Remember that time my roommate was on the front page of the NYT???

Yeah, so in this blog post I HAD to give a shout-out to my roommate, the wonderful and accomplished Miss Meredith McDermott whose picture is on the front page of that paper from New York this morning!!! Well, technically, it's a picture of the very unfortunate Tony Heyward, CEO of BP, but she's taking his picture in the picture! That pretty much trumps anything I could possibly say in this blog post.

Well, another work week has passed (almost!). Sunday, Meredith, Alan, and I decided to go to the Newseum, which is one of the most underrated museums in DC. Scratch that: one of the most underrated sights of DC. It was incredible! It's right across from the National Archives and has this amazing terrace that looks out on the Capitol, the Mall, etc. Even better: I got to see and touch part of the Berlin Wall! They actually have the largest whole piece of the Berlin Wall in the US (and maybe the world? I'm not quite sure...). They had a small piece you could touch, and they even told you which was the West German side and which was the East German side. Easily one of the coolest things I've seen. It was really chilling seeing pictures of East Germany and hearing such horror stories about people dying in pursuit of freedom...which unfortunately is something I take for granted far too often. Not anymore, after seeing the Berlin Wall!!

They also had all of the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs on display, complete with the stories behind them. It was extremely cool...there were so many pictures there that I recognized that I didn't know were Pulitzer Prize winners! One picture, the photo of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald, was especially interesting because of the story behind it. Apparently, the guy who took the photo was changing the film in his camera when JFK was shot, so he completely missed that opportunity. Then, when Oswald was being transported and Jack Ruby shot him, he just so happened to have the perfect angle and shot at the exact same time that Ruby did. Which won him the Pulitzer! Crazy.

Yesterday, we had an intern meeting where the director of the Voter Protection department came to talk to us! After asking where everyone was from, he smiled and laughed when I told him I was from Atlanta, so of course I figured he had either lived there or had some great stories from there. Sure enough, he had taught at Emory Law School for a while. Even better: he had an entire slide on his Voter Protection presentation about Georgia and how horrible the election law is here! I had assumed until fairly recently that most states had similar photo id laws...but they don't! And apparently it's pretty shocking to most people. Apparently there's a citizenship verification law on the books in Georgia as well (I wasn't aware that we lived in Arizona?) that Georgia's Attorney General, Thurbert Baker, is fighting. And a lot of people didn't know that Georgia is still a "covered jurisdiction" under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and still has to have its election law precleared by the US DOJ. Let's just say that after hearing about how many times and in how many ways Georgia has tried to disenfranchise voters even in the 21st century (including appointing a "Special Attorney General"), I felt the need to preface my question with "Georgia's better than it sounds!"

In other news, the more I'm around the "Hill-terns," the more I love them. And by love them I mean love making fun of them and their "red badges of courage." Don't know what I mean? Look up the "Spotted: DC Interns" blog. It's amazing.

In other non-internship-related news, the NBA final are finally over, and unfortunately the Lakers won. But that's ok, because USA is about to play again, and let's face it, the East and West coasts can finally agree on one team to support!

More updates about the weekend to come!

ps...GO BRAVES!!

What You've All Been Waiting For...

WOW. 2 posts in one day. I can't handle myself right now!

As promised, here is Arleta's List of Top 10 Moments as an Intern! I figured two weeks was more than enough time to incur enough awkward intern moments to warrant a blog post...

Without further ado...

TOP 10 WASHINGTON, DC INTERN MOMENTS:

1. Dressing way nicer than is necessary on the first day - of course NO ONE wants to be the most underdressed intern on the first day, so everyone dresses in absolutely the nicest thing they own. Not that it's a bad thing, but it's always an easy way to separate the interns from the staff! Depending on the intensity of the intern's personality, this whole dressing way nicer than is necessary thing may last the whole first week, or even the first two weeks.

2. Wearing heels to work without bringing an extra pair of shoes - this really only applies to girls, and it kind of goes along with #1. Of course, every girl wants to be seen as professional, but it doesn't hurt to look cute - I mean, that's how they dress in "The Devil Wears Prada!" So of course, you coordinate your whole outfit, right down to the shoes (I myself was reppin' the UGA colors: white top, black skirt, red shoes). One problem: the shoes may feel fine when you try them on in the store, or even in your room while you're getting ready. But try walking to the metro, waiting for the train, standing on the crowded train, walking uphill to work, walking to lunch, and doing it all over again in reverse. Yeah, not fun. Needless to say almost everyone who's been an intern for a day or more brings two pairs of shoes to work.

3. Arriving insanely early to work - again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it just further separates the interns from the old hands. Even though I had perfectly timed my commute, I left a little before 8:20am on my first day and arrived to work over 2o minutes early, aka before the staff had arrived. I had been so worried that I wouldn't make it if I didn't catch the 8:20 train to Capitol South that I'm pretty sure I elbowed a few children to get on the train. Not my proudest moment. Turns out I couldn't even get into the building (officially) since I didn't have my badge! Fortunately for me, my co-interners are similarly ambitious and thus I was not alone! Needless to say I have adjusted my commute accordingly.

4. Wearing your badge all the time - some of you will remember my post about interns on the train and the importance of wearing one's badge (which blatantly says INTERN regardless of where you work, meaning we are all equally pathetic) in a highly visible area. Well, this does not necessarily just apply to the metro. One may observe interns wandering the halls of their place of business frantically searching for their badges so they can go to lunch. There are those interns who always forget their badges and are thus always having to be "claimed" by someone else to get back into the building, and there are those who wear them on their person AT ALL TIMES.

5. Being afraid to talk about work (or anything, for that matter) in public - again, this is not necessarily a bad thing! In a city like DC, you can never be too careful about talking about work in public since you never know who is standing behind you at any of the many Starbucks-es! (I've never been sure what the plural of Starbucks is...) But, my fellow interns and I spent the first week petrified that a reporter was going to sneak up on us and force us to relay sensitive information to the byline-hungry press! (And as someone who is rooming with said press intern, I'm constantly worried about wiretaps and misquotes!)

6. Thinking you left your wallet at work when you get to the metro and spending 45 frustrating minutes searching your cubicle and the Longworth House Building Cafeteria for it only to find that it slipped to the bottom of your purse. ... this one needs no explanation.

7. Calling someone who is two years older than you "sir" or "maam" - while it is always important to show deference to any and all staff members when you are an intern, it's hard to remember that some of these people who have "real" jobs are not that much older than we are! Meaning we're that much closer to the "real world." Maybe that's just the southerner coming out in me, but I feel that if there's a chance that the person I'm talking to is five minutes older than I am, they deserve to be called "sir" or "maam!"

8. Jamming the scanner at work - while not a big deal once you are established at the office, as an intern it is both expected that you will screw up a piece of office equipment, but it is also highly embarrassing. But once you do it, you just have to suck it up, admit to your intern mistake, and find someone to fix it. Or, just find someone to fix it and pretend like it was broken when you got there...

9. Thinking that because I'm from Georgia I can handle the DC humidity - ok guys. I've already admitted to being a metro snob. But I never thought of myself as a southern snob...we'll save the regional snobbery to people from places like New York, LA, and Texas (note to my LA and New York friends...I love you!). But I found myself saying on numerous occasions, "yeah this weather is hot, but I'm from Atlanta so I'm used to it!" While I appreciated every single person who told me that DC was humid, I secretly thought to myself, "you clearly would not last a day in the South!" But when I actually started living here, I realized that the DC humidity is MIS-ER-A-BLE. I guess I forgot that DC is literally a swamp. I'd take Atlanta humidity over this any day!

10. Getting excited when a presidential motorcade drives by - clearly, waiting on a street corner for an hour and a half waiting for the president's motorcade to pass by for five seconds is an obvious intern move. I feel like you never really get over seeing the president, but seeing his motorcade the first week being here was a pretty awesome intern moment!

I'm sure I'll have even more intern moments as the summer goes on, but here's the list two weeks in! And since halftime for the USA-England soccer match is almost over, I'll leave you with this: USA! USA! USA!!

219-212...the score that matters!

Well, it's Saturday! And what are Saturdays for? Catching up on things you didn't do during the week! Such as clean your room, do the laundry (neither of which I have done as of 2:30), and catch up on blog posts for the week!

Last time I posted I had just come off of a Colin Powell-Dick van Dyke-seeing the President high, which managed to last all the way through work the next day! Especially since that night, Monday, was the much-awaited RNC-DNC softball game! We were all pretty excited about it, despite the fact that we hadn't won in a few years. The communications department assigned interns to come up with slogans for signs and to make them...of course, they had to be approved, and some of our more interesting ones were vetoed. But we still had some pretty good ones to work with! So after work, we all donned our AWESOME "Team 44" jerseys (as in, 44th president...), and made the somewhat interesting journey to the softball field.

After an interesting 7 innings, the Dems lost 15-3...which was pretty bleak. But I don't think anyone can deny the fact that we had the most spirited fans, the best signs, and the most awesome cheers! The sign that I held said: "RNC Softball Equipment: $2000. After-party at the Voyeur: $1946.25. DNC Domination: Priceless." Another said "219-212...the score that matters" (which in case you were wondering was the House vote on the healthcare bill). When it became pretty apparent that we weren't going to recover from our horrible loss, we just started trying to irritate the Repubs as much as we could! From chanting "We Passed Healthcare" (to which they responded "Repeal Healthcare," to which we counter-responded, "It Still Passed") to cheering "Oooooooo-bama!" when a batter swung to the slightly more obnoxious "O-O-O-Obama, O-O-Barack Obama," we definitely had a great time! Even though we lost by 12 points, we were encouraged by the fact that empirical evidence shows that when we lose the softball game we win the subsequent election, and I'm assuming that the magnitude of our loss will transfer into November! But don't quote me on that! :)

However, after the game was over both sides decided to go to the same place, which is always interesting. It was basically like a junior high dance...the red shirts were on one side and the blue shirts were on the other, with a "no man's land" by the bathrooms! I guess not even the most American of sports can trump partisanship!

In other sports-related news, in case you didn't know both the NBA Finals and the FIFA World Cup are occurring at the same time! Which means that it is very difficult to get any work done without becoming distracted by sports talk. Everyone in my department has filled out a bracket for the World Cup (GO USA AND VIVA ESPANA!), and I'm finding that I'm quickly becoming a soccer fan. As far as the NBA Finals go, I really couldn't care less about basketball, but I have to rep the East Coast since I'm surrounded by LA-ers and cheer for the Celts!

I guess that's all for now...this whole catching-up-on-my-blog thing is harder than it looks!

Week 1: Stalking Celebrities

Well, as many of you have already seen from my facebook status, I had a pretty amazing Sunday! After Meredith and Alan got to DC, we walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House and ate lunch at Old Ebbitt Grill, an iconic DC restaurant! After they got all checked in, we decided to check out Chinatown, and on the way home decided to go by Ford's Theatre (which is where President Lincoln was shot...you all remember the 7th grade tour!). Little did we know (well actually, Alan knew) that the president and countless other Washington notables were attending an event there, and the president's motorcade was getting ready to depart, much to the distress of several hungry, irritated tourists who just wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe. After waiting on the curb for over an hour and hanging out with some Obama die-hards, we finally got to see the motorcade! As in, I actually saw the back of the president's head through the window, which I wasn't expecting! Crazy!

So naturally, after the motorcade passed everyone dispersed, but we decided to hang out outside the theater for a while to see who else would come out. Sure enough, several notable legislators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid and Congressman John Dingle, along with several other cabinet members, came out! More importantly, I got to meet Colin Powell! And by meet I mean chase him down the street asking if I could shake his hand (he politely told me he couldn't stop but extended his hand anyway! Awesome.) Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Dick van Dyke came out! And let me just say, he is probably the most pleasant man to walk the Earth since Mr. Rogers. We also got to see the guy who plays Phil Dumphy (the goofy dad) on "Modern Family," which is one of my favorite shows! Robin Roberts from "Good Morning America" was there too, as were George Lopez, Lionel Ritchie, Kelly Clarkson, and Woody Allen. By the end of the night, I'm pretty sure I was more excited to see Powell and van Dyke than I was to see the president...maybe.

Well now I must go to work! Coming up next: the RNC v. DNC softball game...

Great Night, or Greatest Night?

Wow...two blog posts in a row! That's a lot for me...

Well, I lied. This blog post will NOT contain the Top 10 Greatest Intern Moments. If that's all you really wanted to see, by all means go back to reading Texts from Last Night, checking Kim Kardashian's twitter, or whatever else you would be doing on the internet (even though those are basically the two best things). For the rest of you, by all means keep reading!

Last night was a pretty epic night! A few of the interns and I decided to crash another intern's party (with permission of course!) that his school friends would be at. And I'm proud to say that, at a party of about 15-20 people, I was the only non-Californian present. Needless to say my nickname that night was "Georgia," and apparently "yall" is the most interesting word in the world!

After we left the party, we decided to walk over to the White House (you know, because the White House is a ten minute walk from the George Washington University Campus! N.B.D.) It was so cool to be there a) at night and b) when there was no one else there but security and a few Asian tourists. Like, we could actually stand outside the wrought iron gates undisturbed by the elbowing of camera-happy tourists. Awesome.

So after we got our fill of the Obama residence, we took the next logical step: let's walk to the Washington monument! You can basically see it from anywhere. Little did I know that "walking to the Washington monument" would translate into actually walking up to the Washington monument. Like touching it. (Pictures to come soon...) While we were in the area, we decided to just swing by the Lincoln Memorial. Again, no big deal. I've been to the Lincoln Memorial before on class trips and family vacations, but it's always been super crowded and I've always felt rushed. But being there at night with almost no one there was such a cool experience. The statue just seemed so much bigger when you're able to just stand in front of it uninterrupted for as long as you want! Even better - standing in front of the Gettysburg Address, which is inscribed on one of the walls, and just being able to let the words sink in. Knowing that those words are the reason that our president is able to be our president...wow. We all just sat on the stairs for about 15 minutes thinking about how AMAZING our country is and how lucky we are to have a city that is completely devoted to the American people and our history! How cool is that?!

Well, that was my nerd moment for the day. Today in a nutshell: woke up late, went to lunch at this AMAZING place called Good Stuff Eatery (which is owned by one of the guys from "Top Chef"!), walked around the Capitol and the Mall, and went to the American Indian Museum...not my favorite, but the Indian legends were awesome!

I guess that's all for tonight! Lata!

PS, I found out today that in the basement of the DNC is one of the original filing cabinets from when Democratic Headquarters were at the Watergate Hotel (you've heard of it?). LEGIT.

*Sigh*, Tourists!

Well, I've been working in DC for three days now, and I'm already a pretentious subway snob!

I've learned that the metro provides a very interesting perspective into the lives of working DC. The last few times I've been to DC, I've prided myself on being able to navigate the metro - always making sure to have my card ready to go through the turnstile, knowing which direction on which line I need to go, and making sure to stand to the right on the escalator for people to pass on the left. I thought I was such a pro!

Well, since Tuesday I've officially been a working resident of DC and thus feel completely justified in turning up my nose at the various school groups, families with small children, and other tourist wannabes like my old self! I'm now one of the hustling and bustling suit-wearing, badge-toting interns who rolls their eyes when someone stands on the left side of the escalator, takes their sweet time going through the turnstiles, or stands in the middle of the doorway trying to decide to get off while studying a giant map; of course, I have a secret stash of maps in my desk at the dorm. But would I ever bring one on the metro? Puh-lease. Geez...tourists!

Another thing I noticed about the metro is how much it resembles sorority rush at UGA. The past few mornings in the throng of interns waiting at the Foggy Bottom metro station, I noticed myself looking around to see what the other girl interns were wearing. Some I noticed were wearing flip flops while carrying their good shoes in a bag, which I regretted not doing when I took off my red heels yesterday to find that my heels were the same color as my shoes. Others were wearing casual dresses, some were wearing dress pants, and the really intense ones were wearing all black and white with stilettos. After about 30 seconds of surveying my fellow female interns, I noticed that they were all doing the same! It's pretty silly really - we might as well be wearing Lily Pulitzer, Tiffany's jewelry, and getting ready to walk down Milledge.

And when you actually get on the metro, the badge-scouting begins. Being interns wanting to distinguish ourselves from the tourist rabble that also rides the metro, we all attach our badges where they will be most visible to the average viewer. Thus, it's pretty easy to glance at someone and see where they're interning, which of course everyone does. The "Hill" interns, aka the ones who intern for a member of Congress or a senator, have red badges, as do the RNC interns (our Republican counterparts!). Thus, my yellow badge stood out amongst all the red...the few, the proud, the DNC interns.

In other news, out of 30 interns, only two of us are from the South! There are a few people from LA, NYC, and a few other places in New England, so needless to say my friend's Tennessee accent and my ATL lingo pretty much stand out. To top it off, almost everyone in my department is from Chic-aaaaa-go. You know how I found this out? By asking, "hey, are all of y'all from Chicago?" Which elicited quite a few laughs. As do my choice of the phrases "fixin' to," "goin' to," and "legit" (mostly because I never realized how fratty that sounded!). I've actually had quite a few people ask me how I like living in "Hot-lanta" - I didn't have the heart to tell them that no one has called it "Hot-lanta" since 2004.

At first I thought it was a strange coincidence that there were only 2 interns from the South. Then I realized that we are probably the only two Democrats south of the Mason-Dixon and that they probably brought us on to increase diversity in employment. Either that or they thought we were spies from the RNC and wanted to keep an eye on us...

Well, that post ended up being longer than I meant it to be! I'll post more about my actual job and exciting weekend plans later! Thanks for reading! While I really really do miss Athens and everyone there, I'm having such a great time living in such a great city!

PEACE.

Ps: coming up, on the next edition of "From the Classic City to the Capital City!" : my top 5 (or top 10, depending on how tomorrow goes!) greatest intern moments from my first week interning!

Happy Memorial Day!!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!

I can't think of a better city to be in today!

Well, I finally made it from the Classic City (for those of you who are not blessed enough to live in the wonderful city of Athens, Georgia, Athens is called the "Classic City...hence, the blog title) to the Capital City! After an eventful and somewhat stereotypical road trip, including car trouble, a torrential monsoon, and road closures in DC because of a motorcycle rally, I made it and am moved into my dorm! Which ironically is 203 Munson Hall (my freshman year I lived in 203 Myers Hall! Weird!) After having dinner with my parents, I said goodbye for 2 1/2 months, which sounds like an eternity now, but I know it will go fast! Strangely, my first observation upon getting off the subway at Foggy Bottom, which is my stop, was that DC is home to a large number of fratstars! Which is fiiiine with me...it sure makes Athens seem a lot closer!

Fortunately, my dear dear friend Wendy is here visiting and is staying with me! Her boyfriend is staying in Alexandria, so today we met him there and walked around old historic Alexandria. And by walked I mean hiked up and down the main strip, which is deceptively long. Piece of advice to all you ladies (and gentlemen who are so inclined): gladiator shoes are not exactly made for trekking through old towns! Let's just say I want to live in Alexandria someday! It's like a bigger version of Athens, plus a few boats and minus a few sorority girls (which for some of you is the best part of Athens anyway). After eating AMAZING burgers at a place called the Hard Times Cafe, Wendy and I decided to do some shopping, and after getting cup of coffee #2 and some fro-yo, she went to a movie with the boy and I *attempted* to map out my route for work tomorrow!

After looking at Google maps and studying my route, I hopped on the metro and got off at my stop. Those of you who know me have probably observed that I don't necessarily have the best sense of direction. So, I started walking down D Street in search of S. Capitol Street. Conveniently, the roads surrounding the Capitol were blocked off, so the fact that I was aimlessly walking up and down D Street with a phone in my hand studying my GPS probably didn't look suspicious at all! After walking past the same group of barbecue-ers who probably thought I was either a terrorist or a girl who is incapable of reading a map, I finally found it! And that's why we do a practice run.

Well, I guess I'd better stop blogging so I can get ready to have a social life tonight! So far I'd say that my commitment to this blog is pretty high, despite those out there who doubt my sincerity (you know who you are!). Until next time!