The first day of the internship was like the first day of high school for me. I dressed my best hoping to impress people, ate a bowl of cereal, and headed to work.As usual, I was late, so I for sure thought that I wasn’t going to impress anyone, but once I got to the building, there were other interns in line waiting to get badges, so I joined the line. Looking back at it, the four-day orientation week was a blur but a bit overwhelming. All the associates and interns, a grand total of 60, were brought to a confrence room and lectured every day about the rules of working at “the White House,” what we could and couldn’t do, how to dress, and what to expect, all while introducing ourselveves multiple times. During this time, I learned about the different departments that make up the Office of Presidential Correspondence- mail analysis, greetings, volunteers, students, agency liason, gifts, writers and production and comment line. We even had to take more than one coding test to see who was better fit for a job at coding emails. To my surprise, I found Dixie Morrison PO’15 working here along with me, who I’d come to know while taking a class together at Scripps in the fall. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who had to repeat that I go to Pomona College in Southern California, although most people knew of it. Phew!
During this week, we were asked to rank our preferred departments. I had writers and production, agency liason and mail analysis as my top three choices respectively. The next day, I found out that I was placed in mail analysis. Orientation week continued with the interns and associates becoming friends, which involved a lot of “where are you from again?” and “what school do you go to?” questions. In the midst of this, I was finalizing my schedule with the Embassy of Jordan, where I also applied to intern this summer. I figured why not maximize my time in DC and do two internships instead of one, and I am! I might sound hectic, which is party true, but for the most part, it works out really well: interning at the Correspondence office five days a week from 9:00am to 6:00pm except for Wednesdays and Thursdays where I stay until 1:00pm, and then the Embassy from 1:00pm to 5:00pm.
It was finally the weekend and I couldn’t be any more happy since I was exhausted. That Sunday was the United Nations Association National Conference in DC, and since I’ll be interning with the Pomona Valley chapter in the fall, I was invited to attend. I woke up that morning with the worst stomach pain and was feeling extremely tired, which made me believe that I had a stomach virus. Nonetheless, I still toughed it out, hopped on a bus, and went to the confrence. I ended up leaving the conference after two hours of getting there because of the unbearable pain that my stomach was causing me and my inability to focus. I went back home, got in bed, and tried to sleep the pain away, which didn’t work. My dad drove down from Philly to DC later that night with dinner because I didn’t eat anything all day, and went to the local hospital here the next morning. After many IVs, a CT scan, and examinations, it turned out that I had appendicitis and needed surgery that night or else my appendix would explode inside of me, which would have been an even bigger issue. Honestly, I was scared because this was my first surgery ever and didn’t know what to expect. But after seconds of receiving anesthesia, I was out for a while! I woke up three hours later with three small incisions in my stomach and a numb memory. I slept at the hospital that night, took off from work for the entire week, and went back home to Philly to recover. What a way to spend the second week of my internship in DC.