A whirlwind tour...

Okay, so probably not a whirlwind tour. But at least I'm finally getting some pictures up. And just so you know, if you want to see some of the pictures better, you should be able to click on them and they will open larger.

Here's me and my mom (okay, duh) standing at the front of the Capitol building facing the National Mall. I think you can make out the Washington Monument in the distance. I'm not sure why it won't show up very well. My mom's really bundled up because it was FREEZING that day.

















We went to the National Cathedral. On the left is a picture of some of the stained glass. See the bottom of my post for more pictures. On the right is the pulpit. It's unbelievably elaborate and rather large. I should have had either of my parents stand beside it to give you some perspective. Needless to say, it went above my head. Hopefully you can make out the vaulted ceilings in the background of the picture.






And back to the Capitol building. This is inside the Rotunda. You can see the statues of various historical figures that stand guard along the perimeter. The large paintings (and they are enormous) depict various scenes in American history. The picture is small in my screen at the moment, so I cannot quite make out what this one is of. I hope you get a better idea when it's put up on the blog.


These are more pictures from inside the Capitol. We came to the Capitol around 9:15am that morning and waited in line for nearly an hour. The security was strict, of course, but apparently they had some trouble with their trained dogs and it delayed the rest of the tours.

On the left is a picture of the Rotunda. I think they said it weighed 7 million tons. Can you imagine building it? You can see on the right the detail along the edge. The series tells the history of the country, and I took the first and last pictures that they depicted. The right shows the landing of Christopher Columbus and the left is the first flight. Hurray for North Carolina representation! So the history traces from 1492 to 1903. (I remembered the date!) Anyway, I thought that was really cool.

On the bottom right is a close-up of the center of the dome. The mural was done in the style of Renaissance paintings, so there are a variety of angels surrounding George Washington. Apparently Washington was supposed to be buried in the Capitol building, but his tomb was not ready by the time he died. He was buried in Mount Vernon, I believe.


















At the risk of having a very disjointed post, here are some pictures of the National Cathedral again. I wanted you to have a good idea of how impressive the structure itself is. The stained glass window is shown to the left, and to the right is the Cathedral from the front.












Well I hope you enjoyed the images, as opposed to text! I don't want you all to bore of my writing, so I thought it was definitely time to post some pictures.

Interning in DC: Part II

Hello everyone! Once again, I am sorry about my delay in posting. I usually get back to the house each evening around 6, have dinner, and then don't feel up to typing a lot. Plus, the last time I uploaded a post, it nearly deleted everything. So this time I'm typing it in a document and then loading that onto the blog.

That was probably unnecessary information, but I wanted to explain my tardiness!

Okay, now where was I? (See, I knew it was a good idea to make a list of topics to cover.) Let's start with the end of last week. I had class on Thursday as usual, which I look forward to each week. My professor is Dr. Podoff, a professor at Georgetown and an economist who worked for the Senate Finance Committee and Senator Moynihan. My morning class is at 10am, so I felt that it went by pretty quickly. We talked about the budget process and how that relates to policy. Then as a follow-up, my class (there's only four of us, so it feels weird calling it a class) went with Dr. Podoff to meet an expert at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. The CBPP is close to Union Station, which is very close to where I live (that's the metro stop I use to get to our house 90% of the time). So we met with Dr. Johnson, director of the state fiscal project at the CBPP. For those of you who know my political and policy interests, I love hearing about states (okay, I confess, mostly just NC) and state interaction with the federal government, so this was an informative meeting. So far the structure of our class has been great, since the four-person class enables each of us to ask however many questions we have and not be intimidating at all for our guest speaker.

So that was my Thursday in a nutshell. I think the CBPP might be the type of organization I would be interested in working at, but I probably need a lot more economics under my belt before I attempt that or even something along those lines. That thought leads into my inner debate about picking up a minor at UNC - I'd love to get a history minor, because there's such freedom in that department to take whatever classes you're interested in, and I really enjoy learning history. However, I think that economics could be much more helpful in terms of career options and graduate school. That said, I should have started earlier with my economics track (there's probably no way I could minor now), so you see my dilemma. I hope. (Of course, more statistics could be helpful as well in policy-related fields, but there's no way I'm taking more of that).

I definitely got off topic there, but the digression seemed necessary. It will probably come up again when classes are posted online and I start griping about scheduling for next semester. So now you have some background.

So Friday. I woke up feeling really sick and had to call into work to tell them I wouldn't be there. I felt terrible calling in sick during my first week, but it had to be done. That's all I'll say about that.

Saturday, my parents came up to DC! I was very excited but still recovering so they probably thought I was less than enthused about their visit. That certainly wasn't the case. Unfortunately, their visit coincided with the coldest weather of the winter in DC - it was a frigid, blustery 10 degrees or so, warming up to 30-some eventually. That put a damper on our walking excursions, but we were not to be deterred. We went to museums and shopped; there's no lack of indoor activities in DC.

Speaking of museums, my parents and I went to the Holocaust Museum on Sunday. That's probably the most emotionally meaningful museum I have visited since arriving here. Each person receives a small booklet when entering, bestowing upon that person an identity of someone (probably a Jew, but there were millions of others persecuted groups) and you carry that booklet around and periodically read updates on that person's welfare. The exhibits themselves were remarkably well done, and even the dozens (hundreds, even) of middle school and high school kids seemed reverent of the solemnity of the museum.

I also visited the National Gallery of Art and saw innumerable paintings and statues, yet hardly scratched the surface of the entirety of the museum's offerings. I can say with near certainty that I will be visiting the Gallery at least one more time if not several more times. There's just too much Mary Cassatt, Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, etc to see all at once.

Considering that this post could be potentially lengthy, I'll skip ahead a bit. Oh actually first, let's go back a bit. (That should be effective in making this go faster.) On Saturday we went to the National Cathedral, which was beautiful. I can't wait to go to a service there. I can't post pictures at the moment, but I'll follow up with some.

Okay now let's skip ahead. I was off work on Monday (yay!), so I spent that with my parents as well. We went to the Capitol building and toured, which was fun because I hadn't done that since eighth grade. I'm hoping to go to the White House soon, courtesy of my representative's office. I'll keep you posted on that, because that would be really cool. Later we went to Georgetown and walked a bit (it was still almost bitterly cold, so that was short lived), then went up a little farther northwest to Friendship Heights. Basically that's at the border between Maryland and DC. They had a ton of shopping complexes there, so my mom and I looked around and enjoyed the respite from the cold weather. That night we went out to a nice dinner at a good seafood restaurant, and then I had to say goodbye! Not sure the next time I'll see them, but hopefully it won't be too too long. You never know, I might jump on a train one weekend and come home.

Tuesday morning I went to work and had plenty to do after not being in the office for four days. I tracked down election data, compiled some information on gubernatorial races, and edited a report on voting reform, among other things. Most of that work continued into Wednesday. Also on Tuesday, I went to Brookings to hear one of the scholars I work for speak on a panel about Congress and its legislative efficiency and success over the past year.

I'm trying to remember what I did Tuesday and Wednesday nights, but I think it was just low key relaxing at our house. Most of us stayed in, watched TV, and I caught up with some reading. Actually, I'm taking a break from my Allan Gurganus book and I've started The Nine, a book by Jeff Toobin about the personalities of the Supreme Court. It's a great read. FYI.

And then yesterday, Thursday, I had class again, but this time our morning class was to go to the Senate Finance Committee hearing on the budget stimulus package. Ever the dork/nerd/whatever, I thought it was really interesting and definitely gave me some insight into the machinations of the Senate committees. The hearing included two panelists, one a chief economist under Reagan and Ivy professor, the other an economist at Brookings. The committee heard their testimony and quizzed them on their projections about the economy and the efficacy of various provisions of the stimulus package. I was sitting front row, directly behind the panelists' table, right in the bright spotlights, and squirming in the eye of the camera that probably caught me in the background of some of the shots (the hearing was broadcast on CSPAN). So that's two CSPAN events in one week! (The Brookings event was taped by CSPAN, too.)

So here I am on Friday. Work today was a little slow but that's okay. Fridays can be like that, I suppose. Tonight my friends and I are going out to eat, and the current proposal on the table is an Indian restaurant a couple of blocks away. I don't even know the name of it, but hopefully it will be delicious!

I hope you all have fabulous weekends. Thanks for reading.

PS - I would love to hear back from you all. If you're interested, send me an email. It's my first name, middle initial, last name, at gmail dot com. Minus the commas, of course. Thanks!

Interning in DC: Part I

Wow. So my apologies for not writing before now. I guess a week isn't too long to wait for a post, but it feels like such a long week to me! In a good way, of course.

So let's start with my first day of work last Monday. My internship at AEI is with the Political Corner and the Election Reform Project. I work every day except Thursdays (when I have classes) from 9 to 5. I have to say, starting at 9am definitely feels later than starting at 8am at my summer job. On Monday we had an intern orientation, and there were probably fifteen of us starting that day. A few had already started the previous week and a couple had even been there since the fall semester.

I quickly discovered that just because a job doesn't pay, doesn't mean it doesn't have some great benefits. AEI has good intern hours and even better, we're fed. The lunches are three courses and served in the dining room.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I should describe a little more about AEI as a whole. It has three broad areas of scholarly focus: economic policy, foreign policy, and social/political policy. Within those areas are various scholars who generate policy ideas, criticisms, and collaborative projects. I do like the think tank atmosphere a great deal, and it's a great system for taking on interns. The scholars all have research assistants, who the best I can tell are relatively recent college graduates who want more experience. I've met several already who interned just a few years ago. Then below the research assistants are the dozens of college students just like me - interns! Although, to my surprise, a few of the interns are college graduates and/or current graduate school students.

Anyway, I work for two scholars and two research assistants, and thus far it's been really good. It's an adjustment of course immersing myself in policy work, which is different than regular school assignments or even the work I do at the law firm. On the bright side, part of my job includes keeping up with the news daily, which is one of my favorite things to do. On the downside, I have to keep up with a lot more news, so that means less time idly perusing CNN, BBC News, NYTimes, etc. I'm trying to be more efficient with my news-reading habits, so that should help me get the best of both worlds - quality and quantity. Essentially, part of my job is doing what I normally do in my free time, so that's fantastic.

It's after midnight, and I do have to get up in the morning, so I'll try to keep this post brief and continue my week's tale tomorrow evening. A small taste of what's to come in the near future (though it's more of a reminder for myself than a tease for you): my second day of class, my first day of missing work, my parents' visit, and a visit to Brookings. Unfortunately, right now I really must go. The internet connection at our house is wireless and growing weaker and more unstable by the day (surprise, surprise).

Now I have a really strong urge to explain the quirkiness of our house. I don't know if I've mentioned it yet, but it has what I like to call character (let's just say, intermittent water heat, suspicious 2nd floor electrical work, a rebellious garbage disposal, and more). Please add that to the list of assigned topics to discuss for the next post. For now, bed!

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great week!

Getting the "tourist" thing out of the way

Hey everyone! I have some pictures to share! I uploaded them from my camera and I've tried and tried to make a slideshow on the blog of all of my pictures, but I cannot get it to work. However, I have a Flickr site with all of my pictures on it. I'll work that out and get that address to you.

For now, a taste of my exploring on Sunday!





So this is the Supreme Court building. This is about five minutes from my house.








And on the opposite side of the street is the Capitol building. There's some pictures of that more famous building below.




Here's a view from the front, I suppose. Anyway, this is side that faces away from the Supreme Court building and towards the Mall.












And this is from farther away. My initial goal was to walk from my house on Constitution Avenue along the entirety of the Mall. Ha....ha....







These are taken from around the Washington Monument:







By this point I had walked a fair bit and decided to reevaluate my trip to the end of the Mall, aka Abraham Lincoln's classic memorial. I went there a year ago, but there's something about standing at the base of his stately chair and pondering Mr. Smith's trip to Washington and famed filibuster. Ultimately, I decided it wasn't worth it. There's only so many hours in the day, and I still had H&M to discover.

Before I took off for shopping, a far less dignified and historical experience than exploring national icons, I decided to stop at the World War II memorial. I'm not sure what it is about that memorial, but it has particular meaning for me. It is not as renowned as the Vietnam or Korean War memorials, but being a more recent construction, I can see why. Still, I knew I had to stop there at least once, if not once again before I leave in the short months to come.

























And then I saw the White House... but I won't bother with a picture of that right now. I'm hoping to get a good protest picture at some point this semester. I thought there would be something going on, but it was Sunday afternoon, after all.

So that's all for now. I started work today and it was great, but I'll fill you in with more details later in the week when I have more to go on.

Oh, and one more thing about commenting: There have been reports of difficulties with commenting. I won't name names. The best way to comment would be to look at the blog updates on the main page and then click the "0 Comments" button. You should be able to go from there. If for some reason that doesn't show up, go to the blog archive on the left, click the particular entry name, and then there should be a more obvious comment option at the bottom of the page. That's all fyi on the off chance that you actually do want to post a comment.

Have a fantastic week!

Welcome to my semester in DC!

For those of you who might not know, I'm spending my spring semester in Washington, DC. I arrived last Tuesday, January 8, and I've been settling in ever since. I wasn't sure if I wanted to have a blog for this semester, but some people who read my Singapore blog two summers ago requested that I keep another one for this study "abroad" experience. It probably will not be updated as frequently as my other blog, but if you're interested in keeping up with what I'm up to, feel free to check this out as frequently (or infrequently) as you would like. That said, of course, I would love to receive an email or phone call. I mean, I am still in the country after all.

So I arrived on Tuesday with a Rendezvous loaded with plastic totes packed with clothes and, honestly, more clothes. Oh, and my parents. I drove most of the way, marveling at how big Virginia is for about four of the six hours. We got to the WISH office (Washington Student Intern Housing) and I got the key to our house and my room. It's in the neighborhood behind Capitol Hill. I won't give out the precise address due to my irrational fear of the world wide web, but if you're interested in having it just shoot me an email or call me or something. I am a two minute walk to the Supreme Court building and a five minute walk to the Capitol building. Essentially, it's a fantastic location nestled in a row of old houses.

Naturally, though, the house is not without its lovely quirks. I've been here for four days and already I've discovered a few of its less desirable traits. For instance, the hot water heater has stopped performing its one duty of warming the water. The maintenance guy said it'll take a couple of days to fix, so for now we're all taking freezing showers that take your breath away in seconds. Also, my bed creaks more than the hardwood floors, which is quite a feat, let me assure you. Nonetheless, these quirks are just part of its Capitol Hill character.

The house's location is the best part, really, and my housemates. So far things have been pretty fun, especially since none of us has had anything to do other than a few hours of class on Thursday.

Speaking of which, I guess I should explain what this program actually entails. This is a study abroad program through the Honors program at UNC. I am here studying domestic policy both in a classroom and in an internship. I work for four days a week and have two classes on Thursdays. My classes are both related to issues of public policy, particularly as it relates to national domestic policy. The other track is foreign policy. There are thirteen of us on the program and living in the house (with an extra guy from the University of Kentucky), nine of whom are in foreign policy and the rest in domestic policy. That means there are just four of us in classes together on Thursdays with Dr. Podoff. He is an economist who has worked with senators and senatorial committees, and who has taught at universities.

Class was actually really interesting on Thursday. The academic portion of the program is rigorous enough to ensure that we get a good amount of educational benefit from our studies. However, it also allows for the fact that we will be working full time four days a week. The class is taught from an economic perspective, but that isn't unusual considering the basis for most of my public policy classes in the past. Cost-benefit analysis and the balance between pros and cons play a large role in the formulation of public policy. Hopefully in my internship I will be able to see the process of researching problems, identifying solutions, devising policies, and advocating and implementing those policies.

I will be working at the American Enterprise Institute with the Political Corner and the Election Reform Project. The latter is a joint endeavor with Brookings, probably one of the most well known research organizations in the world, if not the foremost think tank in the United States. AEI is not quite as well known from what I know about think tanks (probably not that much, all told), but it is still easily recognized. Politically, AEI aligns more with conservative ideology, but like anything else, it cannot be put so easily into one category. For instance, the joint project with Brookings, traditionally a left-leaning institute, suggests that political ideology does not always dictate stances on policy. AEI is still an organization of individual researchers and scholars with their own sets of beliefs and political affiliations.

I start work on Monday and will be working 9am to 5pm every weekday except Thursdays. I plan to post again in a few days when I have something to report on my experience there. I'll also load some pictures when I upload them onto my computer.

Hopefully this has been a sufficient introduction to my blog for the semester and can at least provide a taste of my experiences here in Washington, DC. Thanks for reading!

Edit (1/14): I changed the settings so anyone can comment on the blog. They had it set automatically so only google users could comment. If my mom sent you information about the blog, you shouldn't have to worry about using her account to comment. I also removed word verification, but if I start getting spammed, then I'll turn that back on.