Wicked Day

Instead of two hours of discussion and lecture today, we had a guest speaker in class! Doctor Porwancher's friend, Kiran Bhatraju spoke to us about his career. He works at Capitol Hill and has worked for several congressmen and governors. He is from a small town in Kentucky, but he ended up double majoring in Literature and Political Science at UPenn. It's inspiring to see how far he's gone since his time in Kentucky. Our activity of the day was to break into two groups and convince both the professor and Mr. Bhatraju that politicians should or should not be limited on their campaign spending. I'm glad I got to say that they should limit spending because that's what I agree with too. My team's points were that politicians running for reelection could focus on their current jobs, there would be a more leveled playing field, corruption would be limited, and it would appeal more to the common man if politicians actually got to know people. Mr. Bhatraju picked our team as the winner while Doctor Porwancher voted for the other team. It was a fun exercise before we left for lunch. During my library hours, my group got together to discuss our cases for Thursday's debate. 

At night, I met with Emily to eat dinner and go see Wicked. About fifteen students from Columbia's program went together with three RAs. Neither Emily or I have been to a Broadway show before, so it was really exciting! I didn't realize that Broadway was only two blocks away from Times Square! Our seats were actually pretty good. The music was loud, but the singers sang really well. The show kind of fit in with my class because we read about The Wizard of Oz on the first day of class. The costumes were all so vivid and Elphaba was so green! The set was beautiful and I was impressed by the large mask used to hide the wizard. It was mechanical, covered in lights, and well built. I've seen it in cartoons and movies, but not as an actual mask. As a souvenir, I just bought a soda that came in a cute Wicked cup. 

A quick snap before the show!

During and after the show, Emily and I kept meeting new people! We sat next to Kayla, another high school program student. She overheard us talking about colleges on the subway station, so she chimed in a few times because she's toured a lot of colleges too. On our way back, another student, Michelle from Oklahoma, overheard us talking and joined in our conversation too. And across from us, two actual Columbia students overheard us and started talking to us too. It's incredible that we keep meeting new people every day. I've been learning so much every day and I can't imagine a better way to have spent the last day of June!