On July 29th, the Jordanian Embassy co-hosted an event with Generations for Peace, a non-profit organization that focuses on leveling the playing for youth around the world to ensure that children around the world have equal access to education, health care, and opportunities. With three interns assigned to checking in guests, I was told to greet guests as they entered the lobb...
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Month: August 2013
All Play, No Work
On weekends, I was free to do whatever I wished, from exploring DC to hanging out with other interns to sleeping in bed all day. When I wasn’t touring the National Mall for the fifth time or walking through Georgetown, I found other things to occupy my time. One intern I worked with at the Embassy of Jordan hosted two pool parties at her apartment, which was really fun. With th...
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Brief reflections on a transformative summer
I completed my final day at my summer internship last Friday, and by this time Monday I’ll be back in Claremont for two weeks of training with the student Advocates for Survivors of Sexual Assault. I’m sad to say goodbye to Oakland and San Francisco. I’m happy to say hello to Claremont, although as a city it doesn’t quite stack up to what’s going on here (which isn’t to say tha...
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From Keyboards to Scanners
Coding emails all day for hours wasn’t my cup of tea, and it showed. I wasn’t looking forward to going to work every morning when I woke up and I walked around the office in a depressed mood. I did not feel as though my skills were being used to the office’s advantage, but rather, I was doing mindless work that anyone that knew how to read could do. After a couple of weeks of t...
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You Call, OPC Answers
Speaker series is one aspect that I appreciate about working at the White House. The Office of Presidential Correspondence either schedules speakers such as Alan Kruger, chairman of the National Economic Council and the assistant speechwriter to the President to come speak to us at the office about their work and how they got to where they are or we as a group of interns go ove...
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Monument Hopping at Midnight? Why Not?
The weekend after the fourth was pretty eventful for me. On Saturday, I met up with a high school friend and we toured the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, which housed jewels, fossils, bones, insects, mummies, an African elephant, and just about everything in between. Afterwards, we went on to the Hirshhorn Museum of Contemporary Art, the Air and Space Museum (my favorite m...
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OA
I’m arriving on campus in just eight days! An Orientation Adventure (OA) Leader position is responsible for my early return. I distinctly remember leaving Yosemite as a peppy (and at that point, dirty) first-year, wondering whether I’d ever return to OA again. I hoped so, because I thought it was the best thing in the entire world without exception, and that my life would in...
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The Imminent Future!
Before college, I held steadfastly to the notion that you don’t move up to the next grade until the summer was over. On the last day of fifth grade, my teacher congratulated us on becoming sixth graders and I rolled my eyes (in fact, this teacher noted on my report card I needed to have less “attitude.” At least I was developing a sense of self early on…?) My parents, also p...
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Food, Friends & Fun
Following a long and tiring week at work juggling between two internships coding emails and researching special reports for the Jordanian embassy, it was nice to see some good friends in DC. My friends Jonathan PO’14 and Madison that goes to American University came out to DC to visit the area and meet up with friends, and we all had a pretty eventful weekend. After work on Thu...
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The Fourth: Cookout, Beach, and Fireworks
You just can't beat the fourth of July in the capital. The patriotic feeling you get when you walk around downtown and see the Eisenhower Executive Office Building decorated with American flags, inside and out, reading about what's going on in the city during that weekend as tourists flock to DC, and being around powerful politicians is something that is indescribable, but I ca...
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