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...
Read More
Internships
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...
Read More
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...
Read More
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...
Read More
Where are the lawyers?
When I explain how the organization helps clients defend their housing rights, the first question I hear in response is oftentimes, “Do you have lawyers in the clinic?” We do not! For those unfamiliar with the approach that we use, the next question might be, “Why not?” or “How do you accomplish anything, then?” The counselors in the clinic are trained in San Francisco tena...
Read More
Out & About
Once I was back in DC and at work, I was placed in the email department within mail analysis. I was responsible for analyzing and coding emails that came in through the Whitehouse.gov site so that they could receive policy letters. Aside from doing that, I also had a two-hour comment line shift where I answered the phone and took down constants' comments, which I always looked ...
Read More
Inside City Hall
My two main responsibilities at the office are staffing the reception desk and doing clinic projects. On the atypical days, I get to accompany the organizers out of the office to various events and actions. While I find most all of the work here exciting, these outings are the most extraordinary and have been the most memorable parts of my summer. About a month ago, I accompani...
Read More
Operation Orientation
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 ...
Read More
A Tourist in the Capital
On May 26th, my family and I drove down to DC, and there signed the lease, which was my first lease-signing ever, went grocery shopping, unpacked and got settled in. I was renting a room in a house there, and had five other housemates, but we all had our own rooms, which was nice. Only thing that’s a pain is being responsible for cutting the grass, especially when I’ve never mo...
Read More
First-Time Renter in DC
I somehow managed to fall across the listing for the Office of Presidential Correspondence’s Associate Program, which I thought would be a great experience for me. I worked for the Obama campaign last summer as an incoming first-year, and thought that experience that I gained as a summer fellow, along with my interest in public service, would make me the best candidate for this...
Read More