HSLP 2009: Day 8, July 18

High School Leaders Program Class of 2009
Day 8— Saturday, July 18
Reported by: Amy Friedman, Roanoke

     The sound of my Ipod woke me up as usual this morning but I felt very different. I was...ready to get out of bed. Not only did I get more than three hours of sleep last night – I got nine. And I had two whole hours before I had to be in class.
     First, we cleaned. Obviously since everyone here at Sorensen is a "leader of tomorrow," we are all exceptionally organized and responsible. Yeah – not so much. I have yet to do my laundry (of which there is a lot more than there should be since we have only been here for seven days). The rest of our room is a mess, so we decided to only tackle the dishes. And by we I mean the wonderful Hollis, my one roommate who offered to do them. Hollis hates milk. Someone hadn’t poured the milk out of their cereal bowl, like three days ago. Hollis did not approve, and rightly so.
     Before we knew it, it was time to leave again for class. Yes, even though it is Saturday and perhaps the nicest day I have seen all summer, potentially in my life, we have class.
     I arrived late to class and had to sit in the back, which I hate, and then our new teacher walked in and he was like all of those profound teachers you see in college movies. The best example of this that I can offer is as follows: He had us all try to define ‘justice’ and how we know what justice is. There was clearly no right answer but we all tried because we are nerds like that. As we answered he would tell us which ancient philosopher’s ideas we were channeling. When my fellow classmate Whitney defined justice as punishment and revenge he replied that she was "busting a cap in Plato" yeah. Toto, we aren’t in Roanoke anymore. (And if you were wondering, I’m apparently a lot like the Scottish Enlightenment).
     So I sat in the back thinking about the state of democracy and eating Sweetarts with my new fabulous Sorensen friend Emma and had to take a second for an internal laugh at how crazy and wonderful it is just to be here.
     Emma lives here in Charlottesville, so after class we met up with her friends and ran about town, ate some Thai food and returned to Bice. So that’s it. That’s the way it is at Sorensen (take this moment to mourn the recent loss of Walter Cronkite if you haven’t already). This is the only place where the day can start with rotten milk, spend three hours dissecting justice, and end – well, probably it will end sometime very early tomorrow morning.

—Amy Friedman, Roanoke