indonesian embassy for lunch, I was feeling too shitty to even want to eat much food (which was a shame, since it looked good). We then sat through another hour-and-a-half of speakers with three upper-level members of the Indonesian embassy about the conflict in Aceh and post-tsunami reconstruction there. As par with the rest of the week, it was interesting but a bit dry and drawn-out, although the later speaker was a bit better since he had a powerpoint presentation to go along with what he was saying. A tour of the embassy followed. Needless to say, it was a classy joint.
We then went to the Smithsonian museums. All 40-some of us broke into four groups with each one going to each of the four museums - Air and Space, Natural History, Native American, and National Art. Personally, I've never been a huge fan of any of the museums. For the most part, they're the kind of thing that's good to go to once, but really isn't very interesting from that point on. I ended up going to the Natural History, mostly because other people I'd come to know fairly well were going. Not that it mattered - I spent all of the hour-and-a-half there sitting on a bench because I felt so sick. I drank a bottle of lemonade in hopes of keeping myself hydrated, but it really didn't do much as far as making me feel better. I felt so bad, I couldn't bring myself to do more than just sit there and stare at the wall, watching the tourists pass by.
We had dinner at a Malaysian restaurant named Penang, a name that made me think of Crystal seeing as how she lives on an island of the same name. I ate almost nothing and even feel asleep at the table at some point because I was so exhausted and sick. One of the program directors offered to take me back to the hotel; I refused. Jarrod Barry is many things, but he's not a quiter.
The next three hours was a hellish and drawn-out bus tour of the national monuments. I basically slept on the inter-monument bus rides, waking up long enough to get out and walk, zombie-like, out to whatever monument we had stopped at. Some of them were ones I'd been to before, like the Capitol, while others were ones I'd never seen in person before, like the Lincoln and Korean War memorials. Of course, many of them had a ridiculous number of steps, which only made the whole experience of having to trudge up them that much better.
When fate finally decided to send me mercy and relieve me of my torment by letting us return to the hotel, I went to my room and immediately passed out.
Day 3
I'd hoped that a good night's rest would be all I needed to be back on my feet. I don't get sick often, and usually when I do, I'm back up on my feet within a day or two. But when I woke up the next morning, it was quite the opposite - I felt just as bad, if not even a bit worse. I trudged downstairs and told Craig, my assigned program director, that I wasn't feeling up for our trip to the World Bank (a shame, since that was somewhere I actually wanted to go... I'd have gladly traded that for, say, our trip to the USIP the day before). He said that was fine and let me go back upstairs and go back to sleep. I slept in until almost noon.
I got up feeling alot better. I still felt sick, but at least now the headache and fever had mostly gone away, leaving me with only a sore throat that no pain killer seemed able to suppress. I dressed and went downstairs for the rest of the group to return so we could start the second day of the simulation. This day was mildly more productive than the previous. We divided up the issues into three categories: environmental, security, and economic. Within environmental, we divided it into four sub-categories: lumber, mining, oil and natural gas, and agriculture. The delegation was split into four groups with each group taking on one of the sub-categories. I got put with the lumber group.
After each group had times to come up with proposals, we met back up and and started to hash out the finer points. The biggest sticking point was the agriculture group. They had made a proposition that would become the biggest sticking point of the whole meeting. Their suggestion was that we create a farming corporation or series of corporations in Aceh. The corporation(s? Somewhere along the line, the plural came in) would be an independent operation with no government control. Capital would be gained from private NGO donations and shares would be held by the people who worked on the farms. The idea was that it would create jobs for many unemployed workers while getting more food to the impovershed people of Aceh and giving the workers a chance to have a stake in the ownership of a company.
As one can imagine, though, there were tons of inresolved issues surrounding this plan. There didn't seem to be any gurantees to prevent the coporation from becoming corrupt or from abusing the workers. There were worries that, no matter how the corporation was initially set up, the managers at the top would get extremely rich while the workers at the bottom would remain poor, or at least lower-middle class. Some worried that this would end up creating a monopoly; my biggest concern personally was what would happen if the company ended up going bankrupt, as about 90 percent of all companies do.
We went around and around and around and around and around. Until our time was up. We left the second day without still having passed any proposals.
Dinner that night was at Zatinya, which is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in D.C. Sadly, I didn't feel like eating much. I munched on some hamas and a few other things, but besides that ate very little. Not that it mattered - the portions were small anyways.
From there, we walked down the street to The Shakespeare Theater to see Juluis Caesar. I've never read the play itself, though I did have an idea in a very general sense of what happens, so I looked over the synopsis provided to get a better idea of what happens in the story. I really enjoyed it (from talking with some other people, I'm one of the few people who managed not to fall asleep, owed in larger part to my having slept in until noon that day) and am actually a bit proud of myself that I followed along so well. Still, I wished I had understood some of the finer points. At one point, Cassius and Brutus spent nearly ten minutes arguing and I had no idea what the hell if was over. And of course, there were the awkward moments where the character on stage would say something and the whole audience would break out in laughter, leaving me sitting there wondering just what the hell was so damn funny.
Emmy, I totally could've used you there whispering in my ear what was going on when I got lost.
During intermission, I had a small serving of duck (as in, two bites worth at most) with what seemed like some kind of jelly. It was odd and greatly overpriced, but superb all the same. Hey, this is vacation! I'm supposed to splurge on stupid things I'd never buy back home, right?
After the play, we went back to the hotel. No socializing, straight to bed.
Day 4
Another morning, another mediocre breakfast. Really, are milk, lemonade, and sweet tea just too low-brow for this kind of place? Is there something I'm missing.
My throat still hurt. Badly. It was the kind of sore throat that even Tylenol or Ibuprofin won't make go away. Between my throat and the unenticing food, I ate very little.
We went again to the Natinal Restaurant Association building and USIP headquaters for another two hours of speakers. The first was a woman who went over the details of our Capitol Hill meetings the next day. Her weird appearance and mannerisms made for an entertaining speaker. Too bad the next two wouldn't be quite as interesting.
The next of the two informational speakers was a South African economists. I imagine this man would've been really interesting to just sit down and speak to one-on-one, to hear stories of his life experiences and of who he was and what he did. Unfortunately, economics is a very dry subject - you either love it or hate it - so the speech ended up being fairly boring. His use of a powerpoint helped a bit, but not much.
The next man... honestly, I pretty much zoned out at this point. He spoke about environmental change and security, I believe, although I don't know of any details beyond that since, like I said, I pretty much just stopped paying attention.
When we got back to the hotel, we spent the next three-and-a-half hours working on the simulation. And our group would need every minute of, too.
We immediately picked up where we left off working on the environmental initiatives. We immediately passed the lumber, oil and natural gas, and mining initiatives without much debate. But when it came back to the agriculture one, along with the corporation porposition, we got held up once more. For a good hour to an hour-and-a-half, we argued around and around about the details of this new corporation. We worked through lunch. It was starting to get to the point where I was almost willing to vote for anything as long as we could move on. I told everyone around me that after this, I never wanted to hear the name Aceh again.
Eventually, somehow or another, we came to an agreement that the group could agree to. All except for the two representatives of the Indonesian government, the Defense and Finance Ministers. They announced that they would not support the proposal unless the government in Jakarta could have some stake - they suggested 25% percent - in the newly-formed corporation. They claimed it was so that the central government could have a say in how this new company functioned. The rest of the committee, though, resented this proposition. I saw it as nothing more than the government trying to make money off of the backs of the people of Aceh, something they'd been doing for the better part of three decades. Others in the group felt that the idea defeated the purpose of the corporation in the first place, which was to benefit the people of Aceh directly.
When it finally came to a vote, the vote was nearly unanimous in favour of, with only two dissenting - the two Indonesian ministers. We were then informed by the mediator that even though the resolution passed, since the two Indonesian government officials objected, it would probably be overruled by the Jakartan government. In other words, the plan, as long as the many hours we'd spent debating, arguing, and hashing it out, was pointless because two people disagreed for reasons of complete selfishness. It wasn't until later that I realized what a complete load of bullshit this was.
And the funniest part? That right there might've been the most realistic part of the whole simulation.
After that, we moved on to security and economics. We split into two groups with each taking a set of issues and setting out a plan. I myself went into the security group since that was the set of issues that most concerned me. When we walked into the side room, I was surprised by how willing the Defense Minister was to compromise. In retrospect, it was actually very generous of him - if that had been me, I wouldn't have compromised at all. It's not as if I, as the police chief, had any leverage in the first place anyways. We agreed, though, to cut the number of military troops in Aceh by half to 8,000, with half of those having to remain on the coast in port cities (since, as the Defense Minister claimed, the troops were mostly there to prevent pirating in the first place anyways). The police would also have no arrest powers and a special police-military task force would be created to help stop corruption in both organizations. The plan took us less than 10 minutes to form.
Everything seemed good until we went back before the rest of the group only to have the Defense Minister stand up and proclaim that he now, within the span of less than 5 minutes, had decided he no longer agreed with the 4000-troops-on-the-coast provision. I was downright pissed; he was obviously trying to squirm out a little more power right at the last second. It took another ten minutes for me and a few other people to argue that last-minute change down. The security plan passed.
I don't even remember the economics plan; it passed easily with no changes, as far as I remember. By that point, our time was up. The agricultural initiative was never addressed. It would remain tabled "until a further date".
That afternoon, we went to the Holocaust Museum. This was the second time I'd been there and it only reaffirmed my belief that it is, by far, the best museum in the city. I'd go so far as to say that it's not even as much a museum as it is a piece of art. It's a bit funny, too, how the museum I find the most interesting is the one on the narrowest subject.
Another speaker afterwards. He was actually one of the more interesting speakers we'd had so far, even though he didn't really educate us as much as give us a 30-minute description on the kinds of genocide awareness and anti-genocide programs the museum does.
Dinner that night was at La Tasca. Of all the places we ate, I probably liked this one the least. That's not to say that it was bad - when you eat at restaurants of this quality, the food is never bad - it just was the least good (if that's even grammatically correct). I guess Mexican food just isn't really my thing.
Back at the conference center, we got one of the few scheduled bits of social time we had the whole week. We all ate ice cream and cake (the cake was actually for one of the girl's birthday) and chatted and listened to some music. Well, everyone else chatted. I sorta sat off to the side and listened. It was about here that I realized how little I had come to fit in with everyone. Everybody else acted like they were good friends who had known each other for years; no one hardly said a word to me. Try as I might, I couldn't manage to manuever my way into any of the two or three circles of conversation that had formed. So, I ended up sitting off to the side, watching as other people took turns singing into the microphone and dancing, thinking of how if I were back home with my friends, I'd be the one up there singing and dancing.
The social was cut short by a long, drawn-out overview of what the day on Capitol Hill would be like tomorrow. Despite how much they claimed we're "the best of the best of our generation", for some reason, they still felt the need to spend over an hour telling us how to meet and greet Senators. For God's sake, I'm an adult. I know how to speak to another adult, how to find my way around a building, and what to do if I ever get lost. Give me some credit here, eh?
Bedtime. Another night of Dr. Gupta flipping through channels nonstop. By now, I've come to believe that he doesn't gain entertainment from TV so much watching it as he does from flipping through it nonstop until he falls asleep.
Day 5
Today, the culminating day of events for us, was due to be the most interesting. We were set to spend most of the day on Capitol Hill with the awards banquet planned for the evening.
Many weeks ago, before I went to Washington, I'd heard that I was set to have lunch with Senator Rockefeller, one of West Virginia's two senators. I was pretty excited about this because, as I had come to understand, this was something that was scheduled outside of the rest of the USIP program. As far as I understood, this was something that the Senator's office initiated, meaning that he wanted to meet with me. For me, that was really half the fun of it all!
I was a bit dissapointed, though, when I realized that everyone had had appointments made, through the institute, to meet with their respective senators and representatives. I kinda killed some of the specialness for me, I suppose. Not that it would be any less cool getting to meet with some of the most important leaders in the country, per-sey. It just isn't as cool when everyone else gets to do it, too.
Before we were all let loose to our individual meetings, we first got to have a meeting with Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. It was cool in it of itself, but nothing much of importance was discussed - he gave a short 4-minute speech congratulating us for winning the NPEC state-level competitions and talked about how we were the best of the best of our generations, how we were sure to be great leaders someday, yadda yadda yadda. He seemed like a nice, personable guy who genuinely tries to work hard to make people's lives better, but then again, don't they all?
Afterwards, we all kind of split up to go to our own individual meetings. My first meething with Rockefeller wasn't scheduled until 11:30, meaning I had a good hour-and-a-half to kill. I spent it really just kind of wandering around the Capitol and adjoining office buildings, admiring the grandioseness of it all. Of course there's the main Capitol building itself, but connected through it through a series of underground tunnels are the five congressional office buildings (three House buildings, two Senate buildings). It takes literally minutes to get from the Capitol building itself, which is set more or less in the middle of them all, to any single office building, and less than that to get from one house building to the other (although if you want to go from, say, a Senate building to a House one, that takes a bit longer since they're a good few city blocks from each other). If you don't feel like walking, you can always take the mini underground train system they have set up, too. Either way, you can move all about within the complex without ever having to set foot out in the sunlight (a plus, considering how hot the city was that day).
I couldn't help but be impressed by the sheer number of people operating in this mini underground city. A good couple thousand people moving quickly from one place to another, some walking faster than I could probably run. It was made even more impressive when you consider that all these thousands of people existed really only to assist, either directly or indirectly, a mere 535 government officials. It's not hard to imagine, then, how a congressional member can get a big head really quickly.
During my pre-meeting time, I tried to go to a few commitee hearings, since I've always been kind of interested in how the whole process works. Unfortunately, fate simply seemed to be against me in that respect today. The first one I went to was canceled. The second hearing, a confirmation hearing for some military officials, appeared to already have finished by the time I got there. Whoever it was appeared to have gotten confirmed, though, since when I walked in the room, a group of military officials were lined up against the backwall getting a group photo taken. The third hearing... well, I have no idea what happened with that. I walked in the room and it was completely empty. The best I can guess at is that, being so close to noon, they broke for lunch.
When I walked into Rockefeller's office, I told the secretary who I was and what I there for.
Secretary: Oh, alright. Well, you're going to have to wait because the Senator is making a speech on the floor right now.
Looking up at the television screen beside me, I saw Senator Rockefeller himself giving a speech on the Senate floor.
I ended up spending most of the time talking to one of his advisors (apparently, he has seven different advisors to work with him on all the varying issues). We talked about my essay and about the various things the Senator has been up to, including a bill that will rework the FISA Act and a bill to help expand veterans benefits.
With less than 5 minutes left until my next meeting, Senator Rockefeller finally arrived back from the floor. He was a much larger man than I expected, almost as tall as the doorway and with the kind of girth that probably would've made him a solid football player, if he weren't in his late 50's. It was just enough time for a few photos and some awkward jokes.
Rockefeller: I'm very sorry for being late.
Me: It's understandable, sir. You're a very busy man.
Rockfeller: I am? How do you know that?
Me: Umm, well, you're a Senator. So you're kinda important...
Rockefeller: Well, Santa Claus is important, but that doesn't make him busy!
I didn't really know what to say to this, so I kind of gave an awkward laugh and agreed. We then got our picture taken.
Photographer: Okay... gotcha!
Rockefeller: Oh, that's never a good sign when someone says that. You never know, he could be shooting radiation at us!
Again, not knowing what to say to such an odd statement, I just sorta laughed nervously and muttered another word of agreement.
Rockefeller: You know, we congressman really act more like babies than adults. We spend all our time arguing amongst ourselves without ever really getting anything done.
Advisor: Don't worry, sir. I'm sure we'll get the bill passed soon.
Rockefeller: Personally, I hope we're stuck here until Sunday arguing over it! That way, all those people with vacation plans will have their time ruined!
With that optimistic statement, our time together was up, and I wandered off to Senator Byrd's office wondering just why my senator was so weird.
Unfortunately, Senator Byrd wasn't there, which was a shame since, of the three congressional members I got to meet, he was the one I was most excited to meet (Byrd, for those that don't know, is the oldest member of Congress and, at the end of next year, will gain the record for longest-serving member of Congress in history). I met instead with his national security advisor. It was a good consolation prize, though, since the guy seemed pretty cool and very knowledgeable. We chatted for about 15 minutes about things like college, politics, the war in Iraq, and things of that nature. I kind of wish I'd had more time to speak with him, but like everyone else on Capitol Hill, he was really busy and his schedule was divided up into ten- and fifteen-minute intervals.
On my way out, I made sure to say bye to Byrd's cute secretary.
I made my way down to the cafeteria (well, one of them - I think there were at least three or four throughout the complex) and got something to eat. I actually could've gotten the food for free if I'd felt like trying to find one of the program directors and get my free lunch pass (I also wondered at this point why they hadn't just given us these passes in the beginning instead of expecting us to come find them when we were hungry...), but I didn't feel like searching them out, so I just coughed up the money for a drink and burger. The burger was surprisingly bad for such a nice place, though then again, I wasn't really hungry to begin with.
My meeting with Congresswoman Capito was an interesting affair. When I got to her office, I found out that she was still down on the House floor doing... something. Casting a vote, I think. So, one of her aides took me and another boy from another tour group down to a room just off the floor to meet with her there. The aide actually went to high school not too far from where I did and had just graduated from Shephered University two years ago. After about ten minutes of sitting, waiting, chatting, and watching the aide type away on his Blackberry, he announced that somehow, through a series of miscommunications, we'd missed the Congresswoman and she was already back at her office. The other boy had to leave at this point to catch his bus, leaving me and the Aide to hurry back, through a series of side-doors and back stairwells, to the Congresswoman's office. I had to practically run at some points to keep up with the Aide's wide, hurried strides.
My meeting with Capito might've been the most personal of all. She has a very grandmotherly way about her, but then, like I said before, don't they all? She did seem the most genuinely interested in my essay, though, even asking me for a copy (the Institute had prepared me with three copies for the occasion, although I never gave out the other two, since no one ever asked and I never saw any reason to volunteer). The aide then took a quick photo of us and I left to make my way back to the bus.
We spent the next few hours back at the hotel resting. I took a nap and nearly overslept because my alarm didn't go off. Shitty cell phone alarm...
Because of how close I am to Washington, my parents were one of the that were actually able to make the trip to the awards banquet. Honestly, though I'd probably never admit it, I can't remember having been so happy to see them in a long time. After a week of strange, new things among strange, new people, it was good to finally catch a sight of familiarty and stability, even if just for awhile.
The banquet food was great, of course. We didn't actually have the dinner at a restaurant. Instead, it was hosted at some place called the Dumbarton House. I couldn't quite figure out what the purpose of this place was. It is, as the name implies, an actual house, and it appears someone did live there at some point, but I doubt, with the public restrooms and all, that someone still lives there today.
In keeping with tradition with the rest of the week, many drawn-out, boring speeches were given. That is, until General Anthony Zinni stepped up. Zinni, a retired Marine Corp general, was easily the best speaker we had all week. One of the most interesting points he made was about how we need to change our perception towards how we fight our enemies, how we use the military, and how we assist and rebuild countries. One of the main points he made was that we can't continue to expect the military, a blunt tool of destruction, to keep rebuilding and restabilizing countries. Now, if only a certain President had listened to that line of thinking...
Now came the time to announce the national winners. I'm not gonna lie - I was very nervous. I really wanted to win. Part of it for the money, yes (a first-place win would give me a full year of college paid for plus a couple extra thousand in cash... even a third-place win would nearly cover my first year). But as much as that, I also wanted the prestige. More and more lately, I've been thinking about trying to write a real novel. And even though this report was nothing close to a novel, I guess in some way, winning this competition would confirmed that maybe I'm ready to finally take a stab at a real honest-to-God novel.
Just before the winners were announced, the woman from the Institute who was presenting the awards noted how, while in past years the board of directors usually made an attempt at gender equality, this year, it seemed, that wasn't the case. Then she announced the third-place winner.
It went to the Russian girl from Virginia.
Applause and cheers followed.
Then the second-place winner was announced.
The girl from Kentuck won.
It was right about here that I began to realize what the woman had been talking about with her gender equality statement. And it was right here that I realized that I had no hope of winning.
First-place went to the girl from Tennessee.
Maybe it was stupid to put so much stock in winning one of the national prizes. I mean, my chances weren't that good to begin with, I know. I was competeing with 52 other people, many of whom were much, much smarter than me. Still, I really feel like I had a good paper - it might very well be the best research paper I've ever written, and I've written quite a few in my time - with a good topic. Of course my parents said they were proud of me all the same, which kind of helped a bit. Still, it was hard to keep myself from crying. I really did want to win.
We all spent our last night at the hotel staying up late and talking. Since we had nothing to do the next day but leave, we all stayed up until almost 1 in the morning, just kind of talking and hanging out. I actually managed to get involved in the conversation this time, which was a nice change of pace. Too bad it happened with less than tweleve hours left in the trip.
I went to sleep with a feeling I hadn't I'd have at the end of the week when I began this journey - relief. Relief that such a long, drawn-out, crappy week was finally almost over.
And my throat still hurt.
Day 6
Very little of note occured the next morning. We all got up, went downstairs for breakfast (for the first time that week, we weren't required to be dressed up, which was a nice change), and listened to a couple of last-minute speeches. One of the speakers were a journalist (I don't remember the paper, though I want to say it was The Washington Post) and teacher who had written books and taught a course on peace and peace-related tactics. Even though he spoke for a little longer than he probably should've (somewhere over an hour, I think), he was actually funny and, next to Zinni, one of the best speakers we'd had. His ideas were really interesting to think about, even though I don't completely agree with him. I mean, I agree that there's a time and place for non-violent resistance and I do think that there're many cases where it could and would work if people bothered to try it, the fact that he couldn't answer one of the student's question about how non-violent resistance would've helped in WWII proves to me that it isn't always the answer. While far be it from me to advocate violence, I also consider myself a realist and I know that there're people in this world - very few of them, yes, but they're there - who just aren't interested in peace and non-violence.
Still, he had some interesting ideas and viewpoints to share. I considered buying his book, but I didn't want to spend what little money I had left on it (somehow, I spent close to $25 bucks this week; how I managed to do that with all my meals, transportation, and accomodations paid for I still don't know).
Immediately after the speech, people began leaving on buses to get to Dulles and Reagan National airports to catch their respective flights out. Many hugs were had, hands shaken, and last minute pictures snapped. For everyone else, that is. I sorta just sat off to the side and watched. I don't remember if anyone bothered to say bye to me.
Over the course of the next three hours, I surfed the internet some and just killed time. Ironically, despite the fact I was one of the closest people, I was the very last to leave. My train wasn't scheduled to leave Union Station until 4, and the station was only about 10 minutes away. I probably could've left at 3:30 and still made it with time to spare. I didn't feel like waiting around the hotel for three hours by myself, though, so at around noon, I took off for Union Station in one of the curtesy shuttles, leaving Galladuet University for the last time.
I spent a few hours at Union Station, mostly just wandering around throughout the different stores (they have a miniature mall there in the station) and getting a tea at McDonald's. For the two-hour train ride home, I mostly slept. I got back sometime around 6:30. I dunno if I've ever been so glad to be home in my life.
All-in-all, it was a good experience and I'm glad I went. But I wouldn't want to go again. I met some new people, learned some new things, and took part in some new adventures and activities that I may never get to do again. Still, the best time of the week was Friday night when I stayed out until three playing Risk with my friends.
Sometimes, it's the simplest things that are the best.
Part of it may have come down to that I never really felt like I fit in. At the banquet at the end of the week, one of the student winners who was selected to give a speech said that he "felt closer to some of the people he'd only known here for a week than to friends back home". I certainly didn't come into the whole experience with the idea that I was going to make life-long friends that I'd know for the rest of my life, but knowing me and how well I tend to get along with others, I figured that by the end of the week, there'd at least be a few people I could call my "friends". I didn't even get that.
I never felt like I fit in with everyone else. I can't really explain why - I couldn't then and still can't now. I guess me and the rest of the group just never "clicked". It wasn't that people there were unfriendly towards me; I just never felt as if I was really part of the rest of the group like everyone else was. For someone who's gotten used to having someone to hang out with almost every night, this was a new and, frankly, unsettling feeling, especially considering how I'm going to college in about 6 weeks where making new friends is gonna be a neccesity.
It's a bit ironic, then, how something that's supposed to be such an honour shot such a huge hole in my self-esteem and confidence.
Anyways, overviews aside, here's my week, day-by-day.
Day 1
Sunday, my dad and I were down at the train station by 11:30 for my train. I'm probably the only state winner of the group to take a train there; virtually everybody else flew. This was due to the fact that I'm only about 90 minutes outside of D.C. by car, making me only the second-closest person there (the girl from Virginia only lived about 20 minutes or so outside the city, so her parents ended up just driving her there).
Of course, the train ended up being over an hour late. In the mean time, my dad and I went around the corner and grabbed a quick bite to eat at a nearby diner. I've driven by this dinner dozens, maybe hundreds, of times, but never actually ever went in there. The food was mediocre although not bad for the price. At just after noon, the I boarded the train with my two bags of luggage - one a suitbag with all my dress clothes and the other a bag with casual clothing, toiletries, and any other stuff I thought I'd need for the week - and was off to Washington.
Even though this was only my second time riding the train, I've really come to like riding the train. It's really such a shame it's a quickly dying form of transportation in the United States today. Then again, it's death is a bit understandable. In today's world, trains are just too inefficient. They're not so good for long-distance travel since it literally takes almost a day to go from, say, Martinsburg to Rochester, Minnestoa. And for shorter distances, it's usually just cheaper to take a car (for the $34 bucks my ticket cost, it would've been cheaper to have just driven to Rockville and then took the subway into Washington, not that it really mattered either way in this case since the USIP paid for the ticket anyways). In fact, it's usually no more expensive gas-wise to just take a car no matter where you're going. Plus, when you get there, you have the added comfort of having a vehile already with you, an especially useful facility if the city you're going to is a less-than-major city and you're not 25 yet.
Comfort-wise, though, there's no comparison - trains are far more comfortable than planes. On trains, you actually have room to stretch out and take a nap. I usually don't even mind sitting next to someone, since you have so much room, you often don't even notice they're there. I only wish someone could make the train system cheaper and a bit more effecient. In this age where airlines are suffering and people are just getting fed up overall with the whole airline system and how they're starting to price gouge people, I think there's really an emerging market for trains again, if only someone knew how to make it profitable...
The train ride was comfortable and uneventful. I spent part of it napping (I'd been up late playing Risk with my friends the night before) and part of it reading over the simulation materials I'd gotten (more on that later).
We pulled into Union Station in Washington, the city's major train station, disembarked, and proceeded to wait at the arrival gate, expecting someone from the Institute to be there to pick me up.
And I waited.
And waited.
For almost half an hour I waited. During this time, I pondered over how the hell my bag had gotten so damn heavy being full almost entirely of clothes. Did I really have that many clothes? Why had I brought so many clothes, especially considering that most of the time I was going to be dressed in "proper" attire anyways? Did this make me a woman?
Finally, I decided that someone was wrong. I had assumed someone would be there to pick me up and take me to the hotel. Since my train had been delayed, though, it's possible, I figured, that whoever was supposed to have been there might have waited for me and, seeing me not arrive at my designated time, assumed I simply had changed my mind at the last minute and left.
I was about to take a taxi to the hotel when I decided to take a stab at calling and trying to get ahold of someone. I called the hotel and immediately got connected through to Raina, the woman from the Institute who was coordinating the whole program. Apparently, there was some confusion with who was picking up whom from where, and since I was the only person arriving by train, they hadn't designated someone to wait at Union Station for me. Exactly what they had expected me to do when I arrived I'm not sure. Within a half-hour, though, I was being picked up by one of the half-dozen University of Virginia students they had volunteering with the program and was on my way to the hotel.
The entire program was held at the Kellogg Center at Galladuet University. Galladuet, I soon learned, is one of the first and best universities in the world for the deaf and hearing-impaired. It was a pretty classy place with tons of meeting and conference rooms and even a small bistro-type restaurant attached to the center. It's deaf-foucused status made for some awkward sitations, though, especially when I'd try to speak to one of the staff members only to be answered by hand gestures and finger-waving.
As a whole, I wasn't overally impressed by the establishment, although I really nothing to complain about, either. It was pretty much standard hotel quality, with perhaps a few extra ammenities thrown in (the hotel provided us breakfast every morning and even, a few times, dinner). It was certainly better than my last hotel experience, though - at least this time, I got to sleep in an actual bed rather than just a mattress on the floor.
When I arrived, I checked in with Raina who greeted me warmly and handed me my roomkey while pointing out my roommate. My roommate was an Indian guy named Janish. I had a hard time remembering his name, though, so I often resorted to just calling him Dr. Sanjay Gupta in my mind. Our opening conversation went something like this:
Janish: So, what grade are you in?
Me: Oh, I'm gonna be a college freshman this fall.
Janish: Oh really? Me too! What college are you going to.
Me: WVU. You?
Janish: Oh, I'm going to Duke.
Me: ...Oh...
This was pretty much the story of the week. Everyone there, it seemed, was going to some ivy league or prestigous university. Yale, Stanford, Brown, MIT, Duke, University of Chicago, they were all represented. I have to admit, it was a little bit intimidating to be surrounded by people going to such high-level universities while I'm going to a comparably-lesser one. I mean, I've never been one to be overly impressed by ivy league colleges myself - personally, I think they're all a bit overrated for what you get in the end anyways. Still, it's hard to not be impressed at least a little bit.
I couldn't help but think of Ducky when I met Janish, though. A smart, good-looking Indian guy as my roommate? She'd probably have given her first-born to be in my spot. Oh Ducky, how you love the exotic Indian guys...
We spent the time until dinner just sorta hanging out. Me and a couple other people went to one guy's room and we sat in there watching soccer and playing some card games. Apparently, soccer is very popular among these people.
Dinner was amazing. Salad with raspberry dressing, chicken with spinach stuffing, and a red velvet cake for desert. There was also available, as there was for every meal we had that week, vegtarian alternatives. Important, since nearly a quarter of the people there were vegetarian. We sat through nearly an hour of speeches from various people involved with the Institute and the program, a foreshadowing of the week to come. None of the speeches were noteworthy or interesting. After dinner, all of us went upstairs and played some get-to-know-each-other games. Much fun and laughs were had, especially at the part when I stood up at the call for anyone whose favourite movie is The Notebook (it's not really my favourite movie - in fact, I don't even think it's all that great - but it got a set of laughter and applause all the same).
We all turned in for bed fairly early, partially because we had such a huge day before us tomorrow and partially because we didn't have much of a choice. That night, like every night onwards, there was a set time for room check when we were required to be in bed by. My roommate and I got along fairly well. Truthfully, we talked very little, although he spent most of the time just flipping through channels. I started to just wish he'd pick a damn channel and leave it there, but I didn't say anything. Not that it mattered; I was asleep soon anyways.
Day 2
Janish and I were up by 6:30 to be down at breakfast by 7:10. Yes, the itenerary we had - everyone had a copy of the week's activities broken down day-by-day - was that specific. Things were scheduled specifically down to ten, sometimes even five, minute intervals. I suppose that that's just the nature of D.C. - people are so busy that things are scheduled, not by half-hours, but by five-, ten-, and fifteen-minute blocks of time.
Breakfast was more medicore than I expected. It really wasn't so much the food as it was the drinks. I'm a milk-lover myself. It's hard for me to eat breakfast without milk. But for some reason, they never had milk. This morning, like every morning this week, was absent of any cow juice. They had orange juice, apple juice, and cranberry juice, by no moo juice. I never figured out why they had never had any milk - or even lemonade or tea, as I'm just as big of fans of those, too - but they didn't. Crappy drinks managed to make good food taste, well, crappy. I settled for orange juice, not because I necessarily like it but simply because I dislike it less than the other two options.
After that, we began to work on our simulation. Oh, the simulation...
The scenario was this: The province of Aceh in Indonesia was just emerging from a decades-long civil war with the main Indonesian government. Aceh had sought independence for much the same reason smaller provinces ever seek independence from the larger nation (feelings of mistreatment, differences in culture, etc.). In 2005, in light of the tsunami that occured, the main secessionary group signed a treaty with the government which effectively ended the war. However, certain issues within and around the "Memorandum of Understanding" were left open. Thus, in the simulation, we were all given a role of a person in charge of policy-making for either Aceh or Indonesia and tasked with coming up with changes that would ensure a more lasting peace. While we had to come together as a group to implement changes, individually, we were given personal goals and objectives to attempt to accomplish throughout the course of the negotiations.
I was given the role of Azhari Agus Budi, the Achenees Chief of Police. My peronal objective was to play down police corruption and try to gain more money to strengthen the department so as to lower crime. I also had to try to get the more than 14,000 government troops stationed in Aceh out, since much of the anger and discontent among the populous came from the feeling of oppresion and resentment that came from the troops' presence.
After we were all split into two groups (there were too many people to have us all as one big group, so each role was given two people with each person in one of the two groups; this was for the best, as I can only imagine how much of a nightmare if all 40-some of us each had been in one large group), we went to our respective meeting rooms and open the negotiations. The tone of the meeting was immediately set, though, when the Indonesian Minister of Defense stood up and boldly proclaimed, in the first statement of the meeting, how corrupt my police department was and how, under no circumstance, would Indonesian troops leave Aceh.
For another nearly two-and-a-half hours, we went around and around the table, politely arguing and debating over what the issues, trying to figure out the problems, where each of us stood, and trying to see if anyone had any possible suggestions. While it was an interesting, insightful, and sometimes heated discussion (especially between myself and the Defense Minister, who took every possible opportuinity to criticize my police department as incompetent and corrupt), at the end of the two-and-a-half hours, we had no possible solutions to any of the problems presented. More or less, we took the time to simply figure out what the problems were, try and present every possible side to each of them, and figure where everyone stood. Still, very little tangible progress was made.
Politics at it's best.
From the simulation, we left and went down to the United States Institute of Peace building which is currently housed unceremoniously in the National Restaurant Association building. Supposedly, they're currently in the process of having their own building built just off the National Mall, but that's still a few years away from completion.
Here, we sat and listened to Dr. Soloman, the President of the Institute, talk. He's apparently been all around the world as a diplomat, mediator, and negotiator in international disputes, including the real-life incident our simulation was based around.
The activity of sitting and listening to speakers would become the crux of what we would do during the week. I feel bad in saying this, as I know I'm supposed to be impressed to Hell and interested as a 12 year-old boy reading his first Playboy, but many of these speakers and speeches were just... well, a bit boring. To begin with, the subject matter was often very dry and the speakers rarely made much attempt to make it anymore interesting than it naturally was. It was often the kind of stuff that I wouldn't have had a problem reading about or even listening to for 15 or 20 minutes. But when you spend an hour to an hour-and-a-half listening to someone talk about economics (an already dry subject to begin with for anyone not fascinated by economics walking into the room) or how environmental factors affect security, it's hard not to get bored. Most of these people were used to speaking to experts in the field and really made no attempt to "dull" the material down to someone like me, who is really more of a casual observer rather than a well-read, well-paid expert.
As for Soloman specifically, he was middle-of-the-road as far as speakers were concerned. Spoke about some interesting stuff, but like many of the other speakers, he over-spoke and really made no attempt to "liven up" an already dry subject. I wouldn't classify him as "boring"; just "dry".
It was about this time, too, that I started to feel sick. Not vomit-sick, more like sore-throat-and-headache-and-feverish sick. By the time we got to the Indonesian embassy for lunch, I was feeling too shitty to even want to eat much food (which was a shame, since it looked good). We then sat through another hour-and-a-half of speakers with three upper-level members of the Indonesian embassy about the conflict in Aceh and post-tsunami reconstruction there. As par with the rest of the week, it was interesting but a bit dry and drawn-out, although the later speaker was a bit better since he had a powerpoint presentation to go along with what he was saying. A tour of the embassy followed. Needless to say, it was a classy joint.
We then went to the Smithsonian museums. All 40-some of us broke into four groups with each one going to each of the four museums - Air and Space, Natural History, Native American, and National Art. Personally, I've never been a huge fan of any of the museums. For the most part, they're the kind of thing that's good to go to once, but really isn't very interesting from that point on. I ended up going to the Natural History, mostly because other people I'd come to know fairly well were going. Not that it mattered - I spent all of the hour-and-a-half there sitting on a bench because I felt so sick. I drank a bottle of lemonade in hopes of keeping myself hydrated, but it really didn't do much as far as making me feel better. I felt so bad, I couldn't bring myself to do more than just sit there and stare at the wall, watching the tourists pass by.
We had dinner at a Malaysian restaurant named Penang, a name that made me think of Crystal seeing as how she lives on an island of the same name. I ate almost nothing and even feel asleep at the table at some point because I was so exhausted and sick. One of the program directors offered to take me back to the hotel; I refused. Jarrod Barry is many things, but he's not a quiter.
The next three hours was a hellish and drawn-out bus tour of the national monuments. I basically slept on the inter-monument bus rides, waking up long enough to get out and walk, zombie-like, out to whatever monument we had stopped at. Some of them were ones I'd been to before, like the Capitol, while others were ones I'd never seen in person before, like the Lincoln and Korean War memorials. Of course, many of them had a ridiculous number of steps, which only made the whole experience of having to trudge up them that much better.
When fate finally decided to send me mercy and relieve me of my torment by letting us return to the hotel, I went to my room and immediately passed out.
Day 3
I'd hoped that a good night's rest would be all I needed to be back on my feet. I don't get sick often, and usually when I do, I'm back up on my feet within a day or two. But when I woke up the next morning, it was quite the opposite - I felt just as bad, if not even a bit worse. I trudged downstairs and told Craig, my assigned program director, that I wasn't feeling up for our trip to the World Bank (a shame, since that was somewhere I actually wanted to go... I'd have gladly traded that for, say, our trip to the USIP the day before). He said that was fine and let me go back upstairs and go back to sleep. I slept in until almost noon.
I got up feeling alot better. I still felt sick, but at least now the headache and fever had mostly gone away, leaving me with only a sore throat that no pain killer seemed able to suppress. I dressed and went downstairs for the rest of the group to return so we could start the second day of the simulation. This day was mildly more productive than the previous. We divided up the issues into three categories: environmental, security, and economic. Within environmental, we divided it into four sub-categories: lumber, mining, oil and natural gas, and agriculture. The delegation was split into four groups with each group taking on one of the sub-categories. I got put with the lumber group.
After each group had times to come up with proposals, we met back up and and started to hash out the finer points. The biggest sticking point was the agriculture group. They had made a proposition that would become the biggest sticking point of the whole meeting. Their suggestion was that we create a farming corporation or series of corporations in Aceh. The corporation(s? Somewhere along the line, the plural came in) would be an independent operation with no government control. Capital would be gained from private NGO donations and shares would be held by the people who worked on the farms. The idea was that it would create jobs for many unemployed workers while getting more food to the impovershed people of Aceh and giving the workers a chance to have a stake in the ownership of a company.
As one can imagine, though, there were tons of inresolved issues surrounding this plan. There didn't seem to be any gurantees to prevent the coporation from becoming corrupt or from abusing the workers. There were worries that, no matter how the corporation was initially set up, the managers at the top would get extremely rich while the workers at the bottom would remain poor, or at least lower-middle class. Some worried that this would end up creating a monopoly; my biggest concern personally was what would happen if the company ended up going bankrupt, as about 90 percent of all companies do.
We went around and around and around and around and around. Until our time was up. We left the second day without still having passed any proposals.
Dinner that night was at Zatinya, which is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in D.C. Sadly, I didn't feel like eating much. I munched on some hamas and a few other things, but besides that ate very little. Not that it mattered - the portions were small anyways.
From there, we walked down the street to The Shakespeare Theater to see Juluis Caesar. I've never read the play itself, though I did have an idea in a very general sense of what happens, so I looked over the synopsis provided to get a better idea of what happens in the story. I really enjoyed it (from talking with some other people, I'm one of the few people who managed not to fall asleep, owed in larger part to my having slept in until noon that day) and am actually a bit proud of myself that I followed along so well. Still, I wished I had understood some of the finer points. At one point, Cassius and Brutus spent nearly ten minutes arguing and I had no idea what the hell if was over. And of course, there were the awkward moments where the character on stage would say something and the whole audience would break out in laughter, leaving me sitting there wondering just what the hell was so damn funny.
Emmy, I totally could've used you there whispering in my ear what was going on when I got lost.
During intermission, I had a small serving of duck (as in, two bites worth at most) with what seemed like some kind of jelly. It was odd and greatly overpriced, but superb all the same. Hey, this is vacation! I'm supposed to splurge on stupid things I'd never buy back home, right?
After the play, we went back to the hotel. No socializing, straight to bed.
Day 4
Another morning, another mediocre breakfast. Really, are milk, lemonade, and sweet tea just too low-brow for this kind of place? Is there something I'm missing.
My throat still hurt. Badly. It was the kind of sore throat that even Tylenol or Ibuprofin won't make go away. Between my throat and the unenticing food, I ate very little.
We went again to the Natinal Restaurant Association building and USIP headquaters for another two hours of speakers. The first was a woman who went over the details of our Capitol Hill meetings the next day. Her weird appearance and mannerisms made for an entertaining speaker. Too bad the next two wouldn't be quite as interesting.
The next of the two informational speakers was a South African economists. I imagine this man would've been really interesting to just sit down and speak to one-on-one, to hear stories of his life experiences and of who he was and what he did. Unfortunately, economics is a very dry subject - you either love it or hate it - so the speech ended up being fairly boring. His use of a powerpoint helped a bit, but not much.
The next man... honestly, I pretty much zoned out at this point. He spoke about environmental change and security, I believe, although I don't know of any details beyond that since, like I said, I pretty much just stopped paying attention.
When we got back to the hotel, we spent the next three-and-a-half hours working on the simulation. And our group would need every minute of, too.
We immediately picked up where we left off working on the environmental initiatives. We immediately passed the lumber, oil and natural gas, and mining initiatives without much debate. But when it came back to the agriculture one, along with the corporation porposition, we got held up once more. For a good hour to an hour-and-a-half, we argued around and around about the details of this new corporation. We worked through lunch. It was starting to get to the point where I was almost willing to vote for anything as long as we could move on. I told everyone around me that after this, I never wanted to hear the name Aceh again.
Eventually, somehow or another, we came to an agreement that the group could agree to. All except for the two representatives of the Indonesian government, the Defense and Finance Ministers. They announced that they would not support the proposal unless the government in Jakarta could have some stake - they suggested 25% percent - in the newly-formed corporation. They claimed it was so that the central government could have a say in how this new company functioned. The rest of the committee, though, resented this proposition. I saw it as nothing more than the government trying to make money off of the backs of the people of Aceh, something they'd been doing for the better part of three decades. Others in the group felt that the idea defeated the purpose of the corporation in the first place, which was to benefit the people of Aceh directly.
When it finally came to a vote, the vote was nearly unanimous in favour of, with only two dissenting - the two Indonesian ministers. We were then informed by the mediator that even though the resolution passed, since the two Indonesian government officials objected, it would probably be overruled by the Jakartan government. In other words, the plan, as long as the many hours we'd spent debating, arguing, and hashing it out, was pointless because two people disagreed for reasons of complete selfishness. It wasn't until later that I realized what a complete load of bullshit this was.
And the funniest part? That right there might've been the most realistic part of the whole simulation.
After that, we moved on to security and economics. We split into two groups with each taking a set of issues and setting out a plan. I myself went into the security group since that was the set of issues that most concerned me. When we walked into the side room, I was surprised by how willing the Defense Minister was to compromise. In retrospect, it was actually very generous of him - if that had been me, I wouldn't have compromised at all. It's not as if I, as the police chief, had any leverage in the first place anyways. We agreed, though, to cut the number of military troops in Aceh by half to 8,000, with half of those having to remain on the coast in port cities (since, as the Defense Minister claimed, the troops were mostly there to prevent pirating in the first place anyways). The police would also have no arrest powers and a special police-military task force would be created to help stop corruption in both organizations. The plan took us less than 10 minutes to form.
Everything seemed good until we went back before the rest of the group only to have the Defense Minister stand up and proclaim that he now, within the span of less than 5 minutes, had decided he no longer agreed with the 4000-troops-on-the-coast provision. I was downright pissed; he was obviously trying to squirm out a little more power right at the last second. It took another ten minutes for me and a few other people to argue that last-minute change down. The security plan passed.
I don't even remember the economics plan; it passed easily with no changes, as far as I remember. By that point, our time was up. The agricultural initiative was never addressed. It would remain tabled "until a further date".
That afternoon, we went to the Holocaust Museum. This was the second time I'd been there and it only reaffirmed my belief that it is, by far, the best museum in the city. I'd go so far as to say that it's not even as much a museum as it is a piece of art. It's a bit funny, too, how the museum I find the most interesting is the one on the narrowest subject.
Another speaker afterwards. He was actually one of the more interesting speakers we'd had so far, even though he didn't really educate us as much as give us a 30-minute description on the kinds of genocide awareness and anti-genocide programs the museum does.
Dinner that night was at La Tasca. Of all the places we ate, I probably liked this one the least. That's not to say that it was bad - when you eat at restaurants of this quality, the food is never bad - it just was the least good (if that's even grammatically correct). I guess Mexican food just isn't really my thing.
Back at the conference center, we got one of the few scheduled bits of social time we had the whole week. We all ate ice cream and cake (the cake was actually for one of the girl's birthday) and chatted and listened to some music. Well, everyone else chatted. I sorta sat off to the side and listened. It was about here that I realized how little I had come to fit in with everyone. Everybody else acted like they were good friends who had known each other for years; no one hardly said a word to me. Try as I might, I couldn't manage to manuever my way into any of the two or three circles of conversation that had formed. So, I ended up sitting off to the side, watching as other people took turns singing into the microphone and dancing, thinking of how if I were back home with my friends, I'd be the one up there singing and dancing.
The social was cut short by a long, drawn-out overview of what the day on Capitol Hill would be like tomorrow. Despite how much they claimed we're "the best of the best of our generation", for some reason, they still felt the need to spend over an hour telling us how to meet and greet Senators. For God's sake, I'm an adult. I know how to speak to another adult, how to find my way around a building, and what to do if I ever get lost. Give me some credit here, eh?
Bedtime. Another night of Dr. Gupta flipping through channels nonstop. By now, I've come to believe that he doesn't gain entertainment from TV so much watching it as he does from flipping through it nonstop until he falls asleep.
Day 5
Today, the culminating day of events for us, was due to be the most interesting. We were set to spend most of the day on Capitol Hill with the awards banquet planned for the evening.
Many weeks ago, before I went to Washington, I'd heard that I was set to have lunch with Senator Rockefeller, one of West Virginia's two senators. I was pretty excited about this because, as I had come to understand, this was something that was scheduled outside of the rest of the USIP program. As far as I understood, this was something that the Senator's office initiated, meaning that he wanted to meet with me. For me, that was really half the fun of it all!
I was a bit dissapointed, though, when I realized that everyone had had appointments made, through the institute, to meet with their respective senators and representatives. I kinda killed some of the specialness for me, I suppose. Not that it would be any less cool getting to meet with some of the most important leaders in the country, per-sey. It just isn't as cool when everyone else gets to do it, too.
Before we were all let loose to our individual meetings, we first got to have a meeting with Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. It was cool in it of itself, but nothing much of importance was discussed - he gave a short 4-minute speech congratulating us for winning the NPEC state-level competitions and talked about how we were the best of the best of our generations, how we were sure to be great leaders someday, yadda yadda yadda. He seemed like a nice, personable guy who genuinely tries to work hard to make people's lives better, but then again, don't they all?
Afterwards, we all kind of split up to go to our own individual meetings. My first meething with Rockefeller wasn't scheduled until 11:30, meaning I had a good hour-and-a-half to kill. I spent it really just kind of wandering around the Capitol and adjoining office buildings, admiring the grandioseness of it all. Of course there's the main Capitol building itself, but connected through it through a series of underground tunnels are the five congressional office buildings (three House buildings, two Senate buildings). It takes literally minutes to get from the Capitol building itself, which is set more or less in the middle of them all, to any single office building, and less than that to get from one house building to the other (although if you want to go from, say, a Senate building to a House one, that takes a bit longer since they're a good few city blocks from each other). If you don't feel like walking, you can always take the mini underground train system they have set up, too. Either way, you can move all about within the complex without ever having to set foot out in the sunlight (a plus, considering how hot the city was that day).
I couldn't help but be impressed by the sheer number of people operating in this mini underground city. A good couple thousand people moving quickly from one place to another, some walking faster than I could probably run. It was made even more impressive when you consider that all these thousands of people existed really only to assist, either directly or indirectly, a mere 535 government officials. It's not hard to imagine, then, how a congressional member can get a big head really quickly.
During my pre-meeting time, I tried to go to a few commitee hearings, since I've always been kind of interested in how the whole process works. Unfortunately, fate simply seemed to be against me in that respect today. The first one I went to was canceled. The second hearing, a confirmation hearing for some military officials, appeared to already have finished by the time I got there. Whoever it was appeared to have gotten confirmed, though, since when I walked in the room, a group of military officials were lined up against the backwall getting a group photo taken. The third hearing... well, I have no idea what happened with that. I walked in the room and it was completely empty. The best I can guess at is that, being so close to noon, they broke for lunch.
When I walked into Rockefeller's office, I told the secretary who I was and what I there for.
Secretary: Oh, alright. Well, you're going to have to wait because the Senator is making a speech on the floor right now.
Looking up at the television screen beside me, I saw Senator Rockefeller himself giving a speech on the Senate floor.
I ended up spending most of the time talking to one of his advisors (apparently, he has seven different advisors to work with him on all the varying issues). We talked about my essay and about the various things the Senator has been up to, including a bill that will rework the FISA Act and a bill to help expand veterans benefits.
With less than 5 minutes left until my next meeting, Senator Rockefeller finally arrived back from the floor. He was a much larger man than I expected, almost as tall as the doorway and with the kind of girth that probably would've made him a solid football player, if he weren't in his late 50's. It was just enough time for a few photos and some awkward jokes.
Rockefeller: I'm very sorry for being late.
Me: It's understandable, sir. You're a very busy man.
Rockfeller: I am? How do you know that?
Me: Umm, well, you're a Senator. So you're kinda important...
Rockefeller: Well, Santa Claus is important, but that doesn't make him busy!
I didn't really know what to say to this, so I kind of gave an awkward laugh and agreed. We then got our picture taken.
Photographer: Okay... gotcha!
Rockefeller: Oh, that's never a good sign when someone says that. You never know, he could be shooting radiation at us!
Again, not knowing what to say to such an odd statement, I just sorta laughed nervously and muttered another word of agreement.
Rockefeller: You know, we congressman really act more like babies than adults. We spend all our time arguing amongst ourselves without ever really getting anything done.
Advisor: Don't worry, sir. I'm sure we'll get the bill passed soon.
Rockefeller: Personally, I hope we're stuck here until Sunday arguing over it! That way, all those people with vacation plans will have their time ruined!
With that optimistic statement, our time together was up, and I wandered off to Senator Byrd's office wondering just why my senator was so weird.
Unfortunately, Senator Byrd wasn't there, which was a shame since, of the three congressional members I got to meet, he was the one I was most excited to meet (Byrd, for those that don't know, is the oldest member of Congress and, at the end of next year, will gain the record for longest-serving member of Congress in history). I met instead with his national security advisor. It was a good consolation prize, though, since the guy seemed pretty cool and very knowledgeable. We chatted for about 15 minutes about things like college, politics, the war in Iraq, and things of that nature. I kind of wish I'd had more time to speak with him, but like everyone else on Capitol Hill, he was really busy and his schedule was divided up into ten- and fifteen-minute intervals.
On my way out, I made sure to say bye to Byrd's cute secretary.
I made my way down to the cafeteria (well, one of them - I think there were at least three or four throughout the complex) and got something to eat. I actually could've gotten the food for free if I'd felt like trying to find one of the program directors and get my free lunch pass (I also wondered at this point why they hadn't just given us these passes in the beginning instead of expecting us to come find them when we were hungry...), but I didn't feel like searching them out, so I just coughed up the money for a drink and burger. The burger was surprisingly bad for such a nice place, though then again, I wasn't really hungry to begin with.
My meeting with Congresswoman Capito was an interesting affair. When I got to her office, I found out that she was still down on the House floor doing... something. Casting a vote, I think. So, one of her aides took me and another boy from another tour group down to a room just off the floor to meet with her there. The aide actually went to high school not too far from where I did and had just graduated from Shephered University two years ago. After about ten minutes of sitting, waiting, chatting, and watching the aide type away on his Blackberry, he announced that somehow, through a series of miscommunications, we'd missed the Congresswoman and she was already back at her office. The other boy had to leave at this point to catch his bus, leaving me and the Aide to hurry back, through a series of side-doors and back stairwells, to the Congresswoman's office. I had to practically run at some points to keep up with the Aide's wide, hurried strides.
My meeting with Capito might've been the most personal of all. She has a very grandmotherly way about her, but then, like I said before, don't they all? She did seem the most genuinely interested in my essay, though, even asking me for a copy (the Institute had prepared me with three copies for the occasion, although I never gave out the other two, since no one ever asked and I never saw any reason to volunteer). The aide then took a quick photo of us and I left to make my way back to the bus.
We spent the next few hours back at the hotel resting. I took a nap and nearly overslept because my alarm didn't go off. Shitty cell phone alarm...
Because of how close I am to Washington, my parents were one of the that were actually able to make the trip to the awards banquet. Honestly, though I'd probably never admit it, I can't remember having been so happy to see them in a long time. After a week of strange, new things among strange, new people, it was good to finally catch a sight of familiarty and stability, even if just for awhile.
The banquet food was great, of course. We didn't actually have the dinner at a restaurant. Instead, it was hosted at some place called the Dumbarton House. I couldn't quite figure out what the purpose of this place was. It is, as the name implies, an actual house, and it appears someone did live there at some point, but I doubt, with the public restrooms and all, that someone still lives there today.
In keeping with tradition with the rest of the week, many drawn-out, boring speeches were given. That is, until General Anthony Zinni stepped up. Zinni, a retired Marine Corp general, was easily the best speaker we had all week. One of the most interesting points he made was about how we need to change our perception towards how we fight our enemies, how we use the military, and how we assist and rebuild countries. One of the main points he made was that we can't continue to expect the military, a blunt tool of destruction, to keep rebuilding and restabilizing countries. Now, if only a certain President had listened to that line of thinking...
Now came the time to announce the national winners. I'm not gonna lie - I was very nervous. I really wanted to win. Part of it for the money, yes (a first-place win would give me a full year of college paid for plus a couple extra thousand in cash... even a third-place win would nearly cover my first year). But as much as that, I also wanted the prestige. More and more lately, I've been thinking about trying to write a real novel. And even though this report was nothing close to a novel, I guess in some way, winning this competition would confirmed that maybe I'm ready to finally take a stab at a real honest-to-God novel.
Just before the winners were announced, the woman from the Institute who was presenting the awards noted how, while in past years the board of directors usually made an attempt at gender equality, this year, it seemed, that wasn't the case. Then she announced the third-place winner.
It went to the Russian girl from Virginia.
Applause and cheers followed.
Then the second-place winner was announced.
The girl from Kentuck won.
It was right about here that I began to realize what the woman had been talking about with her gender equality statement. And it was right here that I realized that I had no hope of winning.
First-place went to the girl from Tennessee.
Maybe it was stupid to put so much stock in winning one of the national prizes. I mean, my chances weren't that good to begin with, I know. I was competeing with 52 other people, many of whom were much, much smarter than me. Still, I really feel like I had a good paper - it might very well be the best research paper I've ever written, and I've written quite a few in my time - with a good topic. Of course my parents said they were proud of me all the same, which kind of helped a bit. Still, it was hard to keep myself from crying. I really did want to win.
We all spent our last night at the hotel staying up late and talking. Since we had nothing to do the next day but leave, we all stayed up until almost 1 in the morning, just kind of talking and hanging out. I actually managed to get involved in the conversation this time, which was a nice change of pace. Too bad it happened with less than tweleve hours left in the trip.
I went to sleep with a feeling I hadn't I'd have at the end of the week when I began this journey - relief. Relief that such a long, drawn-out, crappy week was finally almost over.
And my throat still hurt.
Day 6
Very little of note occured the next morning. We all got up, went downstairs for breakfast (for the first time that week, we weren't required to be dressed up, which was a nice change), and listened to a couple of last-minute speeches. One of the speakers were a journalist (I don't remember the paper, though I want to say it was The Washington Post) and teacher who had written books and taught a course on peace and peace-related tactics. Even though he spoke for a little longer than he probably should've (somewhere over an hour, I think), he was actually funny and, next to Zinni, one of the best speakers we'd had. His ideas were really interesting to think about, even though I don't completely agree with him. I mean, I agree that there's a time and place for non-violent resistance and I do think that there're many cases where it could and would work if people bothered to try it, the fact that he couldn't answer one of the student's question about how non-violent resistance would've helped in WWII proves to me that it isn't always the answer. While far be it from me to advocate violence, I also consider myself a realist and I know that there're people in this world - very few of them, yes, but they're there - who just aren't interested in peace and non-violence.
Still, he had some interesting ideas and viewpoints to share. I considered buying his book, but I didn't want to spend what little money I had left on it (somehow, I spent close to $25 bucks this week; how I managed to do that with all my meals, transportation, and accomodations paid for I still don't know).
Immediately after the speech, people began leaving on buses to get to Dulles and Reagan National airports to catch their respective flights out. Many hugs were had, hands shaken, and last minute pictures snapped. For everyone else, that is. I sorta just sat off to the side and watched. I don't remember if anyone bothered to say bye to me.
Over the course of the next three hours, I surfed the internet some and just killed time. Ironically, despite the fact I was one of the closest people, I was the very last to leave. My train wasn't scheduled to leave Union Station until 4, and the station was only about 10 minutes away. I probably could've left at 3:30 and still made it with time to spare. I didn't feel like waiting around the hotel for three hours by myself, though, so at around noon, I took off for Union Station in one of the curtesy shuttles, leaving Galladuet University for the last time.
I spent a few hours at Union Station, mostly just wandering around throughout the different stores (they have a miniature mall there in the station) and getting a tea at McDonald's. For the two-hour train ride home, I mostly slept. I got back sometime around 6:30. I dunno if I've ever been so glad to be home in my life.
All-in-all, it was a good experience and I'm glad I went. But I wouldn't want to go again. I met some new people, learned some new things, and took part in some new adventures and activities that I may never get to do again. Still, the best time of the week was Friday night when I stayed out until three playing Risk with my friends.
Sometimes, it's the simplest things that are the best.