BEST WEEKEND EVER.

I am still unwinding from this weekend. It was the best. Weekend. Ever.

So number one, I saw the POTUS. No big. I took a photo of him with my cell camera.


Some other people took pictures of him, too.


Okay, seriously, AHHHHH!! It was so, so amazing! I have never willingly sung the entire National Anthem in recent memory! Or been around so many happy and insanely people. Or seen so many tiny, waving flags. Video footage of the speech is available here.

I went with Planned Parenthood, and (benefit of being a teenager!) the two other Teen Council members who were there and I received VIP tickets, along with our adult leader-types. There was a large amount of screaming, jumping up and down, etc., and I believe that just about every step of waiting in line for three hours was documented. When we finally got into the Target Center, we were probably about twenty feet away from the podium. Best part of the waiting there was looking over people's shoulders in front of me to read their texts ("I'm 20 ft away!!!! AHHHH!!! Wish u were here!!").

And then the President spoke. The energy was electric and rock concert-y, and the wait was absolutely, absolutely worth it.

Then I went home and made brownies. They were delicious.

Good weekend. There was more, but I think that should be another entry, so I'll hold off.

Hamline University and the Problem with PSEO

But first, a brief disclaimer. PSEO (Post Secondary Enrollment Options, a program that enables high school juniors and seniors to enroll-- for free!-- in college classes) is a great program, and an awesome deal.

However, there's a somewhat crucial problem with it. The kind of schools that make it easy to enroll in their PSEO programs (Concordia and Hamline, specifically) are the kind of schools that are looking to attract highly motivated, hardworking students into their school. Schools that have no problem attracting highly motivated, hardworking students, are much more selective with their PSEO enrollment (Macalester, spefically, and the U of M, to a lesser extent).

So, since all college credit is more or less equal, more PSEO students opt for Concordia than Macalester. From what I can tell, a fair number of Concordia students are at college because of a societal/familial obligation than from a passion for learning, or a passion for the unique environment that Concordia offers. PSEO students, who have opted out of high school classes, hypothetically, in search of something more stimulating than a class of bored high school students and an exasperated teacher find themselves in a class of bored college students and an exasperated professor.

I'm not hating on the quality of instruction at Hamline or Concordia. I've found my professors and Hamline to be well-informed, accessible, and engaging. But the students aren't engaged, and that naturally degrades the quality of the class.

The solution to this is pretty simple: Kids who don't want to be in college shouldn't be in college. But somehow, we've created a society where 16 years of institutionalized learning is necessary to access a basic, idiotic desk job. Database entry? Yeah, you don't need a four-year degree for that one. You don't even need a GED.

So, how do we stop pumping disinterested students into colleges without pushing them into dead-end jobs instead? Can we realize that most jobs would do better with real-life training and interning than a collection of irrelevant college credits? Honestly, I don't really think so.

But it'd be pretty cool.

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Finally blogging again. Summer, although unusually cold this year, left me in a groggy state of blogging ennui. But now I'm back in the swing of things, I swear.

On that subject, here's what I have planned for the year. I'll be taking two college classes, Advanced Conversation and Composition in Spanish and Macroeconomics, at Hamline University. I have an internship with Organizing For America that will remain somewhat mysterious until this Sunday, when I'll be attending a meeting that I hope will tell me what I'll actually be doing. I'll also hopefully be doing classroom work at a local elementary school, which I'll have more details on by this afternoon. I'm a member of Planned Parenthood's Teen Council, which does peer sexuality education and community advocacy. I'm also on the Interfaith Youth Leadership Coalition again this year, aaand I'm planning a parent discussion group on sexuality at my church with my fabulous mentor, Grit. I'm also captain of the Cross Country team at Central, and I'll be babysitting at church and for a baby a block away when I can.

It might be kind of a busy year.

I think I have a dentist appointment soon, too.