Am I done yet?

Well, to be frank, this week sucked.  Work has been really stressful and crazy.  This is one of the busiest weeks of the year for tourism in DC, since it is Easter week, and the Capitol was so packed.  I gave one tour, which turned out to be a nightmare since part of the group was late, and it was the last tour of the day so everything was closing up.  People are so rude.  They were late then complained that they didn't get to see enough.  I'm not sure what people's expectations are, but I think the Capitol is really cool!  I hate feeling like I let anyone down, but I think these people just had a bad attitude, and it wasn't me.  I guess the crowds are getting to everyone.  There were a lot of people gone from the office this week, too, so I was doing a lot.  It was nice to have more responsibility and things to do, but also not so fun since I barely had time to take a breath or eat.  I was also told I was going to be attending the Easter Egg Roll at the White House on Monday, but then a few days later learned that I couldn't go as an intern.  That was a huge heartbreak.  I mean, I never in a million years thought I would get to go to something like that so I was seriously ecstatic when I found out.  Then after being so emotionally drained all week and looking forward to that to keep me going, finding out I wouldn't be able to go was really tough.  Thank goodness I had Friday off, or I might have really gone crazy!

Thursday for theater class, we went to see Taming of the Shrew by Synetic Theater, but it wasn't typical Shakespeare at all.  It was silent!  There was music, but no words.  It was also supposed to be a modern hip hop version set in a very smutty Hollywood-type city.  It was bizarre, kind of crude, and I did not like it at all.  I don't think anyone in the house did.  It wasn't a great way to end my week or a good play to end this theater class on.

I came home on Thursday to find the cutest popcorn tin from my Aunt Jean.  I definitely needed a pick-me-up so that was just perfect!  She spoiled me too much when she was here, so I can't believe she sent me this popcorn, too!

Popcorn tin from Aunt Jean

Friday I decided to go to the Smithsonian National Zoo.  I made the mistake of waiting to eat lunch until I got there.  The zoo was crazy busy, and I had to wait probably almost 30 minutes in line to get food.  I almost felt awful and faint, because I had to wait so long.  It is not fun to feel that way when you are somewhere by yourself.  Moments of weakness like that and being surrounded by so many families at a place like the zoo reminds me of how much better it is to do things with other people instead of alone.  It is the times like those when I get a twinge of homesickness again and can't wait to just be with the people I love even doing the little, mundane things.  In general, it was hard to walk anywhere without a person or a stroller in your way as it was so busy there.  The zoo itself was cool though.  Its very big, and the big draw is the Giant Panda habitat.  I had never seen a panda before and seeing one up close was neat.  I also liked the meerkats - really cute.  There were some peacocks, which are just breathtaking, as well.  It is a lot of walking though so I was beat when I finished.

Panda!

Peacock

Flamingos

Meerkat

Saturday, I was kind of at a loss as to what to do with myself, so I decided to check out the Pentagon City Mall.  It was a pretty nice mall.  I just did a lot of looking mostly, but I did finally find myself a graduation dress at Forever 21.  I had been looking for a few weeks but didn't see anything that really hit me.  I love what I got.  I will be able to wear it to work and for other nice occasions, too.  The best part is that its bright purple!  Go Tigers!  I also bought myself a Cherry Blossom Festival shirt at Union Station on my way home.  That night there were fireworks down at the SW waterfront for the Cherry Blossom Festival, so I gathered up some of the roommates and off we went.  It was a nice show, but then the metro was crazy for a while with the huge crowd leaving the area.  We decided to try to find a restaurant or coffee shop to hang out at until the rush died down, but that was ultimately a failure so we just walked around for a good bit.

Red fireworks

Tons of gold fireworks during the finale

Today I was pretty bored and again didn't know what to do with myself.  I did my fairly regular Sunday tradition of going to Eastern Market for my favorite crepe and to look around.  I ended up just doing a work out video and watching some movies on my computer after that.  I'm really getting to the point where I'm just ready to go home.  Other than the few things I have planned for next weekend and when my parents are here to move me out the weekend after that, I'm done with everything I wanted to do and see here.  Living with 14 other people in this tiny house is wearing on a person, this week at work was crazy, and I'm done with all of my schoolwork, so I'm counting down the days.  I'm excited to get back to SC soon and be with my family and friends.  I swear this experience has made me appreciate the South so much more.  I'm craving some good BBQ and summer time fun.  It is also scary though as going home approaches since I literally have no plans after graduation day on May 11.  This has to be the first time in my life that has ever happened, and to a planner like me, that is pretty inconceivable in my mind.  As much as I'd like to relax and travel before I land a job, like everyone is telling me to, there is no way I can just sit around and not be stressing until I find something.  I want to start my life, and I want it to be the right thing, not just the available thing.  I can't rest until I find it, but the job search has been pretty sparse so far.

With the semester drawing to a close, some of you may be wondering what this blog will be afterwards.  Maybe you're not...but I guess I'm trying to answer myself on that question right now.  I still want to keep it up, though I likely won't have as many sightseeing adventures to document.  I'll probably do some general life update posts infrequently when something big happens or I take a trip.  I definitely want to write more about PR and social media related topics.  I've always wanted to since I started it, but I let the DC posts take priority for the time being.  Maybe in my unemployment I'll finally have time to be as crafty as you would think I am from looking at my Pinterest boards and post about that!  And I'll put it in writing right now so I stick to it - I want to try a diet when I get home, and I may write about how that goes.  We'll see!

Sorry for the mildly depressing post, but no worries!  I'm bringing out my favorite Coldplay and James Morrison tunes, which always feel so right and have gotten me through a lot.  I'm hoping the next two weeks are much better than this one, and I'll be home before I know it.

Official pic with Congressman Clyburn

Historic Places and a Soccer Game

Work this week was good.  I got a fairly large project to work on.  I am doing the first quarter media report, so I'm basically going through all of the news articles and interviews he has been featured in since the beginning of the year and organizing them.  I also got to take my official picture with the congressman.  I didn't have any warning so I wasn't exactly wearing what I wanted, but hopefully it looks good!  I'll put it on here when I get it back.

We saw 1776 at Ford's Theatre on Thursday night for theater class.  I had been looking forward to it all semester as I thought it would be really fun since it is a musical about the founding fathers, and its at Ford's.  The costumes, set, lighting, and singing was fun, but I was a bit disappointed overall.  It is pretty long.  The whole thing is basically about John Adams trying to convince all of the states delegates at the second constitutional convention to go for independence.  So its a lot of intricate discussions and arguments.  It was also just frigid in the theatre so it was hard to concentrate since I was so cold.

Ford's Theatre

Lincoln's Box, where he was shot

Friday night, I went to a DC United soccer game with some of my roommates.  We had gotten an email from our housing place about discount tickets for that night so we decided it would be fun to go.  It was a really good decision.  The atmosphere was so fun.  It reminded me a bit of being at a Clemson game, though not nearly as crazy, as there were a lot of college students and people my age, and everyone was really pumped.  They won 4-1 against Dallas FC.  Then we took a bus back home, which was also an entertaining choice since most of the people on it were drunk and really excited about winning.  There were definitely some DC United chants going on.

DC United soccer game

Yesterday, I went to the Library of Congress to finish up my schoolwork for good in the main reading room.  I don't think I've ever been so excited about doing work.  I could not believe I was actually sitting there just working on stuff in such an amazing room and building.  I've been meaning to go there ever since I got my reader card when I first got here, but never bothered to go.  It was another thing to check off of my to-do list, and I did it!  Now I really am done with all of my work.

I went on a run on the mall afterwards, which is the first time I've exercised since I got here (oops).  That was pretty awesome, too.  I love the mall.  There is always something going on there, too, so I stopped to watch some intense African drummers on the steps of the Natural History Museum for a few minutes in the middle of it.

Then, Charlotte, Seth, and I decided to go out to eat to celebrate us being done with our work.  We went to Ted's Bulletin on Barracks Row.  It was a really neat experience.  The decor, music, and waiters' outfits all have a 1930's feel.  The menus look like newspapers, and The Wizard of Oz was playing on TV's all around the place.  I had a burger and an orange push up milkshake.  They are also known for their homemade pop tarts, so I got a strawberry one to go to eat this morning.  I would highly recommend Ted's Bulletin.  The atmosphere is enough of a draw in itself, but the food turned out great, too.  Also, this is the first restaurant in DC I've been to that has actually split a check!!!  I don't know if I've written my rant about this on here, but it is so weird.  DC restaurants will not split checks, even when you ask ahead of time.  Usually, we end up scribbling all over the back of the receipt what each person had and their credit card number, and they end up giving it back to us 3-4 times before they actually process it to get the right amounts.  I do not understand why it is such a big deal, especially in a city full of broke interns who are eating together and obviously not paying for each other.  So them splitting the check without us even asking was pretty monumental and another reason to love it!

Today I didn't really know what to do with myself so I finally went down to Georgetown.  I have heard a lot about the area, but it isn't very metro accessible and I didn't really know what was down there so I hadn't bothered to go before this.  First, I went to a bagel place in Dupont Circle, where I got off the metro, and I had a banana nut bagel.  Interesting and delicious!  Georgetown is amazing.  It is clearly where all of the trendy people in DC hang out, and I definitely should have gone before this.  There is a lot of shopping, much of it more high class.  There are also a lot of neat little restaurants, and it is just a cool historic area.  I walked through a lot of shops, and got a couple shirts at H&M.  It was a good day.

Line as far as you can see down the road at Georgetown Cupcakes (DC Cupcakes on TLC)

This week at work will be interesting.  We are in recess so it should be pretty chill from that aspect, but a bunch of people in my office will be gone so I will have a lot more to do.  I get Friday off since it is Good Friday so I will have a long weekend, then one more weekend here before I move out!  It is April so its almost over!

Two Weeks of News and Spying!

It has been a little while since I posted last, so I have a lot to catch up on!  Work has been great, as I've gotten to do some more exciting things lately.  I finally did the Capitol tour training, so now I will be able to give people tours of the Capitol building.  There are so many interesting and historic parts of the Capitol and lots of fun facts to learn and share with others.  I need to practice a bit before my first one, but I'm excited.  I've also gotten to see the congressman do some interviews.  One was for Martin Bashir on MSNBC.  I tweeted about getting to see the filming of it, and I got retweeted by @BashirLive, which is the show's official twitter handle.  That is kind of amazing!  It is the moments like these that remind me of my importance here.  I also got to sit in on a meeting with the congressman and President Barker from Clemson.  It was great to finally meet him and funny we met in DC, not at school.

I went to a two day training session on how to be an "online activist" using social media and blogging with my roommate, Ryan, at the Leadership Institute.  It was great to finally get an opportunity to learn more about my field, and I'm thankful my office is nice enough to let me attend things like that.  The Leadership Institute is a conservative organization, so I had to ignore some frequent anti-liberal remarks, but overall the training was pretty useful.  I'm proud of myself for being open-minded enough to attend something there, as I knew when I walked in and saw a portrait of George W. Bush on the wall behind the receptionist I did not belong.  There was also a framed newspaper with the headline, "Clinton Impeached!" outside of the training room.  That freaked me out a little!  I felt a bit like a secret liberal spy.  It is always good to know how the other side operates, too...haha.

Two interns in my office are done with their internships now, so it will just be me and one other girl who only comes in 2 and 1/2 days a week.  It was sad to see Helen, my Australian friend, go as we have become good friends, and she was very helpful in the office.  Hopefully I'll get to Australia one day, and she can show me around :]  It will definitely be different and probably busier, being the only intern in the office most of the time now.

Helen and I

Last weekend, I decided to go to the Newseum.  I had heard a lot of great things about it and had wanted to get there for a while.  It was pretty neat.  Obviously they have lots of newspapers with headlines from important moments in history, and those are cool to see.  They also had a pretty large part of the Berlin Wall, and an exhibit on 9/11, including a large mangled-up antenna from the top of one of the twin towers.  There were some fun artifacts from elections, SNL skits, the Daily Show, and the Colbert Report.  They have a great balcony you can go on with a wonderful view of the Capitol and the Mall.  They film ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos in a studio there, so I got to go in there, too.  The tickets were good for two days.  I finished all the exhibits on day one, but they had the chief White House correspondent for Politico come talk on Sunday so I went back for that.  I was glad I did.

Newseum

Berlin Wall

Union is Dissolved Newspaper

Antenna from 9/11

On the Balcony

Thursday we went to another play for theater class.  This one was "Red" at Arena Stage.  It was about painter, Mark Rothko, and his assistant.  He was getting paintings ready for the Four Seasons, and dealing with issues of his relevance as an artist and whether he was "selling out" by accepting a commission for these paintings.  It was pretty interesting and emotional.  He was getting to the end of his career and having to legitimize his life and choices as an artist.

This Saturday we had our White House tour that I had gotten from my office!  It was pretty much what I had heard it would be, which was a bit disappointing.  Obviously, they can't show you any of the really cool places that they use all of the time, as that would be too complicated.  Therefore, you really don't get to see much.  You can peek your head in a few rooms, then walk through a few more, and all of the sudden you're going, "that's it?"  It is also a self-guided tour, so you don't have anyone really telling you about what the rooms or for or anything.  It is still neat to say you've been in the White House, but if you don't get to go, you're not missing out on much.

At the White House

Today I went to the International Spy Museum, which was another I had been looking forward to going to for a while.  It was really great and worth the money.  They take you in and you immediately choose a cover.  I was "Angelena Falcone," a 21-year-old travel agent from Italy, going to Vietnam for 30 days on a "business trip."  Then you go through a section that teaches you how to be a spy and spot people using surveillance or who could also be spies.  You get to see a lot of cool spy gadgets and technology.  Then there are sections about actual spies from the U.S. and other countries and their stories.  I was pretty impressed.  The gift shop had lots of cool stuff, too, including "Agent Double Gnome 7" merchandise - so cute!  I couldn't resist and bought something.  I hadn't gotten any souvenirs for myself  before this.

International Spy Museum

Cool Car!

Agent Double Gnome 7

I also walked through the National Postal Museum before I went home, as it is right next to Union Station.  I walk by it all the time and thought it might be worth taking a few minutes to walk through.  It used to be the City Post Office so it is a really neat building.

National Postal Museum

Old City Post Office

Old Mailboxes

I've been trying to make my posts more interactive with links to the different places I'm going.  That's all for now.  I CANNOT WAIT until Friday when Jake comes!  Woo hoo for seeing him and having a four day weekend with Friday and Monday off of work.  I'm working on a fun list of things to do while he is here.

Exciting Times, Visitors, and Growing Up

There are now four interns (including myself) at the office and two high school students that come help out on certain days.  That's a lot!  That has been a bit crazy as there aren't even enough desks for us all to sit at sometimes, and there was some confusion with a lot of things going on.  I'm glad I was the second one to start, as I got to claim a desk and don't ever end up sitting without a phone or a computer.  It is also nice just because I know how to do everything and the whole office knows me fairly well so they ask me to do things for them usually before they ask the newer girls.  It definitely puts the pressure on to stand out when there are so many of us though.

I got to sit in the gallery in the house chambers on Thursday morning, which I've been wanting to do since I've been here.  It was a great time to be there watching.  When we got there, they were debating on the Stock Act which would outlaw insider trading among congressmen.  It was pretty unanimous that insider trading should be illegal, but the democrats were struggling with some of the other stuff that was stuck in the bill they didn't like.  Nancy Pelosi then got up and gave a speech urging the dems to pass it and send it to conference, as these negative parts of it could be changed then.  Watching votes is pretty exciting.  Most of the time there aren't many congressmen in the chambers, but when they vote, they all have to be there so an alarm sounds and they all come from their offices to put in their vote.  The room is really bustling when there are 400+ congressmen in there.  The vote lasts 15 minutes, and when it gets to the end of the time it is pretty nuts as the last few come rushing in and everyone basically shouts at the speaker of the house to wait for one or two more!  These panels above the press box light up with all the congressman's last names and either a green Y or a red N to show how they voted.  Then afterwards they had a 5 minute vote on whether to send it to conference.  Both votes were pretty uncontested at 400 something to less than 10.  Then, there was discussion on next week's schedule.  Eric Cantor (House Majority Leader) and Steny Hoyer (Minority Whip) were going back and forth about different timings for at least 30 minutes.  It was AWESOME!  I could sit in there all day, and it was great that I got to see a lot of the leaders speak.  Unfortunately, you can't take pictures in the chambers so I can't show you all what it was like.

I also finally got to meet with our office's communications director and talk about PR for a while and some ideas I had come up with.  I've been hoping to do that for a while, and it is a great reminder of what I want to do and how much I love it.  I also got a recommendation for a pretty interesting sounding book about PR so I ordered that right away and am excited to read it when it comes in the mail.

Another exciting piece of news from this week is that Jake is coming to see me!  I am thrilled!  I left to come here thinking I wouldn't get to see him for four months, as we didn't know if either of us could get off any time from work.  It was a great surprise that things worked out, and I will have to start planning some exciting things for us to do while he is here.

I guess I never wrote about it on here, but my aunt, my cousin, and my cousin's partner are also coming to see me!  They have never been to DC and thought it would be a great time to come while I am here.  I have been getting ready for them to visit, too.  I haven't seen my cousin since I was really young, and I've never met her partner since they live in California so that will be a lot of fun.

Thursday we went to see our second play for theater class.  It was called Time Stands Still.  The story is about a couple who are a photojournalist and writer, and they just got back from a war zone.  The woman was severely injured and almost died from a roadside bombing so they have to reevaluate putting their lives on the line for their jobs.  It really made you question why people would put themselves in danger to take a picture, film something, or write about it.  It is amazing the dedication people have to a profession like that.

Yesterday, I went to the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum.  They are in the same building, which is basically divided down the middle.  There is an entire section of portraits of the presidents and many other portraits, including some of pretty recently famous people.  The American art was neat too with some older parts and some more modern art.  It was actually snowing when I left the museum, and it was very very cold today.

Front of the Museum

Juliette Gordon Low, founder of Girl Scouts

Different portrait of Bill!

Cool piece of American modern art

On a separate note, I've realized this experience has already helped me in some ways.  Before this, I was so scared to graduate and have a real job.  I was scared of the real world and wished I could stay at Clemson forever.  Being here is a step closer to being on my own and having a full time job.  I think I'm ready, and I am actually excited about graduating and looking for job possibilities.  I'm ready to be done being a student and an intern.  I want to be able to produce results on my own that I'm proud of and help an organization be successful.  I want that responsibility and the fulfillment of having a real job.

Two Plays, Two Museums, and Some Other Things

This week has been fairly busy!  On Tuesday after work, we all went to the SC State Society event.  We were required to help out with the event for our program, but we also got to eat some delicious food and mingle for a few minutes before we left for class.  The SC delegation was all supposed to be there, but as we had to leave early and there was a vote close to when the event started we didn't get to see them all.  I did see Rep. Tim Scott and Rep. Mick Mulvaney there, but didn't get a chance to talk to either of them.  There was a gorgeous balcony that had a great overlook of the city that was amazing to see at dusk.  It was nice out so we were out there for a while and had a little photoshoot.

Class was pretty interesting afterwards.  We talked about oral advocacy and focused on one minute speeches.  I was clearly excited since I am a speech nerd!  Then we had to give our own one minute speeches on certain topics from different viewpoints.   I had to give mine as a republican on the federal debt ceiling so that was definitely a challenge and took me a bit out of my comfort zone.

On Thursday, we went to see Hairspray for our theatre class.  It was a bit of a struggle getting to this theater as it was out in Arlington and not really metro accessible.  It was also a pretty big rush to get there on time since some of us work until 6, and we had to be there by 7:30.  I didn't really get to eat dinner due to the timing.  The show was so fun though!  I had seen the movie before and liked it okay, but the show definitely exceed my expectations.  I loved it!  The stage was one that came out into the audience, so people were sitting on three sides of it.  There were also places for the actors to come out from the back corners of the theater almost right next to us.  We were in the second row in front of the stage, so we were very close to the action.  I wasn't expecting that at all so that was a great surprise.  By the end of the show I had the urge to get up, sing, and dance with the cast, and I've had "You Can't Stop The Beat" in my head ever since we saw it.  I think that is what a musical should do to you!  The actress that played Amber Von Tussle is coming to speak to our class in a few weeks, so that will be neat to get her perspective on things.  This show was the one I was most excited about, and I loved it.  I'm hoping the others are just as good though the bar is set high!

Corny Collins Show sign on the set of Hairspray

All of us before Hairspray

Friday, I went out to dinner after work with the intern in my office who is from Australia and all of her Australian roommates and friends, which was a lot of fun.  I was glad to meet more people in the city, and I've always wanted to go to Australia so I am enjoying learning more and more about it.  I've gotta say, I love listening to the accent, too!

Yesterday I decided I would go to the Natural History Museum and the National Archives.  The Natural History museum was neat, but it was definitely geared more towards kids and there were a lot of kids and families there.  I liked the ocean hall and the gems and minerals section especially.  The gems were super sparkly and gorgeous, and they have the Hope Diamond there, too.  It reminded me of seeing the crown jewels at the Tower of London, which was one of my favorite sights on my trip there. Then, I went to the National Archives to see the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence among other things.  There was actually no line for that part so I must have gotten there at a good time.  The Declaration is very faded and you can barely see anything on it, but the Constitution is actually in really good condition I thought.  It is amazing how just some pieces of parchment are something so valuable and historic to our country and have survived all of these years.

Main Lobby of Natural History Museum

Hope Diamond

Before I went to bed late last night, I was trying to think of something to do today.  I was a bit out of ideas, as I didn't really want to do another museum since I've done many of those lately.  I was searching online for things to do in DC and on one of the lists was to get half-priced tickets to a show on Ticketplace.org.  I have been wanting to at least tour the Kennedy Center and maybe go to a show there, so I looked to see what there was in the next couple of weeks.  I saw that there were tickets for Shear Madness, which I had heard was really great from one of my coworkers, and it was today (and only $28)!  I immediately bought a ticket.  A few of my roommates actually wanted to come too so we went out to lunch then headed there for the show at 3:00.  It was really funny.  The play is about a bunch of people who are in a hair salon, and a murder takes place in the apartment upstairs.  The murderer has to be someone in the salon, as no one else entered or left the building during the time of murder.  So they retrace the events of the day to figure out who did it.  They actually get the audience involved, too. We could shout if something was wrong or off in the replay of events.  We also could talk to the detective during intermission and tell him our theories.  Then we got to question the suspects as well.  The main story is the same each time, but there is a lot of improv throughout and the murderer may be a different character from night to night.  Everyone really liked it, so I'm glad I happened to find out about the discount tickets.  It was a good choice.

This week we will have our first leadership seminar, we'll be seeing Time Stands Still for our theater class, and I'm sure I'll go on another adventure on Saturday.  I'll catch you all up next weekend!