Welcome to a new series here on this blog: when the Friday Level Drama Hits on a Friday.
The name was inspired by a friend of mine. Long story short, there was once some *very dramatic happenstances* occuring within our friend group, and after spending an entire Tuesday night on FaceTime trying to untangle all that had happened, we decided that there was nothing quite like the feeling of drama hitting on a Friday, when there's enough time to process and dissect.
This is that feeling -- a chaotic, weekly recap. It's also going to be uploaded on a Saturday. Deal with it.
1. I suppose I should start with the Damar Hamlin injury in the NFL. Now, ever since watching Concussion with Will Smith several years ago, I've held a healthy level of contempt for the NFL and its practices -- letting young, healthy men get permanent brain damage to protect the pockets of rich network executives? Letting rapists (see: Deshaun Watson) walk off scott free? And now, asking teams to play while they're not sure if their friend, teammate, and colleague is alive? Absolutely not. I've seen a lot about how this incident is going to "change football as we know it" and forever alter the way Americans view the sport; personally, I don't think that's true, but perhaps it should be. I remember in English last year, we had a heated discussion about whether we could enjoy things (ie. Harry Potter, Chik-Fil-A) without guilt, even if we knew the people that created them had beliefs we didn't support. Our English teacher told us, "This is something you're going to be grappling with for the rest of your life," and I see now how true that is.
2. Next up, on this week's edition of What's Going On In The Senate, Congress took fifteen votes to declare Kevin McCarthy speaker! This kind of inefficiency reminds me of Rome, or France during the French Revolution, or basically any other completely failing society. I have no problem with representatives crossing party lines, or taking a stand of political courage against what their party is expecting/telling them to do. However, I remember our AP World History teacher explaining to us once the difference between a riot and a revolution: a revolution has a purpose and a delcared means of how they're going to get there. A riot is just noise. Twenty people voting against McCarthy accomplished nothing but noise.
3. #3: the SAT. I watched this video the other day, and while I don't agree with everything this woman argues, I was stunned and impressed by a lot of the arguments she made. Her general thesis is that the SAT should not be thrown out in the college admissions process, because contrary to popular belief, it is actually one of the most equitable parts of the application. My mother and I have always said this -- that it's a lot harder to judge students based solely on the extracurriculars that not everyone has access to, or the essays that half the country had help writing. Obviously the SAT isn't a perfect system, but seeing as I've been thinking a lot about education in America recently, I figured this video ought to make it onto our Highlight Reel list.
4. And finally, my personal life (which is probably what you were thinking I'd be talking about when you read this title, huh?). I spent Saturday on a call with an old friend of mine, and halfway through our conversation she revealed that she had gotten into Harvard, and another mutual friend of ours had gotten into MIT. The second I heard this information, I burst out crying. You see, we had this dream when we were babies -- that she'd go to Harvard, I'd go to MIT, and every weekend we'd meet up and do our math homework together like we always had. We were the only girls in our math classroom growing up, and for us, that meant that we clung to each other like we were bouys in the storm. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized that oftentimes, minorities in these situations often don't stick together, for fear of being seen as more "other". Yet, this friend had never let that happen -- I have watched her for the better part of a decade befriend every woman to walk through the school doors, forging the path forward with her infectious energy and infallible leadership. She is the reason that I am who I am, that I've stayed in the math world as long as I have. Her sense of poise and elegance will never cease to amaze me, and now, as she's packing her bag and living out the fantasy we had crafted for each other at eight, I'm enamored by the kind of person she has become.
It's really the kind of thing that would only happen on a Friday.
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