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!