Last night I went out with my roommates, Ashley (with the red hair) and my adorable french roommate Noemie.
We went to an Irish pub where there was a dance floor and so many students from our program, so that was a blast. Then earlier on Saturday I discovered I like going to the gym because I have my own private treadmill or elliptical with my own TV with over 50 channels, so it makes working out go so fast and easy especially since I don't really have access to one in the dorms. I know horrible right, no TV in the room, no friends with TV's and the ones in the lounges do not work. But I can watch the news online so it all works out.
On Thursday, my Foreign Policy Seminar Class went to Fort McNair in DC to the National Defense University to do a simulation on agencies working together for an international problem. The context was that there was an outbreak of avian flu in South East Asia and we all were in different groups divided under the Health and Human Services, Department of State and Department of Defense. We had to negotiate and problem solve while figuring out our policies and strategies communicating with high government officials and other countries. We learned how difficult it is to make decisions with such little time and information and how that process would actually work. It was an interesting and tiring day and I definitely learned more about this potential pandemic which actually could occur in our world someday.
On Wednesday nights I have my International Children's Issues elective course with my Professor Heather Heckel. Not only does she talk a million miles a minute, she spits out so many facts and is so smart. I had an hours conversation with her after class, with another woman in my class as well, about everything from the Presidential election to the unstable situation in Kenya with the government officials and the mass killings to the poor DC public educational system. Although we talked about such dreary subjects, as we always do in the class (like last week we talked about child poverty), I came out with a sense of hope feeling good about knowing more and believing that I can make a difference.
Last Monday and Tuesday were my second week days at Polaris Project doing my fellowship. I am getting to know everyone in the office which is great and learning a lot more about what the organization does and everyone's background with human trafficking. I am working under CJ Adams who went to Brown and now is the Operations and Human Resources Coordinator- he is great and has a huge interest in Latin American and trafficking which I think is really interesting as well. So last Thursday I went to Polaris's Happy Hour at a bar/restaurant in Adams Morgan (right by where the office is) and had a bunch of my friends come and eat and drink since a portion of that went to our organization. We had a raffle too and caught up with everyone at work, it was great. I am excited for more events like that in the future. I am going to a Georgetown University Conference on Students against Trafficking all day on the 23rd which should be great. I love how everyone is connected inside and outside the office on this whole anti-trafficking movement. I had a great idea, which I already think people do, but I think it would be great for when someone gets married to have a wedding list registry with all non profit organizations and have people donate like 50 or 100 dollars to one they want to contribute to, instead of just getting funky gifts from your tenth cousin once removed (although I can imagine it is nice to get gifts for you new home or life or whatever). Anyways, just thinking out loud (which is basically what this blog is!)
Getting over my horrible throat based cold last week I stayed in all of last weekend and was so not productive but at least got better. Although last Friday I went to Hillel or Shabat Services with the Jewish community for the second week. My friend Sarah and my roommate Noemie are Jewish and I thought I would try it out and really enjoyed it. Reform service is the less intense I think and there are people my age who lead the group in prayer and song. I have definitely learned more about the religion and the singing is beautiful. It is really a tight knit community and then they have dinner afterwards. We had Motza (no clue how to spell it) ball soup and it was amazing.
Last week, on Friday we went to the Russell Senate building on Capitol Hill to meet with the Foreign Policy advisers of Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. We got to wait in his beautiful corner office and see some of the other Senators and Committees offices. Here are some pictures from the whole amazing experience:
This is my friend from Croatia Iva
Next Tuesday is my supervisor's Bday so the admin assistant who works in the same room as we do and I are making cupcakes for the whole office, so that will be a highlight. Then next weekend I am headed to Salt Lake City to meet my family to go skiing! Yay! more snow....
until next time..I will keep trying to add more pictures...
No comments:
Post a Comment