The Titanic Adventure

I have been back in NC for a week and a half now, though it feels so much longer. Not really in a bad way, of course. I went to Chapel Hill and NC State for three or four days, and it was great seeing all of my friends.

Here are some assorted pictures from our last DC adventure. We went to the Titanic Memorial on the waterfront in hopes of seeing a secret society of sorts on the anniversary of the sinking. Instead we found beautiful skies and a peaceful park - and of course the actual statue. It's a classic Titanic pose...

And this is the end...

Hey all,

Sorry I haven't updated more frequently, but here's my last post to be logged from Washington, DC. I'm about to leave the house to go to my final day of work at AEI and then I move out tomorrow. I can't believe my time here has passed so quickly!

I have so much to share but so little time to type (I'm already a little late for work, but it's my last day, so...). I think it's probably a good idea if I just let you know that I have multiple papers due within the week, but that will hardly stop me from procrastinating and writing about my time here instead.

Since I last posted I've done so many incredible things and met some fascinating individuals in the policy and political spheres. I went to the White House (West Wing!), the National Institute for Health, enjoyed a local jazz bar, wrote an opinion piece to (hopefully) be published, had a several minute-long conversation with Paul Wolfowitz (there are no words), had an intern appreciation dinner, and sat just a few steps from the Capitol building late a night to enjoy my last bit of time here.

Stay tuned for more thorough updates on all of the above. I will be seeing most of you in a few short days!

NYC Pictures

Here are a few pictures from my trip to New York last weekend.

Times Square:
(the ads are huge)
















Here's a better shot of Times Square. You can see the ubiquitous McDonald's on the right of course with an ad for Mamma Mia! on the left. This is right alongside Broadway. There's a partial ad for Wicked in the background.















Here's a picture of the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. The temperature was around 50 degrees around 10pm. It was nice outside, and a lot of people were taking advantage of the last days of skating.
















On Saturday morning we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is enormous. The art there was also spectacular, and I took some great pictures of art that I thought was unusual and had never seen before.
















For example, here's a musical instrument that I thought was really cool. I'd love to be able to play this.

















That's all for now, I guess. Most of my pictures are from Times Square (mostly blurry because I only went for night) and from the museum (lots from the museum).

The Big Apple

It's been so long since I last posted! It's hard to believe my semester is flying by so quickly. I only have two weeks left here in DC, which means eight more days of work.

Since several weeks have passed since my last post, I realize it will be impossible to cover everything comprehensively. So I'll do it quickly --

Tori came up to visit for a weekend. Alison and Patterson came up to visit the following weekend. I went home the next weekend for Easter as a surprise for my mom and to have a quick vacation. I registered for classes (History of Eastern Europe, Ethics of Peace and War, Health Policy and Politics, NC Politics and Public Policy, Public Policy thesis class, and Self Defense). I took a practice LSAT and walked around the city during nice weather. Oh, and I worked some.

And then on Thursday I went to New York with the entire UNC group here in DC. So that means all of the domestic policy students like me when along with the foreign policy students, including our respective DC professors. I would like to preface the following by saying that I had been to NYC once before but I don't remember it being quite so large or dirty. I definitely had a great time, but I've been spoiled in the much smaller, slower city of Washington, DC.

We left Thursday morning on the 7:30am train and arrived in New York around 10:45am. We checked into The Pod Hotel, as charmingly tiny as it sounds, and then immediately took off to learn. Thursday we had combined meetings with foreign and domestic policy students. First we went to Citi (Citigroup, Citibank, etc) and heard from all sorts of executives in the company about their business policies and interactions throughout the world. Afterward we went to the Council on Foreign Relations and heard about the basic purpose of the foreign policy think tank and how they compare to other research organizations. They also gave us some very interesting and valuable information about internships for CFR. If I were more into the foreign policy side of things, then I would definitely be interested. Truthfully, I have a strong feeling that my future remains solidly in the domestic policy sphere.

So that was Thursday's "class." That evening we all went to Chinatown and had some great Chinese food. Upon arrival, I immediately noticed that it was a "hot pot" restaurant -- I have very distinct memory of NOT enjoying Hot Pot when I was in Asia. But this was delicious (we opted out of the hot pot option). Sometime I really miss good Chinese food and eating with chopsticks a majority of the time. Afterward we went back to the hotel and Michelle and I went exploring around the hotel and walked ten blocks or so to Times Square and took in the crazy, active NYC nightlife in the heart of Manhattan. Ha - I say "heart" because it seems that way to me, but don't quote me on that. My knowledge of NYC geography and culture is limited as I am a good Southerner. (That was painfully obvious as I toured awkwardly through the crowded streets and tried not to gawk at the height of the buildings or cringe at the overwhelmingly commercialized Fifth Avenue.)

On Friday we split - our professors each took their own classes to the day's events. We went to Goldman Sachs, Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange (and Euronext apparently), and the Milbank Foundation. The day included a smattering of discussions about the economy, the housing market, the potential recession, North Carolina politics, health policy, and UNC basketball. So clearly we talked a lot! I wish I could go into detail about each of our speakers and meetings, but it's nearing midnight. I might have to save that for later.

We went to a genuine delicatessen that night (and a famous one!) where we had enormous amounts of food because that was the only choice. And then more Times Square and early to bed because I was exhausted. I still am, actually, but fortunately I'll be sleeping in my bed tonight and not in a bizarre hotel. Today we went to the fabulous Metropolitan Museum of Art before catching the 3pm train back to DC's Union Station.

Fortunately we made it back in time for the Final Four game. Unfortunately we played horribly, made a huge almost-comeback, and then lost the game. It was one of the worst games I've ever seen UNC play, but they genuinely tried to beat back the rather large Kansas team, scrambling for points to cut the 26 point deficit to only 4 points. But then we lost by a significant margin. Go Heels - you're still my team even if you had terrible timing to have a terrible game.

So that's my life these days in a nutshell. I'll be home in a couple of weeks, but I hope I can post before then. I have my final assignments, which are due about a week after our last class. I need to get started on those well before I get home, but I'm sure I can squeeze in some time to post!

Cheers.

Prom, work, and class

Where to start? I last updated when my parents came up and we took a day trip to Manassas, which feels like a very long time ago! I guess I'll try to cover the major events.

Last Wednesday was the annual AEI black tie event at the Washington Hilton. Interns are invited along with a guest, so I brought one of the guys in the house as my date. I had to get there early to "work", but the work turned out to be nothing at all. Dick Cheney was supposed to be there, thus requiring metal detectors, tickets, photo IDs, and more, so interns had to make sure everyone had a ticket and that people knew where to go and how to get to the bathrooms. However, the VP didn't show, nor did his wife, so the interns didn't have to work as front-doormen such specific times.

So.... that was fabulous. I wore a long black dress, put on legitimate makeup, had a four course dinner, hung out with fellow interns, danced a few times to Sinatra. Good times. I have a few pictures on flickr. It's www.flickr.com/jamie-lowe. (The best part is that my friends have no idea the pictures are online!)

So what else can I share? I feel like I'm so far behind on the blog. This past weekend my friend came up from App to visit. I had a great time. We walked around the city, went to the beautiful Library of Congress near my house, saw a movie, went to Chinatown for dinner, explored a little more, and went to the bookstore. (Yeah, we're nerdy.)

I really wish I had pictures of the LoC. They have 500 miles of shelving! At least, I think that's right. It sounds crazy. So many books, nearly every one ever published here. I can't fathom storing all of those. They had one of the three old copies of the Gutenberg Bible, remarkably enough. They also had some state-of-the-art exhibits about expansion into North America. I think the display is on loan from another museum.

Work is going pretty well. I'm actually taking tomorrow off because I have some friends coming up from home again. Fortunately for me, the ACC tournament has started and Carolina plays tomorrow at noon. I'm really hoping I have a chance to watch it. There are some other people up visiting this weekend and I think several of us are going out to watch the game. Fridays in DC are pretty relaxed, particularly in government agencies, so most of them have the opportunity to take a couple of hours off.

Speaking of which, go UNC for beating Duke last weekend!!! What a great game. It's always so satisfying to win over the Blue Devils, and no matter where I've gone even in the world, people recognize the rivalry between our schools. I've met dozens of interns since I've been here and none of them have quite the same rivalry for any sport. The interns at work talk about basketball, rugby (random), and lacrosse. A lot of them are from Northern schools, so lacrosse is a bigger deal. I actually had no idea it was so absent on the West coast. Sometimes I simply forget how large and diverse our country is.

I guess I should say a word about work and classes. I have a paper due tomorrow, but it's almost completely done. I'd finished it last night but in a late-night stroke of stupidity I saved it as a temp file because I'd downloaded a copy from my gmail account. For whatever reason I couldn't find the updated temp file on my computer no matter how many system-wide searches I did, so I had to rewrite the bulk of it. Fortunately that didn't take too long. It's all about how to solve Social Security - piece of cake, right? At least it's ten times easier than healthcare. As interested as I've become in entitlement program reforms, I don't think I have the economics or health policy background to get any grasp on how dire the situation is or exactly what it would take to fix it.

Last Thursday I had class with our professor based at UNC. He flew up to talk to us about our internships and hear about how our DC experience is going generally. We then went to Brookings to meet with researchers at their health policy center, which was interesting. A lot of what we're doing here obviously revolves around health policy, Social Security, entitlement programs more generally, and the budgeting process as a whole. All of these areas overlap and so many organizations in DC alone focus on these issues. As a result, there's a lot of opportunity for us to visit with experts from across the political and institutional spectrum. Of course Thursday we also found out about Eve Carson's death, so that put us all in an entirely different mood. My thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends and everyone back at school - it's definitely a difficult loss. She was an incredible person and I was lucky to have known her.

Today we had our usual class at the Ronald Reagan building, during which we talked about longterm disability insurance. It's definitely not something I think about every day and it's a difficult issue. It's starting to get late so I don't really want to go in depth. Plus, I'm not sure many other people out there share my enthusiasm for discussing government insurance programs.

Maybe I should make a list of all the speakers, lectures, and events I've attended since I've been here. It would probably come in handy in the future, especially if I want to do more research in these areas and need contacts. Maybe if I have some free time this weekend I can try to tackle that.

Speaking of this weekend, a couple of my friends are visiting for a couple of nights! I think I already mentioned that, but I'm really excited. I haven't been to the zoo yet, so if the weather is nice I think that's one place we'll visit. Maybe we'll go to the Portrait Gallery, Chinatown, National Mall, National Geographic Museum, and I can show them where AEI is. If we have time for all of that, of course.

Oh - cool thing that happened yesterday. I was walking home from work and randomly ran into two of my friends from Carolina! They were outside the Library of Congress near the Supreme Court, and it was pure chance that I was walking that way! So I brought them back to my house and then we went to Chinatown to get some dinner. It was a lot of fun, so I'm glad that we ran into each other in a city this size. What are the odds!

Okay, my internet connection is going crazy. I'm going to have to wrap this up. I hope everyone is doing well!

Manassas trip

This is a view of the first stop. We took a driving tour of the park, but you can take a one mile or six mile walking tour as alternatives. This is the site of the main part of the battle, I think. If you look carefully you can see the cannons lined up. There were some on the right as well.



Here's a closer view of the house.


This is from the other side of the house.


This is the gravesite of the Confederate soldiers. Each state has a marker. Only two soldiers were identified and they have individual markers.


This is the marker in the center.

March 2 update

Hey everyone!

This has been an exceptionally busy couple of weeks at work, so I'm sorry for not posting sooner. Things are going well in the nation's capital. Work was busy because we had two conferences at AEI on Thursday - one on the election and another on the changing demographics of voters. Since I have classes on Thursdays I was unable to attend either unfortunately, but I did have a hand in gathering data and setting them up.

But enough work-talk. It's not all that interesting. Things should be much more interesting in three days' time when the Democratic nominee could be certain. Either way, I'm excited to know the outcome.

Last weekend my parents came up! I was very glad to see them, and I knew it would be a better visit than last time because I wasn't sick. At least I've only been sick a couple of days this semester; other people in the house keep sharing colds. I definitely don't want to get that. The first item on our weekend agenda was getting a dress for me to wear to the conservative prom. I finally found one at Macy's that fit really well. We went back and checked into the Holiday Inn and went out to dinner at Legal Seafood in Chinatown. There must have been a Wizard's game or something that night at the Verizon Center, because people were everywhere. Fortunately the wait was only half an hour or so, and we had a great meal.

On Sunday we went to Eastern Market and got some fruit for me. I'd wanted to get breakfast there too, but apparently they only serve breakfast on Saturdays. We ate brunch at a tavern and then shopped around for a little while. I really like Eastern Market, and it's close by my house. Naturally, I thought my mother would enjoy it. Afterward we decided to go to Manasses to see the Civil War battlefield there. I'm a history nerd and will go see just about anything, so it sounded like an interesting trip. We started in historical Manasses and traveled north a few miles to get to the battlefield. I've put some pictures after this post of the trip. (I know I say that for every post, but I will try my utmost best this time. Blogger is not the easiest medium for posting pictures.) Pictures are now officially posted of the parade two weekends ago.

Speaking of parades, I went to another this weekend after the last one was such a success. That's my third parade in six weeks! So when I ask myself what I'm doing with my life, the best answer I can say is parades, parades, parades. Alexandrians seem to be crazy about walking down their main street in a procession of troops and oddly matched characters (there was a guy in a chipmunk costume for this one). So Jen, Kelly, and I took off around 11:30 to go to Alexandria to experience Old Town parade numero dos, and we were not to be disappointed. It was the longest and most random parade I had every seen. There were at least a dozen different bagpipes groups; honor guards from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard; Miss Virginia and Pre-teen Miss Virginia; greyhounds, basset hounds, and HUGE Irish wolfhounds; Storm Troopers and Darth Vader; several troops of Irish dancers; and so much more. It was fabulous in the most random sense of the word. Maybe it's a good thing I don't have pictures, because they couldn't possibly do them justice. It will just have to live on in my memory.

I don't really have anything too interesting to share. Mostly I've been busy at work, and there's not much outside of work to share. Oh! Class on Thursday was really interesting. I should definitely share that. Thursday morning we went to the Comptroller General of the United States' office. David Walker was very welcoming and took a while out his very busy schedule to talk with us. Honestly, it would be awesome to work at the Government Accountability Office. They are funded by Congress but are independent save for David Walker's position (he is appointed and approved by Congress). They are a government watchdog with a very reputable name and are widely recognized for nonpartisan work, as far as I know.

That afternoon we went to the National Alliance to End Homelessness to get an entirely different picture of policy work in DC. We met with the President of the NAEH and learned a lot about the progress made in the past few years with respect to ending homelessness. Apparently the White House budget has made uncharacteristically high apportionments to the cause of ending chronic homelessness, and a lot of cities have reported falling rates of homeless families. It's great to finally hear some good news in this city of stagnant politics. Homelessness is painfully visible at every street corner in downtown DC. Unsurprisingly, progress here has not been as favorable as in other cities. But any progress is better than none at all.

I hope you enjoyed a brief description of what's been going on in my life. Next time I post I'll give you an idea of how the conservative prom goes. I found out that I have a good work shift and probably won't have to work during dinner. I won't be deserting my date!

Love to you all and please send me an email or call or anything if you want to chat! Also, I've posted more pictures on my flickr account. You can go to http://flickr.com/photos/jamie-lowe/ to see those. Enjoy!