My trip to the National Youth Leadership began with me sitting on a train with no clue about the experience I was about to go through. I was not even really thinking about the conference until about midway through the ride when it hit me that I was going by myself for six days into a totally new situation. So many questions went through my mind: What if I hate my roommates? Will I actually make friends there? Will I just be a small fish in a huge pond and not be noticed? What if I hate the food?

I kept telling myself that this would all be okay and reminded myself of all of the great things that would be happening and all of the memorable experiences I would have. Then, I was there. I got in a cab and rode to the conference. There I was very disoriented. I saw other people my age walking about nervously, not looking to talk to anyone. I suppose I was the same way. It was the first time I was with no one I knew in my entire life. It was so daunting. Finally I met a girl from new york city at the vending machines. She was a heavy Obama supporter and had very liberal political views. At RCDS these were views I had heard quite well and I felt good talking about them. Then I went to my room. I briefly said hello to my roomates and left. I quickly was rushed off into the orientation meeting.
In my meeting I was introduced to my group of 20 unknown faces and quickly made friends with a teenager from Atlanta. His accent was just like George Bush, but he was the most elegant speaker I had ever seen. He was also a hardcore liberal and he wanted to run for president someday. He quickly won president of my group. I felt so much more confortable after having 2 liberal friends. However, when I went to my room I was in for a political shock.

I walked in and my roomates were all discussing about the election. I heard one say, "Yeah, I could never trust Barack Obama." They then turned to me and asked, "Do you support McCain or are you a liberal?" He said the word liberal in a manor that I had only seen before on Fox News. I had never met a conservative my own age I realized. It ended up my roommates were my first 3. I had always had an extremely negative vision of conservates. I was expecially distressed when my roommates passed up watching the Daily Show for Family Guy. I knew I was in for a new experience at that very moment.

Over the coming days I met tons of conservatives. I realized that as sooon as we stopped talking about politics, I got along with them fine. I realized that conservatives could be perfectly fine people as well. The conference was then going great for me, I gained many friends and learned all about washington. However, it became time to divide into our parties for the Model Congress on the final two days and my conservative acceptance was in jeporady.
It became time for each group to begin executing their ideas on an immigration bill. My group believed in amnesty to illegal immigrants. I was chosen as a debate speaker to debate our amendment with the republican comitttee. I was very nervous about speaking, so I looked to the best speaker I knew: my friend from Georgia. I talked with him and studied what he did in his speaking that made him such a powerful speaker. He told me to be as natural and polite as possible but to yell when necessary and be as passionate as possible. When I went to debate, I tried to be like him, I even said "y'all" a few times. My opponent, however, was one of the republican leaders. I looked at her. She had bright red hair, and cold, dark eyes. She looked kind of like a snake or a villian on some kids T.V. show. She was viscious and mean and republican and I had to try to debate her.

During our debate I tried to be very polite. However, my opponent was so viscious. When I'd try to talk, she'd interrupt me. I grew angrier and angrier at her and at the cheering conservatives who yelled as she talked. I began to use the passionate yelling idea. I argued as strongly as possible, criticizing my opponent for constantly interrupting and lying about my ideas in my closing argument. I yelled most of the time. Somehow, I pulled off a win by 1 vote on the committee. I had improved my speaking but had lowered my acceptance of conservatives after dealing with my opponent.

Then on the final day of the Model Congress, many of my ideas came crashing down. In Model Congress each party got to debate in front of everyone and vote on a bill. I was named a general debate speaker as was my Georgia friend and two other people. Opposing us, however, were the liberal girl I met on the first day who had been assigned to be a republican and the evil red-haired girl, along with two others. The opening democratic speeches before debate were very boring and many of the republican speeches were too. However, many were layered with lies which made me very angry. Then, the concluding debate speeches came. By then I was quite angry with the republicans for their lies and hatred to immigrants. I then had to watch the liberal girl give the most racist speech of the day. She said that immigrants were all "unskilled," illegal immigrants should go to jail for 20 years. I could not believe I was hearing this, especially from her. Then I saw the red-headed girl shockingly give a evil and racist speech. I was very angry. For my speech I skipped straight to the passionate yelling. I yelled for as long as the time limit would let me. I got a standing ovation from the democrats and boo-ing from the republicans. To end it off, my friend from Georgia went up. I assumed that we had it in the bag with him up there. And yet, he gave a terrible speech. I was shocked. He looked so nervous and kept stuttering. I couldn't believe that my friend, the best speaker I had seen had sounded the way I imagined myself sounding in my worst nightmare of my speech. It was very bittersweet for me because I had succeeded using his ideas and he had become like me at the beginning of the trip. It was such a shock. He seemed in good spirits anyway, saying it was a learning experience for him.

During the Congress I rethought my opinions of many of my friends. I felt just as strongly against republicans as I had when I arrived. However at the closing dance that night, I found myself dancing with many of my republican friends. I even danced with the girl I believed to be an evil witch. I came to realize that it was not conservative people I was against, just conservative ideas. People were raised with different ideas, and even if I disagreed with those ideas strongly, it was not the person's fault how they were raised. I ended the conference with this view of acceptance for conservatives and remain friends today with many of the conservatives I met there.