WASHINGTON DC

Today was my first time in the nation's capital and it was amazing. We first had lunch with an old friend of my dad at George Washington University. The campus of GW was about three blocks from the white house! We rushed over there before our campus tour and my dad was telling everybody we were having lunch with obama. ;) The garden was huge and it was really cool for me to see it! The school is really urban, but I like the campus a lot more that at Boston University. The size was good for me. There are about 10000 undergraduates and they even had a campus that was not in the city for freshmen. I really liked the school, because they're really strong in the majors I'm interested in (among with others). I would like a campus community feeling which this school really lacked, but I'll consider it. After the tour we had some coffee at the student union and we decided to walk toward the Lincoln Memorial and it was amazing! I loved it! It is really ten times better than they show on TV in Holland. ;) We took lots of pictures and it was beautiful, because the sun was just setting. We were walking towards the Washington Monument and there were these people playing frisbee right along the reflecting pool. We were watching and I actually played with them in jeans and a T-shirt. haha. They were actually from the state department and this was the only time in the week they could get some exercise so they had no rules and it was just for fun. It really reminded me how much I love this sport. You can just go to a park in America and play pick-up everywhere! That was so much fun and after a while it got dark and we walked to the Washington Memorial. It is really beautiful by night and we made a ton of pictures just standing right against it and looking straight up.

We had dinner at the student union and talked with some students from GW and it made me a little negative, because they said that classes were huge and that you didn't get to know your professor really well. I'm really tired so this is a short post.

Photo's will come tomorrow!

BREATHE

Wesleyan

Next stop …. Wesleyan University! We had to get up really early and we had a plastic breakfast at a motel. We had to drive for an hour to Middletown, Connecticut. We always get there way early so I don't stress out. We have gotten lost on our way to universities a couple times already. Navigating is not a skill I can proudly put on my resume. ;) I had an informational interview at Wesleyan. That means that the interviewer doesn't evaluate you, but if you're interesting enough they'll take note of it, or as my dad calls it, they'll put a star next to your name. I had expected that I would be asking a lot of the questions, but he had a lot more surprising questions for me. He basically asked me what I did last summer and if I could pick a favorite moment and he was wondering if I ever go off and explore on my own. The courses I take in high school, what classes I like most and what about it do I like most. I must say that I never think about why I like History. I just know I like it and I never question myself why so it's good to start thinking about. At the end I had some questions and he asked me about my extracurricular activities and I got a huge black out. I couldn't even remember what I do after school. He is a senior at Wesleyan, but just to give you an idea:

View from Foss Hill

Wesleyan has about 2700 undergraduates. It's a pretty small school. It's a real left-wing school and really liberal. It has really small classes and more discussions than lectures, which I love. It has 80 clubs ranging from quidditch (forget how you spell that) to an MUN club. You can option to live in an international dorm room from sophomore year on, which is really cool. You can live with people all over the world. The campus is really pretty and really new. All the buildings are really pretty and their cafeteria is amazing. They have everything including a vegan, vegetarian, mexican, asian, gluten, low calorie meal plans. Their dorm rooms are apparently really pretty and pretty big which is better than the other mini rooms I've seen so far.

We took a tour with about two families and the tour guide was a girl from India! She was really nice and she explained everything and she made me really interested in Wesleyan. It's funny, because all the tour guides at every university walk backwards while talking. Part of their training is actually learning how to walk backwards. It was really nice weather today!  It was s beautiful day. I didn't even have to wear a sweater and a jacket, haha. The campus also has this hill called Foss HIll and the first thought I had when I saw it was: I'd love to roll down it on my side! We didn't have time, but I would have gone otherwise.

College Row

At the end of our tour the guide gave us her card so we can email her. The other girl and her mother who were on the tour were really nice. I think her name was Maddy and she is a senior in high school and she had exactly the same interests as I did! She was going to mostly small school (like Wesleyan). Tomorrow she was going to Vasser and she was really friendly. She was also at Brown yesterday and she loved it. I didn't see her there. My dad and I got hungry so we decided to go eat some Thai food that the tour guide had recommended. On the way their Maddy and her mom asked us if we could give our email. We said we were going to the Thai restaurant and we were too so we decided to have lunch together. We arrived at the Thai restaurant and they didn't turn up. We asked at the restaurant if there was another Thai restaurant and there was. I decided to walk to the other restaurant which was about two blocks down. I walked three blocks down and I couldn't find it. Meanwhile my dad was eating his lunch and mine was getting cold. I came back and my dad went out to find the restaurant and I ate my lunch. He found them in the other Thai restaurant, gave them our email and left. Once he came back I was done with my lunch. That was my first lunch I ever ate at a restaurant where I ate alone with another person absent.

Olin Library

I was getting really excited, because I was going to an ultimate frisbee practice of the vicious circles. A women's team at Wesleyan. At 4.15 pm there was nobody yet. I was getting a bit worried, but they all had had fall break so they were all just coming back from home. Six people show up and the team captain had rushed from the airport just to make sure she'd be on time for me. They were really excited to see me and I was first a little shy. The captain who I had emailed was Nora and she was a really extrovert junior and they were all really excited and yelling. We first warmed up and we started out with hotbox. I quickly noticed that compared to them I was pretty good. After that we had a long drink break, which was really long. After that nobody wanted to get up and eventually I said something like: But I've come all the way from Holland for this practice! Haha. We did a basic drill. In the next water break I was spinning a frisbee and then the captain asked me if I wanted to take it with! So now I have a frisbee of the vicious circles. :) I even suggested a drill after they ran out of ideas and they asked me to throw the hucks after a while and I'm not very good at deep throws. And I was throwing for the first time and I heard someone saying 'wow' behind me. They were really impressed with my throwing skills, which are not my strongest point. It was a really fun practice and I chatted with them after practice. They were all sophomores, juniors and seniors. They also invited me to dinner, but unfortunately I didn't have any time to stay longer. My dad took a picture of them and me and I'll post it on my blog very soon! It was great. I did notice that they were less competitive than me, but it's hard to get really good as a team when every year the best players leave and a whole new stream of freshmen come in who have never touched a frisbee in their whole life. They also play on a horrible field with bad grass and they rarely play indoors, because the varsity sports get the best gyms and fields. I could really be a leader in that team, I think. That would be really fun. The only problem would be that I wouldn't improve a lot. The team seemed really fun to be in and pretty completive. They go to a lot of tournaments, but they're now in the phase of teaching new freshmen how to throw. It was really nice to talk to them too and get to know them and they wanted me to skip a year so I would graduate and they'd make sure I'd get accepted to Wesleyan. ;)

Disc Vicious Circles

Got a disc and a lot of new contacts out of the deal. :) I told them if they ever want to come to Holland they're welcome to. 

I'm getting tired and hungry. It's a long drive to DC. Tomorrow I'll be in the capital. My dad and I are having dinner with Obama. ;) We just called him up and he's really excited to see us. Haha

Seeyousoon!

BREATHE - ANNA NALICK

PIANO SONG

Today I sang with Nicole. Nicole (my friend) plays the piano and I sing with her and I tell you if you always play by yourself, pick up you instrument and run over to your friend's house! It's so great to make music together. It sounds way better and it's way less boring. It also feels like you're giving a small concert for yourself. We worked really long on it and we ended up playing Imagine - John Lennon and Fields of Gold - Eva Cassidy. I'm more in the range of mezzo-soprano and soprano.
I had a busy day. I did a prepare-test for the PSAT. (yes, the prepare for the prepare SAT ;)) I did it right at home and got decent scores, I guess. I did pretty well for a foreign student.
And then Nicole came over and we worked on MUN, which is model united nations. We plan to establish it at our school! After that we went shopping with Lotte (other friend) and we had a lot of fun.
We came back shortly after that and we played music and then I just rested from a looong day.

And then tomorrow frisbee. So this was my short report, because I have to go to bed.

Title: Piano Song - Meiko