Aughr’s Blog

For the next 9 days, I’m taking part in the National Student Leadership Conference on U.S. Policy & Politics at American University in Washington D.C. I’ve taken part in one and a half days so far and am so far enjoying it. There seems to be a much higher focus on “leadership” than I expected; although “leadership” is in the title of the conference, it has so far dominated in the proceedings. We haven’t actually learned anything about politics yet, nor will we until late today or mid-day tomorrow according to our schedule.

I’m excited about the mock Senate sub-committees that will take place, as well as the mock Presidential election cycle. It should prove to be interesting, considering that I have been assigned to be a Republican from Idaho in all mock events. In normal life, I’m a full-on Democrat, so this should prove to be an interesting challenge.

In terms of the “leadership” emphasis, many things that occur that would annoy regular people has been transformed into a “leadership challenge.” For example, today as we were getting onto our bus after our four hours at the ropes course it began to pour. Since our lunches were sitting in boxes outside in the rain, some people had to go outside to get them into the rain. My typical reaction would be to be annoyed about the rain, but since this is a leadership conference apparently this became an opportunity for a “leadership challenge.” I find this amusing in a way and grating in another.

The people at the conference, thankfully, seem to be nice. I haven’t seen any nastiness at all, which surprised me in a way. As for the TAs (Team Advisors), however, the women are kind while the men have a military and harsh air about them. I hope this doesn’t prove to be a problem for me, as I get particularly annoyed by these types of people.

Hopefully, the conference will get even better. I’ll write some more in a day or two about the political aspects of the program.