1 Month In

Another week has gone by and I realize I've already been here for a month, scary. I have become more and more comfortable with life in the city and can even give directions around my home and work!

My first few weeks in Senator Levin's office have mainly been filled with running errands, obtaining signatures, and mail and news sorting. But in addition to these tasks I got to give my first tour of The Capitol last week. The couple I took around were history buffs and very politically aware so in addition to teaching them about The Capitol, they taught me a few things! One of my favorite tidbits about the building, and that my tour participants enjoyed, is a statue on the Capitol Rotunda carved in 1921, Portrait Monument to Suffrage Pioneers, that depicts Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott as well as a large uncarved chunk of marble. This statue was carved just after women gained the right to vote and it is reported that the uncarved portion was reserved by the artist for the first female President of the United States. Additionally I got to escort the Afghanistan Ambassador to the U.S. through The Capitol for a meeting on the House side. It was a really neat opportunity and I was particularly excited that the Ambassador had been to Bloomington, and knew how beautiful the IU campus is! The Senate adjourned last week so things are definitely going to be slower at work. I'm hoping that there will be more opportunities to become involved in more comprehensive, in-depth projects.

This past-weekend some of us IU girls headed down to the National Mall for a rally at the Lincoln Memorial. I had not yet been to the Lincoln Monument, and definitely had not been to a rally like this! The event was named "One Nation Working Together" and was billed as a positive message in opposition to the recent Tea Party gatherings. Although it turned out to be almost exclusively a pro-union gathering that did not stick to the script of strictly positive messages it was an incredible experience to see tens-of-thousands of passionate people gathering for their cause. There were lots of extra signs and things laying around so I tried my hand at being a protestor!

Captiol City Living

So far I've been in Washington DC for about three weeks, and definitely loving it!! My experiences so far have definitely reinforced my desire to live in an urban area. And working & pretending to be an adult has not been too bad so far!

I am interning in Senator Carl Levin's office on Capitol Hill so there are always a million things going on and lots of work to do. In my first week in the office I attended the House hearing on the Enbridge Oil Spill in Marshall, MI. It was a really good experience, even though I could only stay (standing at the rear of the room) for 4 hours of the 6 hour hearing! First the commissioner allowed 6 Michigan residents living around the spill to testify as to the hardship and health issues the spill had caused them, as well as troubles they had in dealing with Enbridge. Next officials from government agencies dealing with the spill answered questions about how Enbridge's pipeline was not shut-down due to deficiencies before the spill as well as what changes will be made to government regulations to avoid future disasters like this. Lastly, the Enbridge CEO answered harsh questions about his company's policies and their post-spill actions. Unfortunately I did not get to stay to see the CEO get drilled with tough questions, but the transcripts show how serious the committee was about getting answers.

As for my living situation, the apartment is really nice! We're on the 6th floor with a beautiful view of downtown Silver Spring, Maryland and the Metro stop is about 500 yards from the front door so it's really great to commute and travel to see things. There are 4 of us living in the apartment, 2 in each bedroom and though we all didn't know each other we're having a blast living together! We are also learning that a furnished apartment isn't quite completely furnished, for instance we have 2 pots and 1 pan for the stove, and if we don't run the dishwasher once-a-day we usually run out of something we need. We were also bummed to learn that our provided "artwork" in each room is exactly the same in the other students' apartments. So we have begun to cover them up with more personalized items, including our own finger-paintings and a full-page picture of dogs we found in the Washington Post.

Hopefully more details, and pictures, soon!