So I think we are at Wednesday? Ah yes, Wednesday! As usual, I went to my internship and worked on my story. I am hoping to have it completed by the end of this week so I can submit it. After work, we had Ann Peters, director of development and outreach of the Pulitzer Center on crisis reporting come and speak to us. She had some really interesting opinions on outreach and non-profit initiatives. But the most exciting part of my day was that my dad came and took me out to dinner! (here is your shout-out dad!) We went to 1789-I am a regular now!-and my friend Zach came along as well. It was such a wonderful dinner, I miss my family so much! Delicious as well :)
Thursday was another typical day in DC. I went to my internship and actually had three projects to do! It was nice to keep busy and feel like I was contributing to the office environment, I had a lot of fun as usual learning about different aspects and missions of the organization. After work was of course Ethics class. More debate, more of no one agreeing on anything, and more of me wondering how the heck people can be so closed-minded! Nonetheless, it was interesting of course.
Friday morning was class again! How in the world do I already have a midterm on Monday! It's so crazy. We reviewed for a little bit the concepts we need to know, but then we moved on to the next section of the course...no time to kill when you only have 12 3-hour classes I suppose. Instead of going to my internship after, I actually got to meet with Jeff Phillips-a former IPJ grad and current Legislative aid for Senator Michael Bennett. He handles labor, judiciary, immigration and homeland security issues. He was a really neat guy. He told us ALL about the senate and how the views have changed in the two years he has been involved with it. He was actually just awarded a Fulbright Grant to teach English for a year in Kaohsing, Taiwan. How neat! After everyone was done work on Friday, we all went to dinner on Capital Hill to celebrate my roommates 23rd birthday! It was a Mexican bar and it was really neat. We had so much fun; they are all amazing girls and have made my experience here so great thus far. Here are some pictures:
This morning, Saturday, we all set out to do our "Saturday Service" projects. Basically it is a day when everyone in the Internship Seminars for TFAS goes out into the less privileged part of DC to help out and do community service. Some people cleaned parks while others helped out at a local food bank. The place I was assigned to is called "Washington Home and Community Hospice." Now I figured this would not be the happiest experience I have ever had, but I had no idea how heart-wrenching it would be. We woke up at 7am and took a bus to the metro and then walked over a mile to get to this place. We all got there and we went around to clean and sanitize the handrails for the residents throughout the hospital. It was heartbreaking to see some of the patients, especially on the Alzheimer floor, but even more so on the dementia floor. That was definitely the hardest part of the entire experience. Then we all split up to play games and talk with the residents. As it turns out, someone anonymous donated two huge buckets of flowers and vases for the residents. My group made about 50 flower arrangements and then wheeled them around to hand out to the patients. Some of them were absolutely adorable and were so thankful for the arrangements. We got to stop and talk to several of them throughout the hospital and you could see the joy on their faces to have young visitors around. It was quite an emotional afternoon to say the least.
Now the most exciting part of the day! After coming back and relaxing for a few hours, Bridgette and I went to the library from 6pm-9pm! How fun...just kidding. Stupid midterm on Monday...this summer would be SOOOOOO amazing without having to do massive amounts of textbook reading and studying *sigh* oh well
Tomorrow morning we are all going to Mt. Vernon, which should be a lot of fun! Well, hope everyone is having a good Saturday night (the apartment above me sure is, but more on that later)
I'll post again soon :)
Huntley <3
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