Tours, Tutors, and Trips

Tutors

The tutoring startup business — sort of a work in progress — is starting to come along. As mentioned in an earlier article, I have been independently tutoring for give or take a year now. Now I plan to expand that and bring on some friends to create a small business for tutoring, where I serve to link people with tutors.

I came up with a name that I like: “Pirant”, and I am now working on a website and getting clients to work with. The whole thing is happening slowly, since it’s the mist of APs, but nonetheless progress is being made. The whole thing will likely be more of a senior year thing, since I should be able to get it done during May and June.

Washington D.C.

About two weeks ago, I also went to Washington D.C. for the We the People national finals. We tied with Trumbull at the state competition, but since Connecticut has a wild card, we secured a trip to the finals. The trip nicely (depending on your perspective) aligned with April break, so I didn’t miss much school. I brought my camera and was also able to take photos, which also worked out nicely because D.C. was beautiful.

The competition itself was only a fraction of the trip. Overall, it went well, and although we did not end up winning anything, we placed 14th in the nation, which is one of the school’s best performances — so it was partially successful.

It was the rest of the trip that was far more memorable. We saw what seemed like nearly every monument in D.C. and still had a lot of time to do what we wanted. A lot of the time, it was just us roaming around D.C. finding places to eat and stuff to do.

The traveling itself was my first time taking an Amtrack in a long time, and I have to say it was actually pretty nice. The seats were comfortable, and I had enough space for my legs. My favorite memorial was definitely the Vietnam War. The design was well thought out, and the names appearing in chronological order were especially powerful. I also liked how the Washington memorial was in line with the exit of the memorial, and I took a picture:

Another thing that I found fascinating was the infrastructure. The streets and buildings combine modern and old, which allows it to maintain this interesting and unique feel when looking around you. It also helps set the stage for many of the museums and memorials.

We also visited the Capitol, or at least saw it, about 5 times throughout the trip. One of my favorite photos came when we were walking around the street and at an intersection, the buildings almost part way for the Capitol in the distant center:

Another one of my favorite experiences was the space and science museum. While it was not built into the itinerary, I went with a few friends to see it. However, when we got there, the line stretched quite literally a few blocks, so we decided to walk around and come back 15 minutes after it opened. I had my camera with me, so on the way I convinced everyone to stop at a garden, so I could take some photos. Here are some of my favorites, but you can find the rest on my flickr: