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!

president's day pictures

Finally I've posted some pictures from President's Day weekend!

Here's a picture from the earlier part of the parade:




Okay, this isn't from the parade, but I liked the shot. This is looking straight down Penn Ave. You can see the Capitol building at the end. We're standing on a plaza thing, and directly behind me is the White House. To the right (the tower that's cut off) you can see the old Post Office and on the far right is the Ronald Reagan building (where I have class).


Back to the parade... What Southern event is complete without waving a Confederate flag? For whatever reason, President's Day requires celebration of Southern states' desire to secede...


Jen and Abe! And Jen's holding her beeswax candle, which is a perfect addition to the picture. This is, mind you, in the middle of the parade. They are literally standing in the middle of King Street.


And that's all for now. But stay tuned for a lovely deja vu when I talk about St Patrick's Day parade! There are no pictures of that one because I forgot my camera. You'll just have to take my word that there were greyhounds and Storm Troopers...

Presidents' Day Weekend

This past weekend was one of the most entertaining I’ve had since I’ve been in DC. While not everything I did was DC-centric, I’ll still post in on here because it’s definitely part of my US capital experience.

Friday night I went to a fabulous concert at the Library of Congress. I talked about that in my last post. Saturday night I didn’t really have plans but thought I would wait to see what my roommates were planning to do. Around nine I learned that there was a concert at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel on H Street NE. Having never heard of this place or any of the bands, I decided I would tag along for some cheap entertainment.

I got what I asked for, that’s for sure! The bands were The Bourbon Dynasty, CTC, Free Lobster Buffet, and Studly Moses. The first was country rock (funny), the second head-banging-screaming-angst hard rock (yikes), and the third pop/rock/dance (fabulous). I went with two housemates and a couple of girls from the University of Illinois. The Illinois girls left after the second band, eager to escape the vibrating walls and ceiling and flailing arms of the 6-foot, 2-inch guys running around in the pit. The third was definitely the best, inspiring the three remaining college students (most people there were 30+ or 15-18 years old) to dance like it was 1998. (We danced, or at least I danced, like crazy people.) But it was a blast and we wisely decided to leave before the fourth band even came on stage. (How could “Studly Moses” top “Free Lobster Buffet”?!)

Sunday I overslept and went with several of my housemates to Pete’s Diner a few blocks away for some coffee and pancakes. Then three of us went to explore the city a little more… well, our original goal was ice skating. The weather was slightly too warm, so we went to the Smithsonian castle instead. Then we visited the Air and Space Museum but it was PACKED with elementary and middle schoolers. I came back to the house and enjoyed the rest of my evening finishing Wicked and relaxing at the house.

Monday was President’s Day! Jen, Taylor, and I had our day scheduled pretty carefully because we (and by that I mean Jen) found a “President for a Day” event online. How could we turn down the opportunity to be a president for a day? Obviously we had to go. It was at the White House Visitor’s Center from 10am to 3pm, and we showed up at 11:30am. Abraham Lincoln was there answering questions (Does Abe like cheese sandwiches? Who would Abe elect in this election? And more…) for the kids and us. We went from station to station making beeswax candles, talking to the retired women who volunteered weekly at the visitor’s center, and learning about First Families.

Then we went next door to the old post office and went up in the bell tower, which was fantastic. The view from the tower was panoramic with no line whatsoever, unlike the Washington Monument which is impossible to get into unless you’re there at 8:30am. That’s just too early for patriotic sightseeing. Anyway, the bell tower had a great view and I took some pictures.

After the bell tower the three of us got some lunch there at the Pavilion and then took off to Alexandria, a suburb in Virginia. There was a parade scheduled there (for George Washington’s birthday, NOT for Presidents’ Day, I was told officially later) at 1pm. We got off the King Street metro stop a little uncertain of how exactly to get to the parade… or even King Street. Actually, I had no idea where the parade was. “Alexandria” seemed specific enough, and the three of us were in an adventurous moods. The weather was warm and cheerful, so we walked through the town until we finally realized it was wiser to ask directions.

Finally we arrived at the parade just in time to hear the first marching bands coming along the street. The parade was much longer than I expected, but in a good way. After the Chinese New Year’s Parade, my hopes were not high. Fortunately I was happily surprised!

There were Boy Scouts and Brownies galore, followed by town officials, more marching bands, PT Cruisers (lots and lots of them), Democratic candidate supporters (Obama08 and Clinton08 in the same car holding signs), etc etc etc. Pictures will do it much better justice than I can.

As the parade ended the first drops of rain splashed down, and we dashed back to the dry warmth of the metro. Not too long afterward, I was back at home, a little damp but happy about how the weekend ended.

So that was my weekend! Thanks for sticking around (if you did) and reading about my life. As always, comments are welcomed and appreciated!

...and pictures

Finally, the National Building Museum! I think I'm in love with these columns. (Corinthian columns, actually -- thank you, Ms. Carlyle-from-my-junior-year!)






















































Here are a couple of pictures from the Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown. We got there in time to see most of the parade. (Chinatown isn't that big.)

Happy Valentine's Day

It’s been a while since I updated, but now I have a couple of weeks’ worth of experiences to share with you so it should be a substantial post! Right now I’m contentedly sitting in Starbucks having just finished an assignment for my policy class and a grande café mocha.

Last weekend was really nice. On Saturday morning I went with Taylor (another girl who is on the DC program) to help fill food boxes to be distributed throughout DC. I had really wanted to get involved in a volunteer program while in the city, and I’m glad Taylor found this one. It was the second time we’ve been. On Saturday mornings they put together fifty or sixty food boxes in about an hour and then have drivers take them out all over the city and surrounding areas to families in need.

We came back and had lunch and showers before taking off to Pentagon City, a mall on the metro stop just past the Pentagon. It’s just outside the inner city area so it’s slightly more expensive on the metro. It’s a four story mall with a Nordstrom and Macy’s along with a hundred other smaller stores. Our goal: to find dresses. Taylor and I needed to find nice formal dresses to wear to black tie events. I get to go to the “conservative prom” of DC next month – AEI hosts an annual dinner at the Hilton and invites interns to attend. This year the speaker is John Howard (former prime minister of Australia – how cool is that?).

So Taylor and I had a mission to find dresses. She found one for another event she’s going to but I didn’t really find a dress I liked. At least, not within my budget. My parents are coming up next weekend so I’ll hopefully have more luck then.

Anyway, Taylor, Michelle, Caitlin, and I explored the mall for several hours and had an early dinner before traveling back to the house and enjoying a nice, relaxing Saturday evening. On Sunday I went with Aisha, Kevin, and Jamihlia to an Episcopalian church a couple of blocks away. The service was pretty informal and the church was beautiful. The pews (actually just chairs) were arranged in circles radiating out from the center of the church where the altar and pulpits were. It was a very welcoming and accepting church and had no problem letting us participate in Communion. Several people greeted us individually and invited us to a lunch afterwards, which was Chinese food in celebration of the Chinese New Year. We met three other interns there, which was nice. I feel like I’ve met so many college students (or recent graduates) since I’ve been here. There are multiple houses near mine that are a part of Washington Intern Student Housing: the University of Texas, the University of South Carolina, Ohio State University, and the UNC system all have separate houses or apartments within a block or two of our house. We’ve met a lot of them and I feel like I see them everywhere. In fact, at the moment I am typing this line while sitting in Starbucks I see a couple of guys from Ohio State walking past. Capitol Hill really is a great place to live when you’re an intern!

So where was I? Oh yes, Sunday afternoon. We got back to the house around 1:30pm. Aisha and I were supposed to study for the LSAT together, but as usual other things got in the way. We ended up going with a huge group of UNC and USC students to the Chinese New Year festival in Chinatown, which is not too far from where we live. It was unbelievably windy, though! So mostly we took the metro to Chinatown, saw a few dragons (see pictures) and then made our way back to the house. On the way Kelly, Taylor, and I stopped at the National Building Museum because Taylor hadn’t been. I finally got some pictures of this incredible structure. The columns inside are enormous, which is surprising because the outside of the museum is not that impressive.

The National Building Museum has some fairly interesting (and random) exhibits with everything from the history of building DC to the development of the chair as a piece of furniture. Kelly and I stopped there just so we could sit inside the huge building and enjoy watching the kids. It’s basically an indoor park; the museum is definitely designed for young children. There’s a “Building Zone” that a bunch of us tried to go to last time we came to this museum because kids get to build their own buildings. We thought that sounded like a lot of fun, but there is a height restriction – we were far too tall to get in! We had to have a kid with us to get to play with the building materials.

So that was last weekend. I can’t remember what I did last Sunday evening, but I think it probably involved me reading Wicked. I’ve gotten sucked into this book and can’t wait to read it after I finish this post. So far I have really caught up on reading since I’ve been here, which is such a nice hobby to rediscover. I used to read for hours into the night before I got into college, and for whatever reason I haven’t gotten back into that habit. I’ve read about a book a week, including The Nine, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (okay, I’m only mostly through but it’s extremely long so let’s count it for now), Dead Man Walking, and most of Wicked. I’ve bought more books since I’ve been here at some used bookstores, not to mention the fact that I’ve brought several of my own. And none of that takes into account the reading I do for class or the books I’m reading for a seminar I’m taking at AEI.

Now I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m going back to Sunday. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were average days at work. Tuesday was the Potomac Primary (VA, DC, and MD) so it was interesting watching those results come in. Whatever your political affiliation or interest in politics period, it’s hard to ignore the feeling of change in the air. A year from now we’ll have a new President and Congress will probably be more Democratic than it’s been since the early 1990s. I’ve lived nearly my entire life under the executive leadership of the Bush and Clinton families (though that could continue for another four or eight years if HRC wins), so I can definitely sympathize with those eager for a change in national leadership.

Now that I talk politics all day at work, it’s hard for me to change my focus and talk about something else. So as I’m sure you can already tell, this blog will continue to be saturated with political chatter. Please comment if you want! Even if it’s to tell me to please shut up about the election.

Thursday I had class with Dr. Podoff in the morning. (Actually, I just realized I forgot to talk about my classes the week before. We shared class with the foreign policy students and heard from an official in the Department of Homeland Security and a director from the U.S. Border and Customs Agency. Both were interesting, especially the guy from the Department of Homeland Security. He was very good at not answering questions straight.)

So this past Thursday (Valentine’s Day!) we talked about the budget that President Bush’s OMB just released this week and how Congress might respond and on what timeline. Who knew the budget process could be so interesting? As usual, I regret not taking more economics classes.

For our afternoon policy class, we have to go to each of our “internship placements” and meet with an expert in our particular placement fields. That afternoon we went to the Environmental Protection Agency where Kelly works. The specific department was the Division for Innovative Pilots, which was really interesting because we talked about the use of states as the classic policy laboratory, from which other states can borrow tested policies and adjust them to their specific needs as long as they fit within the EPA’s national policy restrictions. (Oh the beauty of our federal system! This is why I love public policy and politics.) The EPA works with states to coordinate their new and creative programs and provide technical assistance and feedback of their own.

So that was class. On Thursday evening I went back to AEI (yes, on my day off) to go to a seminar titled “The Founding of America.” Walter Berns, a constitutional academic and scholar at AEI, is teaching the class. He has taught several before to the research assistants, but this time they offered the class to some of the political/social policy interns as well. Considering the fact that this scholar is world renowned (he went to South Africa in the 1990s to work on creating a new constitution and he knows Supreme Court justices personally), there was no way I was passing up this unique opportunity. I’ve read some of the articles he has published more recently and I plan to read some of his longer works as soon as I get a chance. For the seminar we have to read the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, and Locke’s Second Treatise on Government. Early American history, particularly the creation of the Constitution and its formative political years, is among my favorite academic subjects. So the seminar lasted a couple of hours and I’m already learning. I need to read several chapters for Thursday evening, though, as soon as possible so I don’t forget. I’m afraid he’ll call on me out of the blue (he’s already given one of the research assistants an assignment to write a short paper and give a five minute presentation at the next class – am I in over my head???). It’s frighteningly similar to one of the most academically challenging classes I’ve had at Carolina: History of the Constitution of the United States to 1876. That professor called on me ALL of the time and I usually had no idea what to say since he’d written a dozen books on the topic and taught the class for well over a decade, whereas I was a twenty-year-old non-history major who could barely digest his fifteen-minute-long question.

But I got a free dinner out of it. The seminar, not the UNC history class.

So this weekend. Last night I went to a fabulous concert at the nearby Library of Congress for free. I went with Kevin to hear the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin play modern and classical music for nearly two and a half hours. I’m no music expert, but it was unbelievable how good the orchestra was. And they had a grand piano, my one musical weakness. Sometimes I really miss playing, and last night was one of those times. While I think I lack significant innate skill, I still love to play. It’s a beautiful instrument. After I got a healthy dose of the Russian language and great Tchaikovsky, I went back to the house and watched Law and Order before going to bed exhausted.

Here I am today, enjoying a lovely Saturday on Capitol Hill. I woke up late this morning and went with several of my friends to Eastern Market. I got some fruit and cereal (I have NO groceries except for a couple of cans of soup and rice – I can’t wait for my parents to come and take me to a grocery store!). So now that I have cereal, I’m set for the week until they come. I spent a couple of hours at the house catching up with a couple of friends and working out some housing stuff for next year (cross your fingers, because I think we’ve found our house!), then I came to Starbucks. Two and a half hours later, here I am typing away.

Thank you so much for your patience and your desire to hear about even the silliest stories! I’m going to post pictures soon after I post this blog entry, so stay tuned.

Happy Valentine’s Day (belatedly) to you all!