Sep 8, 2008 by Rochelle
I had a great weekend with some nice surprises. When I was planning on hanging out all day on Saturday by myself, I got a phone call from my childhood friend Marci. She and a friend of hers, which is now a friend of mine, named Lisa were going for a nature walk near where I live. They were calling to see if I wanted to hang out afterwards. What a great treat!
So after their walk they came over and we hung out for awhile. We mostly dished about the DNC and told stories from our experiences. I told them all about how great it was to be at Obama’s speech, and they told me about all the other fun stuff they did during convention week. Lisa is a writer for Westword and so she got to write some interesting stories from that week. She wrote a really great blog about watching the speech in the streets of downtown Denver where it was being broadcast on the side of a building. Marci was up here just to experience it all and volunteer.
After having a chit and a chat we were starving, so we hit up Noodles for some good carb action. I, of course, didn’t stray away from my usual Wisconsin Macaroni and Cheese. It was divine. After dinner we meandered over to the mall so Lisa could pick up some Croc sandals and then we topped off the night with some Dairy Queen. It was so nice to hang out with some girls. And the best part was when Marci told me that she is moving to Denver! I am thrilled at this notion. Even though I’m not the best at staying in touch with my local friends this will give me one more opportunity to do so.
My dad was very proud of his youngest child.
And then there was Sunday. My sister Marissa received a great journalism scholarship and so my dad came up from Pueblo to attend. I got to go along as well. It was a fancy affair on campus with a fondue bar and even complimentary wine and beer. I was impressed. I’ve been to so many university catered events and this was by far the fanciest and the best. The J-School really went all out on this one. So Marissa received her scholarship toward the end of the event and she did great. They listed all of her accomplishments and activities. I recorded her receiving the scholarship certificate.
I was a little jealous through the whole evening because I am a J-School drop-out. I found Political Science more dazzling and I just didn’t have an extra year to spare on my education to get both degrees. I made my choice and I’m happy with it. As always my dad, sister, and I had a hilarious time. We also went a little bit overboard on election talk. We tend to get a little “us v. them” in our long diatribes. It probably isn’t fair of us, but that’s the beauty of America…we can talk about whatever we want.
Journalism School drop out stands left of Journalism School rock star.
After my dad left to go home, Marissa came over and I helped her work on her homework for Western Political Thought. Her assignment was to read Pericles’ Funeral Oration from ancient Greet times. His oration describes Athens’ democracy. At first glance it was hard to understand, so I decided to read it out loud for her in the form of a speech, because that’s what it was originally. When heard like that it makes much more sense. It is actually quite beautiful and it really reminded us of Senator Obama. It’s amazing how much we have stretched the meaning of democracy in the past eight years. As a country, we should get back to these roots.
I really had a great time helping her. I realized that my ability to comprehend and critically evaluate the text is far superior to what it was when I took that class the second semester of my freshman year. I even got out my book from that class (which I kept because I’m a dork) and started reading about Locke, and then about liberalism and social democracy. It was fascinating. And the most amazing part about this story is that I was doing this at midnight and not falling asleep. Can you tell it’s an election year?
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