Students conduct 27 interviews of current politicians
Published in the June 11-24, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Alexis Julien
Photo courtesy Mt. Madonna School
Mount Madonna students interview Congressman Steny Hoyer, (D-Maryland) during a recent trip to Washington, D.C.
My right hand is trembling as I type. I have spent the past four hours of the six-hour plane ride home from Washington, D.C., transcribing my shorthand spidery interview notes into my values class notebook. It was as though I was reliving each interview with various leaders in the federal government. I could see the individual faces of all the incredible people we met, remembering their smiles and laughter and moments that inspired. If it wasn’t for the stiff pain in my hand, I would not believe how much time had passed during my task of rewriting. I was lost in the words, awestruck for the second time by the power and magnitude of what I had heard throughout the course of 27 interviews.
Washington, D.C., is a place of inspiration. It’s filled with people who are there to both do what they love and change the world.
We met so many incredible people, women like Melanne Verveer, former U.S. ambassador for global women’s issues and Layli Miller-Muro, founder of the Tahirih Justice Center, legislators like Congressman Steny Hoyer and Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, and people who were more behind the scenes such as Senator Jeff Flake’s communications director Bronwyn Chester. Despite the variety of people that we interviewed, there is one word that was repeated time and time again: Passion.
Passion is the key to these people’s success. Passion is what drives them, what makes them wake up every day excited to go to work. Passion is what inspires them to create change.
Every person we interviewed gave us some echo of the same advice: Do what you love, and never turn your back on it. As Alyse Nelson, president of Vital Voices, said, “Find your driving force…the mission of you.” Not even a full day has passed since this trip ended, and I already know that I will carry this message from so many people with me for the rest of my life.
My teacher Ward Mailliard always tells us that we will never be able to describe this experience—the hero’s journey is one that cannot be easily conveyed or summed up.
What I didn’t realize before coming to D.C. was how true this statement would end up being. How can I possibly talk about what this trip means to me when I can barely figure it out for myself?
Every single minute of every single day was an opportunity grasped to learn, to discover, and to be exposed to the world, to your peers, and to yourself. This trip tested my limits, my ability to withstand physical wear and the strength of my mental might. I was vulnerable, a deer in the headlights with no idea about what would come next. But above all, I was open. For the first time in my life, there was nothing hindering me from taking everything in.
I was free to breathe in, to let go of hesitancy and plunge into the deep end of the pool. I uncovered parts of myself that I didn’t know were there, values and beliefs that had been present but buried beneath the overburdened layers of my conscience. Despite an exhaustion that seems to go all the way to the marrow of my bones, I have never felt more alive. And I know, as the hours go by and I reflect on this trip, that this is just the beginning of the greatest journey of all.
How can this possibly be the same world I flew over less than two weeks ago? The same trees, the same mountains, my same eyes taking it all in from the airplane window. And yet, everything seems so different. I seem so different. There is so much I have seen in these past ten days, so much I have learned and so much I have discovered that I have yet to learn.
Lexi Julien is a 16-years- old junior at Mount Madonna School. She is an avid writer who loves to play volleyball, both on the beach and indoors.
