The Daily Tar Heel
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The Daily Tar Heel

It’s hard not to be overwhelmed walking into the White House. Just to think, I was standing in the building the aliens blew up in “Independence Day.”

But if I could be serious for a moment … OK, I’m done.

Anyhow, my path to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is, in many ways, similar to our president’s.

We both were raised by single parents who worked hard, struggled financially and hid our Kenyan birth. Yes, our story is as American as it gets.

When I got back to the office, I told my boss how hard it would have been for my high school teachers to imagine the kid they knew sitting in the White House press room during a briefing, or in the East Room, covering not one, but two U.S. presidents.

“I was a C student,” I said.

The truth is, I was being generous. My dad paid me for C’s.

Even now, school isn’t always my strong suit.

In a newswriting course, my professor, Keith King, gave one of my stories a score far below an “F” (AP style is the bane of my GPA) but wrote, “If you ever actually make it through this course, you’ll do great things.”

He was the first one I tweeted as I watched Press Secretary Jay Carney hold open court. The fact was, despite my own best efforts, his prediction was right.

Where else but America could a guy like me end up sitting yards away from the Oval Office with the best journalists in the country?

Let me revise. How about, “Where else but America could a guy like me end up sitting yards away from the Oval Office with people who are also journalists in the country?”

That part was a little disheartening.

These people had reached the pinnacle — the room where countless thousands of us picture ourselves grilling the most powerful people in the world. Speaking truth to power.

And what did they spend an hour asking about? … George Zimmerman.

With a nation at war, a government spying on its own citizens and a Middle East threatening to unravel, don’t they realize Justin Bieber peed in a mop bucket?!

So the day was a mixed bag.

I also confirmed I’m a horrible “networker.”

Next to me, a freelance photographer with gold teeth was handing out his business cards to everyone in the White House, whether they wanted it or not.

“In Da House Photography,” they read.

If I ever want to get back in the American mecca, I guess I’ll need to brush up on my George Zimmerman, polish my brand and save up for gold teeth.

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But no matter how it turns out, though, thanks in part to a certain professor, I’ve already done some great things.

(Tissue here if you need it.)

This piece originally ran as a blog post in the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire.