Good Friends, Good Times

Today was debate day! My partners and I have been working on the case for a few days now, and we got up earlier to rehearse our speeches. It's a lot more fast paced to create a case within a few days as opposed to a month. We were Bertram, the team that advocated for the family to write Jerusalem, Israel on their child's passport. Doctor Porwancher based the case off of an actual case, but he changed some of the laws and put restrictions on the examples that we could use. My team of Caroline and Reed worked together to make three six-minute speeches. We argued that the Foreign Relations Act of 2009 already gave that right to U.S. citizens. In addition, the right should have been in place because of the first and tenth amendment. We proved that it was constitutional and not a political question because political questions aren't allowed to be answered in courts. Our opponents were Esteban and Mike. The teams were uneven because we have an odd number of students in the class, but the time allotments were still the same. After everyone spoke, we had to go outside so that the "Justices" could reach a verdict. We released some tensions by taking selfies! The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bertram, 4-1, so we won! It was thrilling because Esteban and Mike put up a good fight. There was some extra time so we watched clips of the JFK movie that we'll be watching on the last day of class.

Mike, Caroline, Esteban, Reed, and I

Ecstatic about our win, Caroline and I ate lunch together with some of her suite mates. Monica is from Denmark, however, she currently lives in London. Mathilda is from London. I told them about the ILC and they were amazed that such a program existed. We talked about the places we have traveled to while eating strawberries. It was blazing hot outside. Our next stop was Alfred Lerner Hall. There was a Columbia info session at the second half of lunch today. It's different to hear about a school after living on campus for about two weeks. Some of the differences at Columbia are that:

1. There are majors, minors, and concentrations. Concentrations are more than minors and less than majors.
2. It's very rare to have double  majors 
3. Being in the city allows students to have easy access to internships throughout the year
4. Core classes are capped at around 12-25
5. 98% of students live in dorms all four years

All the students rushed to class after the presentation ended. I worked on my paper in Lehman library. As I walked back to my dorm, I spotted Bryan Moran. It took a second to realize that the UPenn cohort was on campus! I didn't want to bother them during their tour though, so we met up afterwards. Mr. Hillyer was kind enough to invite us to hangout with the cohort(or maybe Lisa and I invited ourselves). We went to the student store and then ate at a pizza place. It was the biggest pizza I have ever seen. The pieces were larger than the size of my head. I knew I couldn't finish it, so I shared it with Lisa. I'm having a hard time accepting the fact that the Columbia cohort was touring schools two weeks ago. Now we only have a week left...Make sure to cherish every moment you have, cohorts!

They thought we wouldn't be able to all fit in one selfie!

Although I had lots of selfies today, I ended up exercising a lot more. I'm sure that piece of pizza got worked off. We had another rainy night in New York, New York. Some of my friends went out to go shopping, but I didn't need to buy anything and I didn't want to risk the chance of getting sick. I stayed in with others and ran in the mini-gym located in the basement. I don't remember the last time I exercised this hard. One of my friends can plank for 6 minutes! Everyone here is so fit, healthy, and smart. Sometimes it feels a little competitive. I just appreciate that they inspire me to work harder though. And at the end of the day, we're all good friends and it's the places we go and things we do that we cherish!