Time is of the Essence

Almost all of the students went to the farmer's market or out to explore the rest of Ithaca today. I knew that I had to work on my presentation, but I was hoping that maybe I could hang out with some friends sometime . We met at a computer lab at ten and spent hours revising our slides. Time went on and the gap to hang out closed. We barely even had time to eat! I wanted to go out and play, but I knew what was important and I had to focus.

After finishing our slides, one of my teammate's mom came to visit her from three hours away. We decided to take a two hour break and I called my friends to see if they were still at school. They told me that they just stepped on the bus to visit college town. Rather than spending two hours moping around, I practiced my part of the speech, took a short nap, and called my parents. I haven't talked to them in over three days, so it was nice to catch up. They told me about California's blazing hot weather and asked me how things were going. They don't know how to use computers, so I basically told them everything that I write in my blogs.

 Going back to work, we continued to add more slides because we came up with more ideas. The computer lab was filled with hotelies editing their PowerPoints. One of my team mates failed to show up, but the show must go on. The three of us explored the campus for an empty room we could rehearse in. My team mate, Bhavesh, heard that I watched Monsters University and asked me how I got to the theaters. I told him my chaperone took me, but he mistakenly assumed that my parents had hired someone to watch over me while studying at Cornell. I had to explain that I had gotten a scholarship through the ILC and that there were a few other girls in the program too. He was pretty shocked and it took him a while to process in his head.

Today reminded me of how fortunate I am and how much I've grown. I remember when I had to pick between a field trip and a leadership event in the seventh grade. Rather than instantly knowing that I had a leadership position to fulfill, I cried as if my life was over. I'm glad that since then, I've been able to learn from my mistakes and glad that the ILC gave me the chance to demonstrate that.

As for the mix-up with my team mate, I think that I feel even more inclined to do well at Cornell. I'm extremely proud to know that I was able to attend this program through the ILC.  The other students come from all over the world, but there isn't really anything that differentiates us ILCers from them. We were able to ace through our first week here being acknowledged as Cornell students. Nobody was able to notice that we didn't go to private schools or that we didn't grow up attending these programs every summer. If they knew that we were able to tour colleges in Chicago, dine with admissions officers, and become ambassadors for our communities, they'd be even more shocked.