The Last of the Sundays

We woke up early today to go on a breakfast date at Fido’s with Ms. Bulls and Mr. John Nesbitt, who is a (recently former) admissions officer of the Bay Area for Vanderbilt. He’s had dinner with Mr. Ramsey before, and has been in contact with Pinole Valley High School and the Ivy League Connection. What I liked most about Mr. Nesbitt is that he was interested in us and our stories, since he has been working with the ILC for years now, and finally gets to meet the students for Vanderbilt. For every activity we were passionate about in high school (football, forensics, music, We Science Body, etc.), he mentioned a club or class that we could relate to and even briefly described them. For the college academic major we were interested in, he spoke about the programs Vanderbilt had for our possible future there. He also spoke of the admissions process: same as most other colleges, however there is no supplement essay and Vanderbilt, who is known for their financial aid, gives 100% of demonstrated need for students. And it doesn’t come through loans; Vanderbilt gives away the money as a grant. It was nice to meet the man who had helped connect the Ivy League Connection to Vanderbilt. We will be speaking to the new Bay Area admissions officer for Vandy this week.

Julia, Kye, and I still had some time before we had to be back at school for the next activity. We went downtown to be true tourists and shop at the cheesy tourist shops where I was reminded about how in love Tennessee is with Elvis Presley. I bought some nice souvenirs for my friends and some postcards to send before I leave.

We also visited a local mall which was pretty pointless since every store except Macys was closed. Julia and I wandered around the store, entertained by the pretty, but expensive, clothes and accessories. Finally, Julia and I went to Ross while Kye and Ms. Bulls went next door to a bookstore.

Our activity today was a choice between the Nashville Zoo, the Frist Art Museum, the Country Music Museum, and the Parthenon. A few of us from our proctor group signed up for the Parthenon. Little did we know that we would be the only group walking to our location in the hot sun, while everyone else got buses. Though the walk wasn’t too far, the heat and walking in sandals and a dress was not what I had preferred. But we toured the Parthenon, which is a replica of the Greek Parthenon that was destroyed in 1687. Inside, there is the largest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western World, which is the statue of the goddess Athena.

Statues decorate the rest of the floor surrounding Athena.

Other sculptures depicting Greek mythology are in neighboring rooms.

After the tour, we sat around Cenntennial Park having smores and punch. A few of us wandered over to the delicious fro-yo place, Tasti D-Lite.

During our proctor group meeting, Malika, our proctor, told us that VSA is making a yearbook. Each group gets their own page. For our group, we decided to put a group photo on the page, then have superlatives under each group member. Of course, I got best hair. The rest wouldn’t make any sense to any of you readers since they’re inside jokes and you don’t know them. But I’ll try to put up a final photo of the page when it’s posted.