Going to North Carolina

In eastern Virginia, on our way to North Carolina again for our second tourney...

Sayre High School

So, I feel like I should fill you in on something that I feel great about.

One of the courses I'm taking this semester is URBS-178, Urban-University Community Relations. I originally signed up for it to fulfill a requirement for the Benjamin Franklin Scholars program, which I am in. It's an academic-based community service (ABCS) course, which means we tie in our studies with community service (as the term implies!). Mostly, we are studying Penn's relationship with the West Philly community...

We volunteer in three shifts at Sayre High School, an urban high school located in a very dangerous neighborhood, with poor funding, with half of its teachers apathetic to the students' performance in class, and a school environment that is also not conducive to performing well in school (or going to college for that matter). In other words, it's your typical public urban school (but it's better than some others in the area).

My mentoring group of four goes from 3-4:30 on Tuesdays, with a program coordinator. Our goal is to get kids ready for college, to tutor them, to offer them guidance. And they really need it. But there is a wide variance in socioeconomic status and academic performance as well... for example, one junior the other day didn't know how to type, whereas a freshman had a computer at home. Many of them see college as a distant idea - not a reality.

And whereas the Monday and Thursday groups get kids who WANT to be there at the College Readiness Program, we get the kids who are forced to be there by their football/cheerleading/dancing coaches. They don't want to be there. So the kids, when we introduced ourselves and did stuff as a large group, were very uncooperative. When asked to go around in a circle and introduce themselves, many would mumble their replies, talk amongst themselves instead, etc. Difficult.

But today we (the mentors) were grouped with 5-6 students, of all grade levels. My group consisted of five girls - Shanae, Channell, Kenya, Ashley, and Jessica - two freshmen, two sophomores, and a senior. We basically talked for the 25 minutes we had left, asking where they were from, what they wanted to do after high school, what subjects they needed help with, etc. On a personal level, they are so much more cooperative! The time went by really quickly, but I definitely left feeling awesome. Kids who hadn't shown ANY interest as a large group finally spoke up about what they wanted. It was really amazing.

That being said, I was left reminded of the fact that there are more important things than just doing work and being concerned with your own well-being... I'm already planning out what my group will do next week. Maybe I'll show them the Penn campus?

Anyhow, I've got a dinner with my dorm in five minutes... we have a guest speaker by the name of Kalpen Suresh Modi. He's a guest professor this semester in Asian-American studies. Here's a picture (he's on the left):



For those of you who don't know (apparently 100% of you), his colloquial name is Kal Penn. He's appeared on House (as shown), 24, and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, among others. Cool. Dinner and a celebrity-professor beckon.

Queen City Tune-Up

Here's a really dry recap:

21 people on Penn Void this weekend took the 11-hour drive down to Charlotte for the Queen City Tune-Up tournament, aptly named because Charlotte is known as the Queen City (I don't think I would want to live there). We went in as the 16th seed overall, which I found absurd...

We were in a pool with Georgia, Ohio State, and William & Mary. Georgia and Ohio State had made Nationals last year, so this tourney was a sort of measuring stick for us.

Saturday: To start, winds were about 20 mph, making everything difficult. We played zone defense most of the day, and we faced zone defense most of the day as well. In our first game against Ohio St., there were numerous drops and errant throws, but we were neck-and-neck the whole way with a nationals-caliber team. In the end, they capitalized on our end-zone turnovers and took the game 13-10. Georgia was next, and we came out very flat. Making more bad throws and numerous drops in the wind, we got hammered, 13-3. Against William & Mary, we shored up our offensive woes (at least as much as we could with the winds) and took a gritty match 8-6 on hard cap. Technically we had broken seed...

In our crossover game, we faced Virginia. The winds had died down, and we rode our momentum to a 7-4 halftime advantage. We came out flat the second half and eventually lost on universe point 11-10, setting up a morning match with Michigan Magnum...

Sunday: Winds had picked up to about 30-40 mph, making Ultimate really crappy. We had a tough match against Michigan, who had played well on Saturday, with a 3-1 record (losing to North Carolina, a nationals team, by 1). Play by sides was sloppy, and Michigan held a 6-4 advantage at one point, threatening to pull away. But we regathered and took half 7-6, and eventually took the game 11-7, a huge win - also a turnaround and a wave of momentum we hoped to carry to our quarters-match against Pitt.

We played poorly against Pitt, a Nationals team in our region. We went down 3-0 early and never really recovered, losing 12-7. But we did show that we could play with them - the 3 point lead never really grew until the very end.

Though we didn't play particularly well, we finished tied for 5th, a great showing considering we went in as the 16th seed. I would give us a 50-50 chance of making Nationals. Delaware and Pitt made it last year, but Delaware looks awful so far. It's going to be between Penn and Cornell for the second spot to Nationals...

Also, on the drive back from North Carolina, we almost hit a wildfire... we had to take a detour that set us back an hour. Just thought you should know.