Simone

I’ve just come back from my first ever Model Congress conference.

I wish I was cool enough to not have had a good time, but I really did. I loved debating pressing moral questions, like whether we should implement the guillotine in lieu of lethal injection, or use verbal warnings as a form of legal punishment. The most interesting of all: the debate on whether we should legalize marijuana federally. My only problem with said conference was the overwhelming whiteness of my fellow delegates, and thus, a complete ignorance of reasons why, maybe, black people would distrust the police, or people of Middle Eastern descent might feel alienated and profiled by facial scanners installed in every entry point in the United States. Besides that, this weekend reminded me how bright (but hopefully not still majorly white) our country’s future government will be.

More than anything, this trip reminded me how close I am to facing my future. Not only was the conference held at the University of Pennsylvania—one of the most selective universities in the country—but this weekend was the beginning of regular decision college acceptances. Half the seniors present were receiving word about how they’d be spending the next four years of their lives.

I still have no idea where I want to go, or what I want to study. I love films, and I’ve always thought I’d end up a film major at film school. But the genuine intellectual stimulation I experienced from a weekend like this tells me to exert my passion in something practical, like politics, or business, or law. While writing this entry, I’m also exploring the college software my guidance counselor gave me access to last week, and listening to an early demo of Across the Universe. They feel contradictory in conjunction. If I decide where I want to go, I can begin plan my future “perfectly,” so I can go on to live the “perfect” life. But John keeps reminding me that it doesn’t matter. At all. The universe is so big, and nothing I can or will do matters in relation to it. So, should I still put all this time and effort into making the right decision for myself, even if there’s no point?

I wish I could just stay 16 forever, working productively to pass fake legislation, flirting with cute boys in Ralph Lauren. <3 ♦