Receptions Galore in DC

There's so much to do in DC -- for tourists that is. Personally, I think I'm a local by now, having spent 10 weeks in the district last summer, a few weekends throughout the school year, and three weeks this summer so far. With that being said, it should almost be a given that I have been to the White House (both outside and inside), the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Mem...
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District of Humidity (Round Two)

Hello Sagehens! If you're reading this and are a current or recent grad student, congrats; you survived your freshmen/sophomore/junior/senior year! If you're an alum, thank you for hosting me in San Francisco during spring break for Pomona's Alternabreak, single-handedly making college affordable for me, and reading yet another summer intern's blog. Sophomore year is finally...
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Getting my Kicks on Route 66!

On August 22nd, I packed my bags after being home for less than two weeks and headed to the Windy City to visit Jonathan Starzyk PO’13, check out the city, and road trip to Claremont! Although Chicago was slightly disappointing at first, the city ultimately surpassed my expectations. We walked along the Magnificent Mile, and I was taken back by the number of floors that Burberr...
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Farewell DC!

The week of August 5th, the last week of my internship, was a busy week for me. There were mandatory exit meetings and discussions that I had to attend and people whom I was planning to meet. I met with a Pomona alum I had first met through the Shadow-a-Sagehen program in December. I remembered she worked at the Department of State, and thought she would be a great person to co...
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Meeting Royalty in DC

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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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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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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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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