A Summary of the Summit by Thuc Nguyen

    Just a few months ago I remember that first 9^th period meeting. We all walk in to Mr. Sullivan’s room, him and Mrs. Bryant are standing at the front of the room with a look on their faces that says that our lives are about to change. We all sit and the news is laid out before us. “We have about a 15% chance of making this trip happen” Mr. Sullivan says with Mrs. B chiming in afterwards with a slightly more optimistic number, and so our journey had begun. As the weeks went by, the slow trickle of information about the trip raised that 15% gradually: 20%, 35%, 50%, all the way up until Tuesday morning; 99%. I think many of us still think we’re at 99%; floating on that 1% cloud of a dream.
    Tomorrow will be our 100%. We’ll know we have made it by tomorrow, as we conclude this 3 day summit filled with debates that could go on for hours, speeches that brought waves of chills, speakers who we couldn’t have even imagined being 

able to see, and plenty of gelato. 

     I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching everyone on the trip, especially our wonderful chaperones, get pictures with, shake hands with, and speak with some of these amazing peace prize winners. We nerd-out about these laureates at an almost unhealthy level. 

     So tomorrow our adventures meeting laureates and listening to them speak passionately about peace will come to a conclusion. It’s difficult to believe that just months ago we were at 15% thinking that there was no way we were going to be able to make this trip happen, and now the conference is almost over and we’re almost at 100%.

    There is no one I’d rather be at this summit with than our family of 28 great, intelligent, funny, crazy people.