•Monday, June 01, 2009
Hi kids!
I hope everyone's having a wonderful summer wherever they may be. This has been a crazy last two weeks so I'll briefly summarize:
After moving out of Penn, I went down to DC with my mom to try and find housing for the summer. I had emailed a bunch of students via criag's list and had arranged to see two apartments. One guy I emailed, David, was in Cairo for the past semester and first part of summer so he emailed me back and said his roommate Neil would contact me. Long story short, Neil happens to be the best friend of the president of my sorority and I'm now living there. It's a great house if anyone wants to come to DC for the weekend with plenty of space: you'd be more than welcome! Things on the DC schedule so far- explore M street, visit every single one of the free smithsonian museum, go to I <3 the 80's nights in a park close by georgetown on friday nights where they show free 80s movies, free sangria every friday evening in the National Gallery of Art Sculture Gallery, and BBQ Battle, a Saturday where a couple of streets are closed off and you can sample all this amazing food and there's tons of street music and dancing...I'll let you know how I do on accomplishing all of this!
I started my summer job this past week which was INCREDIBLE. Wasn't sure I was going to like it- I'm interning on the hill with Congresswoman Nita Lowey and I've never really done politics before. But it's great. I basically do ANYTHING that needs to be done which includes answering phones and talking to constitutents and running things places via the underground subway system that connects the house office buildings to the captiol. I've talked to plenty of crazy people over the phone (some were very adement, for example, that people should be allowed to carry concealed weapons in national parks, a bill that's being debated this summer). And when Nita calls and us lowely interns don't recognize her voice and ask who it is we get the resopnse- "Itssssssss Niiiiita!" However, I think it's better than my intern friend whos congressman calls almost every day and asks if the congressman is in. When she says no, he replies "of course not, that's me!" Apparently it will continue until she can recognize him by voice.
Anyway, moving on to more chac interesting things, on Friday I got to put together a binder that was going to the House Appropriations committee on global aid. It included all of the requests that my (liberal) Congresswoman wanted for aid to other countries and grants to organizations that contribute to helping out the global world. That was my favorite task so far.
Also, even cooler, if anyone wants to come to DC on CHAC business, the National Building Museum is having an exhibit called Green Community that runs through October 25th. The first part profiles communities from Greensburg Kansas to Mendoza ARgentina and Masdar City, Abu Dhabi. Each, they site as an example of sustainable planning policy, design and technology in different ways. The second part looks at technologies like edible landscaping, solar power capture and water recycling. The thing I like though is that they incorporate past, more "traditional" ways to create sustainable communities as well like growing local produce and walking to work.
CHAC tracker love and hopes for a fun summer,
Laura
I hope everyone's having a wonderful summer wherever they may be. This has been a crazy last two weeks so I'll briefly summarize:
After moving out of Penn, I went down to DC with my mom to try and find housing for the summer. I had emailed a bunch of students via criag's list and had arranged to see two apartments. One guy I emailed, David, was in Cairo for the past semester and first part of summer so he emailed me back and said his roommate Neil would contact me. Long story short, Neil happens to be the best friend of the president of my sorority and I'm now living there. It's a great house if anyone wants to come to DC for the weekend with plenty of space: you'd be more than welcome! Things on the DC schedule so far- explore M street, visit every single one of the free smithsonian museum, go to I <3 the 80's nights in a park close by georgetown on friday nights where they show free 80s movies, free sangria every friday evening in the National Gallery of Art Sculture Gallery, and BBQ Battle, a Saturday where a couple of streets are closed off and you can sample all this amazing food and there's tons of street music and dancing...I'll let you know how I do on accomplishing all of this!
I started my summer job this past week which was INCREDIBLE. Wasn't sure I was going to like it- I'm interning on the hill with Congresswoman Nita Lowey and I've never really done politics before. But it's great. I basically do ANYTHING that needs to be done which includes answering phones and talking to constitutents and running things places via the underground subway system that connects the house office buildings to the captiol. I've talked to plenty of crazy people over the phone (some were very adement, for example, that people should be allowed to carry concealed weapons in national parks, a bill that's being debated this summer). And when Nita calls and us lowely interns don't recognize her voice and ask who it is we get the resopnse- "Itssssssss Niiiiita!" However, I think it's better than my intern friend whos congressman calls almost every day and asks if the congressman is in. When she says no, he replies "of course not, that's me!" Apparently it will continue until she can recognize him by voice.
Anyway, moving on to more chac interesting things, on Friday I got to put together a binder that was going to the House Appropriations committee on global aid. It included all of the requests that my (liberal) Congresswoman wanted for aid to other countries and grants to organizations that contribute to helping out the global world. That was my favorite task so far.
Also, even cooler, if anyone wants to come to DC on CHAC business, the National Building Museum is having an exhibit called Green Community that runs through October 25th. The first part profiles communities from Greensburg Kansas to Mendoza ARgentina and Masdar City, Abu Dhabi. Each, they site as an example of sustainable planning policy, design and technology in different ways. The second part looks at technologies like edible landscaping, solar power capture and water recycling. The thing I like though is that they incorporate past, more "traditional" ways to create sustainable communities as well like growing local produce and walking to work.
CHAC tracker love and hopes for a fun summer,
Laura
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