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!