NYLC Day 1

I can't believe I forgot to tell you guys this. I guess I did. But I'm attending the National Youth Leadership Conference. It's this thing in Washington DC where we go to a whole bunch of seminars that will help America's best scholars develop leadership skills.

Apparently I'm a future leader.

I spent the last week trying to buy professional attire. Which is hard because nothing fits me and I hate dressing up.

I spent the last two days driving from Oak Ridge to DC. Which was not fun, because we couldn't leave until 5 yesterday and we had to be here by 3. And we had to stop and find a steamer, so I can unwrinkle my blazers. Haven't tried it yet. It looks like a little alien tea pot with wheels that emits jets of hot steam. I'm a little bit scared of it.

Anyway, we didn't do much today but unpack and listen to the keynote speaker. Those up top are the notes I took.

If you're lucky, some day you will produce a page of notes just as beautiful and random and detailed as that.

This is just a little bit of what those notes said.:

They had to cram all of us into the ballroom. The seats were so close together you couldn't twitch without bumping somebody else. Despite the fact that we're some of the nation's top scholars, the group is like any other group of highschoolers- noisy and restless.

It's a lot more diverse than you would expect. Most of us are from the Eastern United States, but there's plenty from California, Puerto Rico, and everywhere in between. There's cute, bubbly girls who treat everyone like their best friend, outsiders who seem to be eavesdropping, artists doodling in the margins of the 360-page journal/handbook they gave us when we first arrived.

The first guy, a boring looking guy in a suit, walks up to the podium and tells us he's one of the event coordinators. "Good evening scholars," he says. A few people answer. He does the I can't hear you gesture. "What did you say?"

Even at special Washington DC seminars for super smart people, we still have to go through that ritual. I don't understand why.

Then he introduces the other event coordinator. Who is also a boring guy wearing a suit. He's way into alliteration. He makes a joke about our "fashionable, friendly, and functional" name tags and tells us the conference should be a "wonderful, widening experience." Then he introduces the keynote speaker.

Despite the fact that we all had to get dressed up in blazers, button down shirts, and heels (although the guys aren't wearing heels, of course), she walks up to the podium wearing a pair of jeans and a while peasant blouse. She kind of reminds me of Diane Farr, the chick on Numb3rs.

She's Heather Smith, the leader of Rock the Vote, an organization that goes around with celebrities pestering young people to vote. She throws some statistics us, like the fact that by 2012, people under 30 will make up a third of the electorate.

She's big on young people exercising people, as you'd expect from the leader of Rock the Vote. Most revolutions like the Civil Rights struggle were headed by young people. "If a difference is going to be made, we have to be that difference," Smith tells us.

She also shares with us a few nuggets of wisdom that her father drilled into her brain.

"If you aren't big enough to withstand criticism, you aren't big enough to be praised."

and

"Be mindful of your thoughts, as they become your words.

Be mindful of your words, as they become your habits.

Be mindful of your habits, as they become your character.

Be mindful of your character, as it becomes your legacy."

Then they have a Q&A session, when some of the students come up to a microphone and ask her questions about her views and such. Then some creepy looking suit guys come up to the girl and the microphone and tell her that her question is the last.

Smith closes with a quote from Bobby Kennedy: "It takes one blow against injustice to create a tiny ripple of hope."

So go out there and express your opinion. It'll make the world a better place :)