Supreme Courtin'

So last week, we were supposed to go see an oral argument.  To do this, we were supposed to be at the steps of the Supreme Court by 6AM to line up.  My idiot ass cannot get out of bed, and thus I missed this incredible experience in favor of two extra hours of sleep (this is the second time I've done that this semester, the first being this breakfast at the Department of Labor where I could've met Secretary Hilda Solis, except I'm an idiot).

BUT. There was vague vague redemption.  Our class met Justice Alito.  He was weird.

The Supreme Court building is amazing, easily the most impressive building in DC (which is, if you haven't noticed, comprised almost entirely of impressive buildings).  It has a huge patio area, huge grand staircase leading up to this HUGE column front.  Across the top, it reads "EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW" in huge block letters. Also, according to Asst. to the Solicitor General Melissa Arbus-Sherry (Tufts/WSP grad...she gave oral argument the day we were supposed to watch it, and when she came to speak to us, our Professor cried when he told her how proud he was to see her argue in front of Supreme Court) there is actually for real a basketball court inside the Supreme Court.  New life goal: play on this court.  Whether that means working in Supreme Court in some respect or breaking in at night. Hopefully the more legal of those two options.

Terrible cell phone shot.

Anyway, Justice Samuel Alito, appointed in in 2006 following the departure of Sandra Day O'Connor, is described on Wikipedia as "a conservative judge with a libertarian streak." Honestly, he's a brilliant guy (as much as conservatives can be brilliant), but he had the social skills of Mark Zuckerberg during The Social Network.  Or this guy:

The problem with this photo is that you expect that this nerdy boy is the kind of guy who will want to jizz his intelligence all over you by continually inundating you with obscure knowledge about things you probably don't care about. Alito is probably what this boy looks like after 40 years of being picked on, avoiding eye contact and only speaking about the things he finds most interesting unless you ask him a really specific question.  You ask him what he thinks about the declining number of cases being taken by Supreme Court, he says "uh, I don't really know why, but I don't think we could do any more than that."  Ask him about his opinion in the Doe v. Groody case, and he'll go on for twenty years about why he chose to rule on a Fourth Amendment basis, as opposed to Clarence Thomas choosing the same ruling a different way. 

Anyway, he spoke and answered questions for maybe 20 minutes. Here's our class photo with him:

WSP plus Alito (in the middle)

Also, my friend Jane from class told me later that as we were walking into the Lawyer's Lounge, where we sat with Alito, she saw Justice Kagan stroll on by.  No posse, just the lady herself.  Nobody noticed.  This morning, when I woke up at 5AM (because my roommate was leaving for New York and dried her hair with the lights on forever), I read her whole Wikipedia article. She's a badass.  I wish she were more a little more liberal.  Jane says it's "disgusting that she hasn't come out yet."  I wish she would come out too, but maybe she just really isn't gay.

But I mean, come on, she probably is.

Also, this morning, read all of Sonia Sotomayor's Wikipedia article.  Just saying, they spent a lot more time proving that Justice Sotomayor was smart in this entry than they did in Justice Kagan's.  They both went to Princeton and graduated summa cum laude, but there's mad detail about Sotomayor.  They even told us she was valedictorian of her elementary school class.  Come on now. But also, in general, Sotomayor's is way longer, which is potentially just because she was way more in the public eye. 

Willst du mich verarschen?

On Thursday, I went to Germany.  It looked a lot like the 123 basement.

The German Embassy (there is a house attached behind this, which is where we were)

One Thursday every month, the German Embassy has a Happy Hour, which a bunch of the German WSP students found out when they went looking for a decent Oktoberfest substitute.  Anyway, Katharina's friend Timo (who's 27 and looks very much like a grown man, but is also one of the nicest guys I've met here) took her last month.  This week was the last time the Germans plan to drink it out for a while because their embassy is moving locations, so it seemed like an awesome time to take up the opportunity.  This worked out nicely also because Katharina's friend Alex came to visit/travel around the US, so he was staying with us and looking for things to do in DC.  Anyhow, all of our names got put on a list, so we took a cab and headed out (the cab driver, world-traveler that he was, was extremely unimpressed by my nationality, so he ignored me mostly).

Anyway, we got there, rang a doorbell, gave our names, bought drink tickets (in Germany, the drinking age is 18, chuh), and walked downstairs.

I wish I had photos of this.  If Zeta tried even remotely to clean up their basement, and if they kept the lights up (this would also prevent unwanted groping, but also probably cockblock a lot of boys because they'd have to show at least some social skill to get girls), and if the music were a little classier, this basement would be exactly the same. There was a built-in bar whipping out beers to people crowded around the bar (told you, samesies), except the beer came in bottles, and there was no Natty present.  They had three options for beer:  Becks, Pilsner-something-German-that-was-not-delicious, and Corona. Tons of Corona.  Turns out Germans love Corona.  Mexcellent.

Anyway, it was a pretty interesting experience.  There were people of pretty much all ages present.  Also, they did have a really beautiful garden and an equally beautiful patio, where people were crammed together smoking cigarettes as fast as possible. This chubby man standing behind us was red-faced because he'd been laughing so boisterously (if there were any word more applicable then "boisterous," I'd use it). There was, in fact, a man who looked a lot like Hitler (sans mustache).  I told Katharina, who rolled her eyes because Hitler jokes probably get old, but then I showed her this man, and it got too real.

About an hour after we get there, rumor spreads that they're going to close the bar soon.  Between the three of us, we have 2 $10 tickets, and beers are $2, and having had only one beer, we panic about potentially having wasted $14.  So we go back to the bar, and collect our remaining seven beers, which they give us all at once without question. These all go in Katharina's bag.  We are mature.

It's 2º outside, but we go out to this patio again, and crowd around this space heater.  Somehow, we meet these other kids, who are American grad students from California, and we start talking.  A girl named Michelle Chen is also from LA, so we start talking, and she takes some pictures of the rest of the night (which I would have if I could find her on Facebook, which I've thus far been unable to do.  Turns out that Michelle Chen is a popular name). A 20 foot Asian guy named Danny whips out a deck of cards and tries to initiate some sort of drinking game, which brings scorn from on-looking Germans.  Instead, he shows us magic tricks.  Alex and Michelle are blown away. The rest of us think that organizing the deck for 20 minutes before a trick is a little sketchy. 

I just realized that this post has neither pictures nor parallel grammar structure.  I thought about putting in a picture of Corona and a picture of Hitler, but come on, way too obvious.

Anyway, that was most of the night.  Our American grad students went to Dupont to a real people bar, but in America I'm still a minor, so I had to pass. We struggled to get a cab back, but eventually one drove by and he drove us home, where we played this drinking game where you need to maintain rhythm to finish the one beer we had left.  I lost. And that's my German Embassy story. 

The Update

All is well.  My research paper has been kicking my ass, but I finally got the day off tomorrow for Veterans Day to catch my breath.  Here's some updates.

• 4 days, 20 pages.  Yowzah.
• One of the guys at the dinning hall told me last month that I'm gaining too much weight, and now he always gives me my plate back with half of it covered in vegetables (which would be okay if the vegetables here were real food).  However, I've figured out that if I wear gym shorts to the gym, he'll think I've been working out, and let me eat french fries without too much harassment.  The other day he told me I'd look good either way.  Thanks, bud.
• I can do Monday and Tuesday New York Times crossword puzzles pretty consistently now.  Wednesday-Fridays are a gamble. 
• There are officially holes in all of my shoes.
• It was cold here for less than a week.  Now, it's gone back up to 60º on the reg.

Boring post. Mostly I just wanted to share the thing about my friend at the dining hall.  Hope all is well with you all!

I Saw The Social Network Last Night...

...and it gave me a panic attack. I think it was too real.

I haven't flipped out like that in a while.  I was starting to stress about my research paper earlier in the day (my first draft of my 35-60 page paper is due on Tuesday...the one I only have 10 shoddy pages written for...), and so I thought maybe I'd try to just chill out about it and go to the movies with Katharina.  So, we met up after work, went to Dunks, and went to get our tickets and sit down.  She got a medium Coke at the snack bar -- it was the size of a helmet.  Or maybe a small child. I don't know how we got that Coke into the movie theater without a forklift.

Good thing they offer free refills.

Anyway, the movie was really excellent.  I'm sure you've all heard the basic synopsis, but it tells the story of how Mark Zuckerberg became the youngest billionaire in the world.  His character is completely unlikeable, so consumed by his obsession with his own success that he really badly mistreats anyone who ever tried to be a part of his life.  It's absolutely worth seeing.

The problem for me was that something about Zuckerberg struck me as far too relatable.  At the beginning of the movie, he's out with his then-girlfriend, completely verbally abusing her, and right before she storms out, the camera zooms straight in on her face, and she says this:

"You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole." 

 Zuckerberg only further spirals away from humanity from that point on, and by the end of the movie, I kind of felt like I was just as despicable as he was.  Not really for any real rational reason at all.

We happened to leave the theater to get the Metro right as the Capitals/Bruins game let out at the Verizon Center, and so all of a sudden we were surrounded by HUGE crowds of people.  I don't know exactly how to explain it, but I all of a sudden I flipped out.  I remember watching everyone move around me, and the more I stayed still and the more they moved, the more uncomfortable and confined I felt.  I started getting bizarrely tense and hostile, totally snapped at my girlfriend, and all of a sudden, I need to get out. I boned out like I've never boned out before, speed walking along a really dangerously close edge of the train tracks.  Some chick in a Capitals jersey bumped me a little, and I totally panicked about falling down into the tracks.  Anyway, I made it to the exit, paid, left the Metro station and took off down the street.  It took maybe two or three blocks before I think Katharina completely caught up with me.

Anyway, it was really weird.  It took me a while to completely calm down.  The rest of the night was weird too.

TODAY THOUGH, I went to Urban Outfitters (every time I go there, I think "fucking hipsters" in my head every time I see a new article of clothing or stupid kitschy book that I secretly want to buy) and bought some pants without a hole in the crotch and a moderately cute skirt I wont be able to wear until it's summer again (or maybe when I'm home for thanksgiving?).  Since then, I've been sitting in Starbucks slowly stealing better and better seats.  Now I'm by a window three stories up near downtown.  This is the view from the window:

Sorry this picture isn't good.  But city lights are cool, even if they're not New York City lights (which apparently is the only city that really exists)

And With Newly Restored Sanity, I Give You This Post

Before I post anything, I need to plug this election.  GO VOTE.  You must! Here's why:

• If you're persuaded by politics, Republicans are all over this election.  Really awful, anti-gay, borderline racist ones. If they win control of house, it will be even more impossible than it has been in the past to pass major policy (any policy?) through House. 
• This election is being used as a referendum on President Obama, who I think is doing a far better job in office than any of the potential GOP candidates would do. Plus, he's done some cool stuff. 
• Prop 19. 
• Arizona's immigration law is NOT OKAY. Having a Congress who supports that effort really infringes on the civil rights of the 48 million (read: 16 percent of the US population) Latinos living in the United States.
• Most of the GOP candidates really oppose gay rights, some oppose gay rights to LIFE. 

Anyway, I'm angry.  I hope you are too.  Also, not to mention healthcare, education, foreign policy, and the other issues that hang in limbo right now.  Be a good American, hit up your local polling place, and cast a ballot. 

On an entirely contradictory note, I went to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" this Saturday.  The event, designed to be a hilarious response to Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally for Tea Partiers earlier this year, was intended for "people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat," urging America to "simmer down."  Having witnessed the nightmare that was Restoring Honor, I had planned to go to the Stewart Colbert rally long long ago to stick it to the Tea Party to tell them to quit "treading on" my civil rights.  

I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I had really mixed feelings about the rally on Saturday.  Let me run you down on the situation:

I've never exactly been to a rally like that, so I didn't know to anticipate the crowds (or what they would do to the DC Metro system).  There was already a crowd at the turnstiles at the Metro.  We walked all the way down to where the first car sits, and it still took us nearly 20 minutes and three trains to get on.  The experience was something like this (but underground):

By some force of God, we managed to get seats on the train.  We got off at Union Station, got weird-tasting bagels from ABP, and followed the masses down to the rally grounds.  Nobody seemed to know where to go, so everyone was just moving at random like some kind of massive idiotic amoeba.  Everyone was trying to find a good view; a dude next to us brought stilts, and there were a ton of kids climbing trees.  There were a couple girls who really struggled to get into the trees, so the crowds tried to cheer them on (or make fun of them?).  Needless to say, they never got up in the trees, and they got booed when they climbed down.

Anyway, because both Stewart and Colbert had appealed to rally-goers to bring signs to endorse sane and rational ideals, we saw a lot of really good ones while we were walking in. 

We ended up standing behind a lot of really tall people and directly to the left of the second jumbotron, so we were kind of close, but positioned in a place that made it impossible to see anything.  The guy next to us kindly offered to let Katharina climb on his back to take photos, but it didn't help a whole lot.  Right after we got there, The Roots and JOHN LEGEND started playing, which was totally cool.  They were the backup band for the rest of the event.

In fact, potentially the best part of the event was that they had a LOT of awesome random musical performances to play into Stewart and Colbert's banter.  Yusef Islam (the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens) played about 2 minutes of "Peace Train," which was quickly cut off my Ozzy Osbourne playing "Crazy Train," which was epic.  They duked it out for a while, and then the OJs came on and played "Love Train" for good measure. 

Yusef and Colbert

Most of the event was like a giant episode of the Colbert Report.  Stephen entered the event like a Chilean miner from his "fear bunker," he and Stewart sang a song about why America is the greatest country in the world (most of it sarcasm, obviously), and they awarded medals to people in society who demonstrated the greatest "reasonableness" and "fear."  But at the end of all the banter, Stewart made an actually kind of honest speech,  a speech I've posted here and have mixed feelings about.

A lot of what he said rang really true.  We live in a time where policy gets so lost in political rhetoric.  Politicians are constantly telling us what they think we want to hear, and fighting each other by drawing on more and more extreme differences.  I think, in a lot of places in politics, Stewart is right: we're not nearing the end of the world, and we need to fight for common decency and compromise, not a win for our team.

Here's the thing.  Throughout the rally, both Stewart and Colbert tried to play the non-partisan moderate, so they talked a lot about we use the word "racist" too liberally.  And they really glorified free speech, something that I absolutely believe in but I think has definite limits (in light of all the suicides of gay youth and how I feel about hate speech in general).  I still haven't sorted out how I feel about the message he sent, or the message I think people took away from the rally.

Also, here's a video similar to the one made about the Glenn Beck Rally, that probably points to the general stupidity of bandwagon rallygoers, regardless of political orientation:



Anyway, I'm off to grab some Z-Burger.  Typical.  Better post soon!

Just a Nice Day in America

Whhaaaaattt?

I know. Bizarre.  This is a side of the east coast I don't know. Beautiful weather?  I'm wearing sweatshirts and closed-toed shoes just because I don't know what else to do. It does rain randomly, which I'm really not prepared for at all (my refusal to buy rainboots has been an issue since maybe the 9th grade), which is obnoxious, but it hasn't been a serious problem thus far.

Anyway, so I'm sitting outdoors for the second day in a row at present.  Yesterday I went to the National Mall with my roommate, which is a typical touristy thing to do, but it was such a beautiful day, and it just seemed like the most logical place to be outside.

You can kind of see the cross in the mall.  Also, this is my only Google Imaged photo, the rest Katharina took (and I helped!) and are real photos that I sort of have the rights to!

I'm sure most of you know what the National Mall is, but just to recap, essentially the center of DC is built up around 5 major buildings: the Capitol Building, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Washington Monument at center.  Feminist-types have pointed out that the way these are arranged forms a cross, and at the center of the cross stands a huge phallic symbol, but the most important thing to note about the mall is just that it's this big, well kept lawn, around which there are huge symbols of America that draw thousands of tourists daily.

So anyway, we left campus and hopped on a train and got of at Metro Center, which acts as a kind of nice midpoint for the city.  Where we got off, we stumbled in to the USA Science & Engineering Festival, which took over a bunch of streets near the National Mall with mobile science exhibits and other cool interactive science-y things.  We sat down and watched this presentation some guy was giving about energy production and conservation.  We only caught a very little bit of his presentation, but he was trying to explain the problem in a way that everyone could really understand, so he was very dynamic throughout the whole show, kind of similar to a show at a theme park where they try to keep you entertained.

Here's a photo of him talking to himself (via a pre-recorded video on a huge screen)

He was great, but not that great, so we left.  We thought about trying to find a nice place to sit, and so I suggested maybe we could try going to this hotel called Hotel Washington.  This particular hotel has a rooftop bar that had a supposedly great view, and when my mom was in town, we tried at least 2 or 3 times to get up there (but I kept getting carded, story of my LIFE here...). So anyway, we found this hotel and miraculously had no trouble getting up to the rooftop!

Huge letdown. Kind of a boring view, although the view of the Washington Monument was nice (but it's a giant tower, where in this city is the view of the Washington Monument NOT nice?).  I mean, yeah, cool, but not worth four attempts and three rejections to get up there.

Stupid bar.

So after this, we decide to just go to the mall like normal people. But since we were nearby, we went to go see the White House, you know, go say hello to the Obama Family.  Barack keeps texting me to chill, but I've been so busy, so I figured it'd be nice to stop by and say hello.

He seemed a little preoccupied though, so we didn't stay long.

Anyway, we spent the rest of the day on the grass at the mall.  Katharina took a bunch of pictures of American flags, I did some research (free Mall wifi, best decision to ever come out of Washington), and we checked out a couple more touristy things like the WWII Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. Then, we got a little tired, so we decided to lay down...

All in all, a good day.

Today is a even more low key. I'm just sitting outside my dorm.  At Tufts, there exists this one albino squirrel who hangs out on campus, and when you see him when you're walking around school, you feel good because you know you've just experienced something rare and awesome.  On Tenley Campus (where I live now), there was one black squirrel when I first got here, which I thought was a really funny coincidence because of the Tufts Albino Squirrel.  Now, however, there is an entire family of black squirrels, including one baby one, who just ran by.  Adorable.

Mid-October Updates

Sorry for no posts for so long, I'm actually not really sure what I've been doing that's kept me so busy, but I'm sure it was something important.  Since my last update (I know you were all really excited about my hair cut...):

• I took my midterm exam.  So exciting, I know.  I think it went well.  I spent a fair amount of time killing myself studying.
• I found BOMB Mexican food near work, this place called Taqueria Nacional about two blocks away.  They have really good Yucca Fries, and really awesome cheap tacos.  I may never go to Chipotle again (whaaaaatt???)
• I ate so many chips I thought I was going to vomit once.  I went with my roommate to this restaurant to meet her friend and his girlfriend for drinks on Friday, but since I can't drink, my brilliant solution to the awkwardness was to eat everything in sight.  Clearly this worked well.
• I'm sick. Sucks. My nose is raw, and I'm quickly running out of stolen toilet paper to mitigate the nose-flow.  Also, I now talk like an 80 year old smoker/13 year old puberty boy.

This post comes because I'm supposed to be writing a memo outlining what I would suggest as an effective communications strategy for the President's economic policy.  So I spent all weekend in the Reading Room coughing up a lung and reading the testimony of various economic scholars on the president's economic policy.  I think I get it.  I wonder what percentage of America really doesn't...

So essentially, I'm having a stupid week.

Although, I was realizing today that I'm about 6 weeks into my program, meaning it's about half over.  I'm kind of bummed about this for a lot of reasons, probably mostly because I wish time didn't move so fast, but also because I feel like I'm finally starting to hit my groove.  I'm actually working really hard (whhaaaatttt????) and also really enjoying the things I'm doing and my friends here (I think I maybe actually should buy a camera, because I'm starting to want photographic evidence that I was here).

So this is a really dumb post.  I hope nobody comments on it.  I'll try to do something exciting and with photos this weekend!

Also...

I got a haircut.  I always wait til times when I'm home to cut my hair because a. getting haircuts causes me significant anxiety and b. I can usually avoid paying for them when I'm home.  I hadn't messed with my hair for actually almost an entire year though, and it was really long (which actually looked kind of nice sometimes, but was starting to get really ridiculous).

Me before my haircut! 

After deciding my hair situation had finally gone too far, I went to this Fantastic Sam's-like place in a strip mall in Virginia (I housesat for the Morans this weekend, so I was hanging out on that side of town).  As soon as I walked in and sat down at a chair, I realized I'd made a huge mistake.  The only people getting their haircut were a 12 year old boy, a middle aged man, and two elderly women who were actually balding.  

Immediately, I start to panic.  The woman who's cutting my hair asks if I speak Spanish, and then proceeds to sternly chide me for the next 30 minutes about how I'm such a pretty girl and I obviously don't put any effort into my personal upkeep.  I show her the length that I want in the back, but she tells me that my hair grows so fast, so she'll cut more. Great.  She starts cutting, and in my panic I realize that I'm starting to look like Victor from Smoke Signals right after he gets enraged and cuts his hair off with a knife. I feel like I'm going to vom. I start frantically planning where I'm going to go after this ordeal is over to have them fix my hair, imagining then that they too mess up my hair, and after going to four or five hair salons, I just end up with a buzz cut.  Or worse yet...

After about 45 minutes of agonized cutting, blow-drying, and crying, the woman announces she's done.  I open my eyes.  I look pretty much the same, except with shorter hair.  I thank her and pay (but don't tip too generously because I'm still feeling kind of nauseous from the whole ordeal), and leave.

What I Eat On Workdays (and most other days)

A diary of my day largely based on the food that I ate:

Woke up far later than I should have, it's pouring outside.  Briefly contemplate whether or not the rain is a legitimate excuse for being late for work.  Decide to suck it up and go, figuring I'll probably be late anyway. Loan my umbrella to my roommate (not really registering that this means that I won't have one), arrive at work only moderately soaked.

There is officially no longer a desk for me, so I sit on the floor with my laptop in the intern room. We have our morning meeting, I'm assigned to monitor a survey tonight in Mountain Standard Time (meaning it's going to start later than it would if it was EST), so it's going to be a late night. I consider that maybe I'll get a Chipotle burrito for lunch and eat the other half for dinner, but then I remember that work provides us with dinner if we work late.  About 20 minutes after that, I get an email saying goodies in the kitchen.

Come back to the intern room double fisting one of each of these babies.  Sumia, another intern, feeds me one of her cookies because I sit on the floor next to her desk, and I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm a puppy. 

Stomach ache.  Too much morning sugar. I continue working and try to ignore the confusion happening in my belly.  30 minutes goes by. Pili, another intern, walks by the door and says she's going to the kitchen and asks if anyone wants anything. I ask what she's getting and she tells me she's going for nachos. Thinking that maybe my stomach will settle if I balance the salt to sugar ratio, I go "ooh yeah, I want that."  She comes back with a Tupperware box full of chips and salsa. The chips are greasy and loaded with healing power for my digestive system (I must've been right about the ratio thing), so I go back for more. 

Come back with a plateful, and a bunch of salsa. I wonder if I got too little salsa for the number of chips on my plate, but I decide that if I'm frugal, I can probably make it work.  

After this, I feel motivated.  I put in my headphones and get on a roll.  I'm so focused, I feel like I don't even need to stop for lunch, I can just work and work and work forever and not get tired.  So naturally, when Pili stops in and asks if anyone wants to get food, I close my computer and go with her to the Union Station food court.

I don't feel any preference, and I'm not actually that hungry when I get there, so she decides Subway and I go with.  I get a classic 6-inch turkey sub on Italian Herbs and Cheese; lettuce, tomato, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper.  They don't serve avocado on subs outside of California apparently, which is probably why my Subway sandwiches have been infinitely less delicious since going to college, but it's a fairly cheap sandwich, so I feel okay about it. 

Except more squished and empty.

Anyway, so I take my time eating this sandwich.  All of a sudden I'm feeling lethargic.  I negotiate with Pili to steal her desk while she sits on the floor though, so I set up at a docking station so that I can use my laptop with an additional monitor.  I get to work pretty quick, test a survey a couple times (make a couple ingenious edits, of course), and collect more newsclips.  This time I'm really distracted though, I Gchat with everyone I can get ahold of, read a few random Slate articles, and set up a LinkedIn profile (and consequently cry about how pathetic I am). 

When she's walking by, Katie tells me she made Funfetti cookies (made out of the Funfetti cake mix).  I'm not even hungry, but I'm so intrigued that I go to the kitchen to get one. 

By the time I get there, they are gone.  To console myself, I get another plate of chips and salsa.  There is almost no salsa left, but I pour out the dregs onto my plate, because I am Mexican after all.

At this point, Mara has left, so I move back into the intern room (into my own desk!).  I decide I've been working too hard, so I take a break to bum around on Facebook. Nothing of note happens.  I watch a video of Meg Whitman's housekeeper crying because of the way she was treated in their household and want to punch things.  I slow-motion punch Sumia, but she isn't amused or understanding.  While she's yelling at me, I notice something on her desk, a little glimmer of hope....

                                       

I DEMAND to know where she got it ("YUM. Where? Please?"), and she directs me toward the front desk. There are mini Whoppers and Milk Duds, obviously the last picks of the bag.  I get one of each. While walking by the kitchen, I stop by for another entire plate of chips. 

45 minutes later, not surprisingly, all this food is gone. 

At this point, I start to feel about myself, and start writing this post.  Sumia tells me to stop complaining, she ate the same thing.  I keep doing my clips, people walk in and out, and time continues to pass fairly steadily.  At about 6:30, I get the email asking for dinner orders and client codes.  We're ordering Italian...I'm so screwed. I consider ordering a salad, but their salads sound like a piece of iceberg lettuce with some tomatoes and chicken, so I decide 'whatever, today I am going binge like nobody has binged before, and that's just that.'  I order tortellini with pink sauce. 

I monitor my survey.  It takes forever. Sumia leaves.  On her way out the door, she throws me her Hershey's bar and goes "dessert!"  I cry of pain/joy. 

The food takes forever to come.  Finally, I get the delivery call, and Andy runs downstairs to collect.  I've promised myself before dinner that I will not finish it and instead take it home, but it's REALLY good, and by the time I get to it, there's no stopping me.  Andy offers me some of his calamari, which he says he loves "because it reminds me of chicken gizzard."  I choke a little, but he's right, it's delicious.

Anyway, I am now post-tortellini, ready to roll myself home. The Hersheys dessert will have to wait. Here's to hoping its not raining anymore!

CNN, Sexting, and Ex-Convents

This week was busy.

Monday, our two class speakers talked about TV journalism. I always figured broadcast journalism was all pretty faces and no brain (see: Ron Burgundy), or at least required far less talent than writing for a major newspaper, but I'm finding out more and more that there is actually a lot of brain involved in broadcast, and the journalists aren't just the old guys and nose-job chicks sitting in front of the camera.

In real life, he's way older than this, plus no make up.

In the morning, Bob Schieffer, who was an anchor on CBS for a good 20 years and the only guy in the business to have been a Washington correspondent for the four major beats (the White House, Capitol Hill, the State House and one I forgot), came and spoke to our program.  He's been on TV forever, Katie Couric replaced him on CBS not that long ago, and he's still sort of involved in production, but it turns out he's still kind of a badass.  He actually didn't impart much trade knowledge on us, instead talking mostly about how politics today is more rude and partisan (wow, nobody has mentioned that before) and how LBJ was the most effective president.  Lyndon Johnson is my favorite president (okay, he effed up big time in Vietnam, but did so many other good things), so I was pleased.

Point being, I was really impressed by Bob Shieffer.  He'd sort of just stumbled into his career, discovered that he liked asking questions, and made himself into one of the most credible Washington journalists on TV.  He brought his assistant with him, who was sort of our age and wanted to be in broadcast on a major network, and so she was sort of telling us how she got to where she was.  She was REALLY hot though, which made me cynical about how I would fair as a girl in broadcast without plastic surgery.

Later that day though, our class got a tour of CNN's Washington building, and the woman who is the Executive Producer for John King, USA on CNN spoke to us, which restored some hope in me.

We weren't allowed to take pictures, but we got to see Wolf Blitzer's office and the set of The Situation Room (which is actually closet-sized even though it looks huge on TV).  Anyway, so this woman spoke with us, and she was awesome, and so I kind of started salivating over her job.  She was talking about how technology has moved really fast in the last few years, and it's important that people invest in their news.  I'm pretty sure I'm 80% against her personal politics, but she's the one who gets to make the calls about who to talk to on air, how to frame shots, how to frame issues, how to discuss things.  Yes, John King is sitting there asking the questions, but she's the voice in his ear telling him which direction to go, as well as telling the production team how to set it up.

Long story short, I want an internship at CNN.  We'll work on it. 

Tuesday was boring, but I did get a lot of work done. 

Today was cool, our speaker was the Senior Vice-President at Edelman, which is a fairly well-known PR firm.  He was in communications during the Bush White House (I'd say 70% of our speakers are conservative), and he was talking about some of the ways that innovations in social networking and technology can be used to promote better political communications (as in awareness/support for ideas and different types of legislation).  He was funny, and he had some really interesting ideas about how to monitor media trends and then utilize them, which mostly just entails making sure that you're at least a step ahead of your competitor (who is, more than likely, already a step behind anyway).  

He was talking a bit about how anything that's ever been posted on the internet is archived and exists there forever, so I decided it would be cool to ask him a question about what that means for our generation (since we've grown up on the internet, and so does that mean that our mistakes will be held against us forever).  I DON'T KNOW HOW, but somehow in the wording of that question, I managed to include the word "sexting," and so the speaker told me that if I might want to reconsider my sexting unless I want to be the next Lindsay Lohan.  I am the laughing stock of my class.  Oh well.

On a completely separate note, one of my favorite places to go at Tufts is the practice rooms in Granoff.  They have nice pianos, and it's cool because I can put my headphones in and jam and be in a space where nobody can hear me.  So I was kind of worried that I wouldn't find a similar place at American for the semester.  Turns out, they have equally good (if not better) practice rooms and pianos hanging out in the Katzen Arts Center. BUT, it's even cooler.  A couple of weeks ago, Katharina mentioned that she saw a piano in this big dance room on Tenley campus that exists between two of the dorms, and last week I finally got around to checking it out.  Turns out the dance room is actually the chapel from what what used to be a convent here a long time ago -- they retained the stained glass windows and stage, and just took out the pews in favor of a dance floor.  However, there is, in fact, a really nice piano in there, and because the room is usually open and usually empty, I can sometimes play in there.  Awesome.

This is how emotional I get when I play piano in that church. [Ugh this picture didn't even come out, but she looks emotional, I assure you.]

Hopefully I can replace that photo with an actual picture of that dance room/ex-church in a while, but there are some dancers in there.  Who the eff dances?  I think it's the equivalent of TDC practice, except people looked like they were dressed in legit dance clothes, so maybe its for real.

This is Beautiful

This popped up on my Facebook sidebar, and it's beautiful.

Saturday Festivals

It's been fairly hectic around here, I'm trying to make sure I catch up on work and school and exercise (jk lol...uuuuuggghhh), and I feel like I'm nowhere near adequately caught up on my sleep.  This week looked a lot like all of my other weeks...class, work, dining hall food.  I tried to see Inception last weekend, but I got carded...apparently, the only theater in town showing it still is showing it as part of "Club Cinema," where they serve drinks as you watch the movie.  We saw Easy A instead, it was cute, but I've already forgotten what it was about. Being under 21 is starting to put a huge cramp in my style. Since most of the students in my program are already of age, they spend most of their weekends out at the bars, and so my weekends have been extremely dry since getting to school here.  I think I need one of these guys:

This weekend though, I managed to have some good sober fun anyway.  Actually, it was kind of a nerdfest, but I really kind of enjoyed myself.  Friday night, I went out with some kids from my internship after work (to a restaurant/bar...everyone else drank beer and I was awkward, but it was good to be social), but everyone left by about 8 to go do other things. I was exhausted (because it turns out that being a working adult is exhausting and sucks because you have to actually be responsible), so I stayed in my room for the rest of the night watching Inglorious Basterds and fell asleep at a respectable hour. 

Anyway, so Saturday, there were some festivals.  It was awesome.  Let me tell you about it!

In the morning, I suck at getting out of bed (which is becoming kind of a problem), so I kind of took a while to put myself together and shower and all that, and then I walked to the Metro and went out to the mall.  Library of Congress puts on a National Book Festival once a year, so there were a TON of really famous authors who were doing readings and book signings on the National Mall.  Katharina, my roommate, has been reading Jonathan Franzen's Freedom: A Novel, the Oprah Book Club one, so she went and heard him speak and got her book signed and all that.  I got there kind of late, so I didn't do a whole lot there, but it was just a really nice opportunity to walk around the mall on an obscenely hot day (95º, down from 100º the day before!).  Now, we this poster hung in our room (but from 2010):

We ambled around looking for food for about a second before we realized everything around the mall is super expensive and not that delicious, and then we grabbed the Metro out to Alexandria (notice the suspense, I haven't told you exactly where we're going yet).  The train was single-tracking and we got delayed forever, so we just read our respective books and I fell asleep for a bit.  Finally, we get off at Van Dorn.

So, my parents have family friends in DC who have a daughter in school at USC, so the two of us essentially switched families. The Morans have been REALLY good to me since I got to school this semester, insanely good to me.  Makes me kind of wish that I actually had gone to college in a place where we had family, because getting adjusted to college was hard, and I feel like it's been really nice to feel like I'm taken care of, just in case. Anyway, this weekend, they gave me this awesome gift: tickets to Virgin Mobile FreeFest (which, granted, are free) and a car to get there. 

The Morans: Karen, [boy who isn't their son, Reid, but usually Reid stands there], Shelby, and David.  Photo via my Facebook creeping on Shelby.

So David picks us up from the train station, and we go get lunch at Johnny Rockets.  After having not eaten all day, I'm starving, so I WOLF my cheeseburger.  We leave for pretty shortly thereafter, getting lost about 6 or 7 times before getting on the main stretch of the road.  David had to stay on the phone with us for about 30 minutes, I felt like such an idiot.  BUT, we did eventually get on the road just fine. 

In general, the thing I miss most when living on the East Coast (besides my family and friends, I miss you all to death) is my car.  I love driving, the way it feels, the freedom it gives you.  It's great.  Driving on the highway to FreeFest felt amazing, and to blast the radio, sing in the car (although when I'm alone, I don't have to justify my love for Taylor Swift to anyone), and push the speed limit (just a little Mom, I promise) was such a gift. 

Katharina took pictures on the ride up, I'll steal them from her later and get real photos.

The ride took a little over an hour, plus the traffic mess it took to find parking. We parked kind of far up the hill from the event, got about halfway there, and then realized that we'd left the tickets in the car. MAJOR WOMP (actually, not my fault, I was the responsible one!) (Dad, stop laughing).  We walk back up, get the tickets, and then realize that there was a shuttle bus set to take us to the venue anyway.  

By this point, we've actually missed a lot of the festival.  Kind of a bummer, they had some really cool acts in the early afternoon (Temper Trap, Jimmy Eat World, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, and Yeasayer played in the morning).  But we got there for the end of Thievery Corporation, who were pretty awesome.  The venue was really cool, they had three stages set up, plus a bunch of promotional stuff set up (I snagged a Converse gym bag).  I'm sorry I don't have better pictures, I had to resort to my cell phone because I haven't gotten around to buying myself a new camera.  

This was the side stage, where we spent most of our time.  Set up next to this stage, they had a ferris wheel set up: 

We spent most of the rest of the day on the sidestage.   Apparently, right around this time, Matt & Kim AND Chromeo played, but we had no idea, so we just chilled obliviously on the grass surrounded by drunk people.  It was great.  We didn't wait around long though, because Ludacris came on about 20 minutes later.  The sun was just starting to go down, everyone was super drunk, and he was playing some REAL throwbacks (even like, Act a Fool and What's Your Fantasy?) and every song he's ever been featured in (Break Your Heart and Yeah were big favorites), so everyone was really excited, me included.  He was actually a really good performer, I didn't really remember his show from Spring Fling freshman year. 

After Luda, we got some food.  While I was waiting for them to make my quesadilla, these drunk guys swaggered over and started attempting conversation with me and the girl standing next to me.  One of them handed me his iPhone to keep, but I politely declined and returned it to him.  Fireworks were going off for a while, I split a funnel cake with Katharina, and we wandered around the grounds a little bit.  At 9, we went back to the side stage, where MIA was playing. 

She was SO. GOOD.  I know MIA is really an acquired taste for a lot of people (except for Paper Planes, there's nobody who doesn't like that song), but she put on such an awesome show.  I wish I had a better photos than these, but I don't.  We were really far back for a while, and then some people got confused by her music and peaced, so we got continually closer and closer.  She really is so weird, but nobody works it like she does.  Then she gets about a hundred people on stage to "mosh the fucking pit," and we get even closer because a huge gap in the audience has opened up. That's supposedly the end of the song, so even more people leave, but we figure she's such a showman (and she hasn't played Paper Planes), so we stick around.  Of course, we're right, and she comes back and like hops into the crowd and informs us that we should all rush the stage.  You can kind of see her in this picture, she's in that space between that guy's head and his arm.

Anyway, it was awesome.  And then we drove home (which was fun, we played my iPod on the car stereo and actually managed to not get lost) and grabbed the Metro back to school. Long day, totally worth it.

Akademicz

I almost said that it's starting to cool down here, but I checked the weather and found out that that's a big fat lie.  I don't know if any of you know how infamous Washington D.C. summers are, but the carry-over into September is brutal.  Usually, I can't even walk the two blocks from here to the Metro without getting my shirt all sweaty.  A lot of our guest speakers have talked about the advent of air conditioning (which we have in our room, thank god) as revolutionary to the American political system.  Apparently, there's a statue of the man who invented A/C erected in one of the congressional buildings.

When God gave the world A/C.

In thinking about that though, I realized that I haven't discussed much about the academic side of my program.  I think a lot of the things we're doing in class are really cool and worth bragging about (although post-Obama post, I feel like my bragging is getting annoying).

Our professor actually set up the class so he talks as little as possible.  The first few class meetings were lectures, but after that, we've just had a series of guest speakers who do different kinds of work in Washington.  We've really stayed away from the traditional "this is what a Congressman does" kind of stuff (probably more by virtue of the fact that my professor can't get ahold of anybody on the Hill right now because it's election season and everything is such a mess), but we've gotten to see a lot of people specializing in really specific fields, and it's been really cool how those groups fit into the larger Washington pictures.

Our class.  Our professor is a man, but he looks a lot like that.

So as to not go on and on, I thought I might try to mention just my favorites.  Coincidentally, my favorites have been all women (although there was this one woman who was AWFUL. Andrew aptly said he wanted to make a human centipede and put her in the middle. I tried to ask her a question, but she totally blew me off and just talked about how horrible healthcare reform is).

• Karlyn Bowman -- she's a pollster and public opinion scholar, which sounds kind of flat, but  ended up being REALLY interesting. She's part of the reason I took the GQR internship.  Here's some of the interesting and weird stuff that Americans believe:
• Young people are more liberal on most issues, with the exception of abortion, where we're more conservative than our parents.
• We also are much more gay-tolerant, but also are more likely to believe that gayness is a choice and not genetically predetermined. 
• When asked if they would elect a  ______ president (with options for that blank being like "gay," "black," "Muslim,"), they found that Americans would be least likely to elect an atheist (sorry Daniel).
• Susan Morrison -- journalist and badass.  Wrote for the Washington Post, New York Times, CBS, ABC, and worked as a communications advisor for Papa Bush.  
• Lisa Muscatine -- the freaking chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton.  The whole thing just made me so star struck.  This woman gets to put famous words into the mouths of people who have influence.  It's essentially getting to craft the exact message of what you want these people to support. Okay yes, the words are essentially Hillary's and not Lisa's, but you get to craft the message.  Plus, you get to chill with important people all the time, and sleep on couches and be around at a moments notice, which doesn't sound glamorous to a lot of people, but I think sounds totally incredible.

Hillary delivering a speech written by her speechwriters.  That's not to say that Hillary isn't brilliant and can't write her own speeches, I'm sure she can.  But maybe someday I'll write a speech and someone famous will read it! Maybe!

We've had a lot of other amazing speakers at every level.  Last week, we talked to two different House representatives (Jim McGovern (D-MA), who restored my faith in humanity, and Paul Ryan (R-WI), who I kept calling James Ryan in my head).  We spoke to a really famous ad communications guy for political campaigns, multiple campaign finance specialists, a guy who specializes in redistricting and drawing congressional district (gonna be real important next year post-Census!), communications director for the NRCC (our only non-white speaker), the professor of the Public Law program here, and a few other important types.

Also, one of our speakers called that cool Obama thing I went to a "Cinco de Mayo festival."  I wanted to send his balls to "Will it Blend?" Sometimes I hate America.  Someone just try to tell me that I overreact about racism too much.

Anyway, I just got my first paper back...I think I've been spending my time sort of inefficiently.  I've tried (as much as I think I can get away with) to just do the things I want to do and hope that I can BS myself some As, but I think I might actually need to quit slacking and start working.  I am still a student, after all, I think I just adopted some study-abroad-itis, which looks really similar to the senioritis I caught in my last year of high school. 

Off to cure myself by cheating on Tisch with another library. Wish me luck!

Fancy Times

As it turns out, my parents, back when they were energetic and idealistic young people in Washington D.C., were some serious hot shots.  My dad was a legal staffer working on education policy for Ted Kennedy, and my mom worked for National Council of La Raza doing work on bilingual education and other education policy for Latinos.  Somewhere in their D.C. careers, they met, probably hated each other, somehow fell in love, and close to 30 years later, they're now living in LA with my 17-year-old musician younger brother and Skyping with me across the country while I'm in college at Tufts.

But just because it's 30 years later doesn't mean they're not still pretty well connected. 

My dad came out this weekend to visit DC, partly because I'm here, partly because it's kickoff week for Hispanic Heritage month, and partly because he just missed this city.  Kind of like when my mom was here though, I've been really occupied with school and work and hanging out in my room, so it's been hard to see my dad as much as I'd like to have.  BUT, we have managed to spend a fair amount of time together, and he managed to get me a lot of really amazing opportunities to go to these fancy-pants events, the big time in Latino politics.

So on Tuesday, I slid out of work early, ran across the street to Union Station to buy a dress (it's black and only borderline too short) and my dad picked me up to this event at the Mayflower Hotel for the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts.  So we walk in, immediately my dad starts shmoozing with some guy (because he a gift for being gregarious that I so innately lack), so I tag along and try to intrigue the guy with my "ambitious young person" shtick.  My dad leaves us alone to get a drink, and we struggle trying to find conversation topics, so he's asking me how I like school, what I'm studying blah blah.  It gets so bad that he asks me if I have a boyfriend.  Obviously, this creates some discomfort, but I convince myself that I need to start being honest about myself to other people or it'll always be awkward, so I tell him I'm gay.  Turns out, so was he, and he'd just gotten married in Provincetown, come out after being married for 20 years, and we had a beautiful bonding moment over our mutual gayness.

And so began my career in the art of shmooze.  Between my dad and my godmother (who was also there), there was seriously nobody in that room that I didn't have some kind of access to, it was bizarre.  I met a bunch of people working for Hilda Solis (who's the Secretary of Labor), a dude working for Sonia Sotomayor, a guy who does commentary for Fox News and looked like Duncan Kane (he said he liked my dress, so impressive!), the dad from Ugly Betty (Chelsea, if you're reading by chance, that was the most star struck I've ever been, it was ridiculous), Jimmy Smits, Eric Balderas (the Harvard student who's being threatened with deportation), Esai Morales, and Janet Murguía (the president of NCLR).  So, so so cool.

But BUT, it gets better.  The VERY NEXT DAY, my dad manages to swing tickets for another shmancy event, but this one is huge.  While the other one was in a hotel event room, like where normal people have weddings or dinners, this was a HUGE hall in the Convention Center.  This was half of the room:

The event was held for Congressional Hispanic Caucus's Award ceremony.  The event was hosted by CNN's Soledad O'Brien, who did "Latino in America" and "Gary and Tony Have a Baby" and is actually one of my favorite broadcast journalists, but she was SUCH an obnoxious host.  She'd shush the audience so we could keep moving, and yell when we were talking. But she did get us through the event pretty quickly, and I was exhausted, so that was kind of nice.  Any congressperson with a Hispanic surname or Hispanic constituency was there (Freeman's First Law, anyone?), and I actually got to meet Xavier Becerra (because apparently, he was at my parents' wedding??), but he totally grip'n'grinned me and brushed me off.  I actually didn't get to meet anyone really cool here, but being in close proximity to all these awesome politicians and famous people was incredible.

Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House) spoke.  She was excellent, but she kept pronouncing Nydia Velasquez's last name Ve-LAS-kuez, which definitely didn't score her Latino brownie points.  Kind of reminded me of when my friend Noelle's parents got married, and the minister pronounced them Mr. and Mrs. RAHM-i-raz instead of Ramirez.

And Eva Longoria got this award for doing good things for Latinos (and obviously, for being super hot).  Turns out Gabrielle Solis is actually kind of a hardcore activist, and has actually done a lot of really important things for the community.  In fact, lately my Facebook ads have been her face superimposed on the Capitol building urging me to support construction of an American Latino Museum in Washington. 

             

And then, the coolest thing that's ever happened to me:

Unreal.  Best week ever.  He spoke for a good 20 minutes about Immigration Reform and the DREAM Act.  I swear, if he only ever gave speeches, President Obama's approval ratings would be 110% instead of 41% (my roommate, however, points out that this would probably have been true of Hitler as well though).  In his speech though, Obama said a lot of things that probably sound like just politician rhetoric, but they really reaffirmed my faith in him as a president. He talked about the divide in this country, how everyone has been talking about how "they" are ruining "our" country.  You know, "them," Latinos (illegal immigrants), gays (sinners against God), black people (criminals), the poor (drug addicts and welfare sucks). You mean me.  Anyway, so Obama says this among a lot of other similar comments: "There is no us and them, there is only us." Warmed my heart. 

It's one of the reasons I think having a black president really is different than having a white one (disagree with this if you want).  But I do believe in his domestic policy as a president, I do believe that in most places, our country is moving in the right direction, so Tea Party, go suck a d, because I will fight you to keep this guy in office.

-------- EDITS ----------

My conclusion to this post is lame, and I'd fix it, but I'd run into the same problem that I did when writing it, which is that I don't know how.

Here are some corrections from my mother:

1. Much easier to be energetic when we weren't working full time AND raising kids!

2. I left DC in 1986 -- don't need any extra years added there, thank you very much!

3.  I think we're still pretty idealistic -- we just made a tough choice to leave DC and stay in CA while raising kids and to be around our aging parents.  There are so many different seasons in life and after about mid-39s, it was time to try to make some money so we could raise kids and send them to college and hopefully not live in a trailer park when we retire.  I don't think I ever made more than $35,000 a year while working for NCLR (and that was a fairly senior position!).  

4.  Interesting to see you begin to see us beyond just the roles of Mom and Dad.  Just as we have the chance to see you develop as such a lovely and interesting young woman in your own right.

Love you kiddo, 

Mom

Sorry, meant no offense!  I know you guys are still fundamentally the people you were when you were here, and I've always known that, I just meant to say exactly that, that while I was growing up, you were Mom and Dad, and it's been really great to see more sides to you guys as I get older.