DC is such a strange city to me. It doesn’t even feel like a city. The area I live in feels more like a giant neighborhood with all the townhouses, parks, corner markets, and mom and pop restaurants, and I live right in the middle of this “city.” It feels like you ride the metro for like 4 stops and you’re already in areas where the houses actually have nice grass lawns. There isn’t a lot of traffic except on rush hour, and there aren’t that many people walking around on the sidewalks unless it’s time for everyone to walk to capitol hill. I suppose I still have yet to see other parts of downtown that may be away from the mall, so I may end up eating my words later. There are a couple things I don’t like about DC. The metro only has 5 lines, meaning that there isn’t great coverage to different parts of the City. Also, the water is known for being pretty cruddy here. I think it’s sad that our nation’s capitol doesn’t even have good running water. What in the world is with that? It tastes so bad that when I drank some, in a moment of desperation for water, I coughed and gagged for like thirty seconds. The city grew on me a bit, though, when I was walking to a corner market about four blocks away for a gallon of water. The chill neighborhood-type vibes I felt were actually pretty nice. This city is nowhere as intense as Paris. Paris is crawling with activity. I also like the townhouses. They are charming, and much better than apartment buildings you find everywhere else. I like that DC is kind of a throwback of how cities used to look. I think it may be an ineffective city to be our nation’s capitol, though. The one thing I find kind of eerie about DC is in the mornings when the whole town moves towards the capitol. I feel kind of like an ant.
Mom tells me the first week is always the hardest. Like how Kirsten was calling home every day her first week on her teaching job. That gives me hope that things will get better. It’s actually been really chill here. I just need to work on being more outgoing and asking for little jobs here and there. I got an assignment on Friday where I was supposed to enter names and emails from like 100 business cards into the computer. When I got all done, I accidently lost it all and had to start over. It was ok, though. I like mundane chores like that for some reason, and it helped the time go by much quicker. We, as interns, also got to tour the capitol on Friday. It was fun, but they don’t take you in very many rooms. It was good for us since we will be doing tours there, hopefully a lot. I also got to go into the senate and house of rep rooms where they do all their dirty work. I spent the rest of Friday trying to research more material I could use on my tours so that they are interesting. There’s not that much to talk about. I can talk about WY’s statues that they put in the capitol. There’s Chief Washakie and Ester Hobart Morris. Y’all should look them up. They are quite interesting. Utah’s statues are the guy who invented TV and Brigham Young, which I thought was cool. It was sculpted by Mahonri Young. I also got to ride the little train that runs under all the government buildings here.
I have had a plight for food. I ordered food from Safeway, but then my credit card has been canceled because the company thinks it got stolen so they could buy shampoo and stuff while in DC. I will have to attempt later. Thankfully, before my credit card died, I ordered a ton of cheesy breadsticks from pizza hut (you need to get ten dollars worth or they won’t deliver.) so I have been eating those all weekend. I also was able to get to a target to get the little necessities like shampoo and so forth. The target trip was kind of heck though. It took like an hour just to get there. And that target is super busy because it is so close to a metro stop. I saw a lot of people with carts so they could cart their food to wherever they live and I coveted that. Then carrying all our stuff back to the apartment wasn’t fun either.
I have a little sob story. Since coming to DC, I have been having the worst luck! I bought a pizza at the Smithsonian to bring home for dinner, only to find that there were two pieces missing. Next, when I ordered pizza, I also ordered water, which failed to show up. Next, I bought gummy calcium supplements that I was really looking forward to eating back at the apartment to find that the set I bought had already been opened. Also, I bought a wall charger only to find out it doesn’t work. When I was doing laundry, my detergent fell off the dryer and hit my knee. Finally, I got a giant sliver in my heel from my kitchen floor. It was in too deep for me, but thankfully, there’s a nurse office here in the Senate buildings, and they took it out for free. I said I had a sliver and the nurses started laughing at another nurse who calls them splinters. Welchie called it a splinter, too, so I’m not sure if that’s a regional thing or what. Well they took it out for me for free. Macy says they are awesome to have around because if you feel like you are getting sick or anything, you can go to that office and they take care of you for free. Man, my nurse had to dig it out. It wasn’t terribly uncomfortable though. I’ve just been limping around all morning. Hopefully it feels better soon. Well, with bad luck like that, sometimes you just need to laugh about it. I just wish it didn’t also waste dollars.
I’ve also had an issue where I realized that I haven’t been having any water since the weekend started. The tap water is unbearable. I had been going on close to three days without hardly any water, which I hear is when most people start getting real sick or dying, when I finally made the trek to buy myself a gallon of water. I will probably be making that trek a lot. Dan joked that I should be on the tv show, I shouldn’t be alive from the animal planet channel. Water to me was always such a simple thing that I never thought much about, but now that I’m in the city, I have to be very mindful of it. I feel like I’m on survival mode out here. I’m always wondering where my next meal will come from. I even stole a glass of milk from one of my roommates and shook while I was drinking it. Don’t worry, fam, I’m mostly being dramatic. It will be nice to get my groceries, though. I love that I can get it delivered to me. I find nothing more depressing than grocery shopping, so I think it’s great. I also love the cafeteria here. It’s so yummy. I usually buy a ton of food to stuff myself with since it is now my main meal. I also buy an extra sandwich to bring home with me for dinner. That cafeteria is a life saver.
This weekend was mostly just me getting settled in. I really haven’t been doing much. I made the trek to target. That took all day and I will have to be going back to return the vitamins and wall charger. I’m not looking forward to that. I may just do that next Sunday so I don’t waste another Saturday. On Sunday, I went to the WA DC 2nd ward YSA. It was nice because it was just two blocks away from the metro. After church, I went downstairs to talk to the clerk to see if I could talk to the bishop and such. Well he turns out to not be very nice. He asked curtly if I filled out a new member sheet and asked why in the world I hadn’t gone to the new member meeting that morning. I’m still not sure how I was supposed to know about that. I gave it to him and then he got annoyed that I was actually in the wrong ward. I asked him what I should do and he was all “well we can’t take your records here.” …thanks? No I meant where should I go. Well, didn’t I know how to find what ward I was supposed to go to? I was just like.. well chill out, that is an easy fix, I’ll just go to the other ward next week. I went home and google mapped where the other ward met at, and it’s nowhere near a metro stop. This distresses me very much because I obviously have no other mode of transportation. I wish they would have just let me go to the other ward. I will email the clerk of the other ward to see if there’s anything I can do. I hope he is much nicer. I am not extremely interested to go to the ward I went to if that guy is such a little.. jerk. Also, that singles ward was HUGE! At least twice the size of a singles ward at BYU. I didn’t like that very much. It’s hard to meet new people in a ward like that. I can’t wait to get settled in the other ward and very active in all the activities. I need to start actually making friends that don’t go out to drink every night. I think FHE will be my best tool because they split those up into smaller groups. Hopefully I can find other interns to chill with too. The singles here tend to be older for obvious reasons. I also find that Arizonians are still full of themselves all the way out here. It was so nice to be able to take the sacrament, though. We’ll see if I can get this silly mess figured out. Of all the things to go wrong. I really wanted and needed this to turn out right.
On Monday, I was going to hang out with Max, the Indian affairs intern, and do touristy stuff. He decided it was too cold and I was just fine with that because I was ready for another lazy day. By the time I was ready to go to target, it would have been dark when I was heading home which worried Dan, (J) so I decided to just organize my room. I hung up all my cloths with my new hangers, put random junk away, did all my laundry, bought my gallon of water. It was just a nice day. I was in a great mood. I also got to socialize with my roomies a little. I really do like those girls. I hope they don’t think I’m too weird since I’ve been rather recluse these past couple of days. They also had fun and went out a couple times this weekend. They keep inviting me and saying that when I go they won’t drink as much. I’m looking for the advice from my family… what do you think of that? I’m not so sure yet. I also need to look up and see if there are any music venues around so I check them out. I would much rather go to shows than go to a bar. MUCH rather. Of course there will prob be bars at the venues. It’s all good, though. I will see if my roomies ever want to go with me. I need to check it out tonight.
Also, peter juanpere (sp?) called me on Sunday to see if I wanted to go skiing with him and his friends the next day. I totally missed the call, so that’s too bad. I texted his phone just to say thanks for the invite so maybe he will call me later sometime. Welchie also invited me to a wizards game which I think is next Tuesday. That will be a lot of fun, I think. I just need to go out and start doing stuff. I also need to motivate myself to do so. I always feel so lazy after work and I usually want nothing more than to go back to the apartment and veg. That’s all I’m doing tonight since I don’t know about my real ward’s FHE.
Cities are so inconvenient to live in. The simplest tasks, such as grocery shopping, turns into a whole day affair and hassle. I’m really starting to miss BYU. I can’t wait to go back next fall. I’m also stoked to be in Cody this summer! It’s going to be amazing. I’m already counting down the weeks. I think I only have 18 left… I remember kind of complaining that BYU was like constantly going to church. Now I totally miss that. Even in Cody where everyone also drinks and are immoral, they are not doing that around me. Also, there’s something about being so close to nature that just cleanses you. Cities really weigh down on me. I can handle them alright, but they do depress me some. I learned to love Paris, so I’m sure I’ll get to that point here.
Speaking of Paris, I was looking at some of my pictures and reading blogs from back then. I haven’t done that in a while because it made me sad that I wasn’t still there, but it made me happy this time. I totally miss that city. I know I had a hard time there for a while, but I ended up being truly happy. Something that helped was that I made really great friends. I failed to keep in touch with them, and most regrettably, with Ariel. I should maybe work on reconnecting with some, but I guess I’ll have to wait until next fall. Carter is back in the states, but I’ve thankfully moved on since then. I can’t wait to share that city with the people I love. Hopefully I will get to go with the parents after this internship ;) hint hint.
I just read an article in Political, a newspaper on capitol hill. It was by rep Cory Gardner (R-CO). He noticed that Washington DC’s economy is doing excellent in comparison to other places in the country, mainly his state. He complained how the local governments were held back by over 9,000 regulations set by the federal government and he complained how the local leaders know how to deal with local problems better than federalists from WA DC. I couldn’t agree more, and I’m glad someone put forth a valid complaint about the problem. The article is “Federal Bureaucrats Don’t Know America” from today’s issue if you want to look it up. Idk if there’s a place to find that newspaper online. A senator, Richard Moore (D-mass) actually voiced the same opinion interestingly. He said “don’t forget where you came from. Too often, state officials who are elected to congress suddenly decide fed gov knows best in addressing public policy issues, mandate duties, and costs on state and local gov.”
I also read an opinion article in the same newspaper by Joe Scarborough. Although I disagree with the last article of his that I read, this article has a good point. This is not a time for republicans to strengthen their crazy gun talk. That just loses points and class. I don’t think their gun gibber gabber will necessarily cause the next tragedy, but I do think it is doing a lot to hurt the political party. When the republicans have a chance to take over, they should not screw it up by losing points with swing voters because they are being idiots. In the very newspaper, Michael Kinsley is still arguing that republicans are to blame for Tucson because the republican party is the only party with crazy notions. I’ve also read that Loughner actually leans quite to the left… if any of his ramblings make sense, which I also have understood to not make any sense. Kinsley also called the assassination attempt “carefully planned.” Huh? What I like best is Kinsley used to be on a show called “crossfire” which to me, sounds like many crazy people could take as a gun reference. He’s also the guy who I referred to as a hypocrite in my last email. I like reading his articles and picking them apart like that, but I wonder how many people stop to realize that most column writers are, by nature, liars and exaggerators? Ok, that’s me being hypocritical and exaggerating.
Something that I find interesting on the hill is the amount of neighborly feeling. Senators and representatives are all close to members of the opposite parties. It’s kind of nice to hear that.
Welchie and I just got lost in the Capitol building. We had to drop something off to a staff member who works there. It was fun cause we could go places that said that no tourists were allowed there. Also, we got to see some of the cool parts of the building that are less seen. I was happy to see colorful hallways and big chandeliers. I’m glad to know that our capitol building has it’s gaudiness, however limited. It’s still nowhere near the Hotel de Ville, I’m sure. Just the exterior of the Hotel de Ville is awesome. I wish our capitol looked like that. I walked past the Hotel de Ville every day last year. I saw people going in and out of it who must have been staff for important politicians. I never thought I would work in the united states version the very next year J. I did go into the Hotel de Ville building, but only to the post office that is built into it for some reason. Welchie is a funny person to walk around with because he is just a walking commentary of himself.
My name plate and badge have blemishes, and being Dad’s daughter, it bugs me. I can’t keep the badge because it’s “property of the senate” but I hope I get to keep my name plate. I don’t see why not! It will go on my school desk. It just occurred to me that I’m out here doing (semi) important things, but I still have school to go back to and finish. I’m actually looking forward to that. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I guess! Well, no, I will never say that about poli sci 200. Or anthropology 100. I think those are the only two classes I have ever absolutely hated, but remind me if I’m wrong.
Sometimes i wonder what senators actually do. Their staff seriously does everything. they're the ones that write bills, email constituents, and so forth. if i were to run for senator, i would say "vote for Hanna ('s staff) for senator!" we should vote for who they hire... also, people on capitol hill are obsessed with blackberries. they always say stuff like "turn off your cell phones and blackberries" or "i will have my cell phone and blackberry with me" and it's always cell phones and blackberries. maybe it's like the official cell phones that they give to employers... i don't know.
And for your enjoyment...
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