Learning from Experience. I hope.

Here’s the second blog post of the last 24 hours. Sorry for all the writing, but there are some pictures down at the end of this post too! This post will cover the day (Thursday) I spent scrambling around The Hill for work as well as last weekend. Here goes.

For work on Thursday we executed what we call a “fly-in.” We indeed flew in four or five faith leaders from the Gulf Coast states to meet with their representatives or senators. The goal was, as far as I’m aware, to convince these congressmen that some of the money from BP should be delegated directly to the people in the area or to groups working with them to ensure they would receive the proper amount of relief they need. Otherwise, the fear is that this relief would be lost in the bureaucracy of the state and not make it to where it is needed most. The majority of the people with whom they met was at the very least polite and understood our concerns. One or two weren’t particularly open to any new ideas, and one or two (who had already proposed legislation) just listened and said that if there ended up being any way we could help, they would let us know. Here are a few of the people we flew in:

Rev. Dawn Flowers is a young minister in Mississippi who we heard about through word of mouth. She was mostly just excited to be here and in the middle of all of this, but she was well composed and well spoken. Rev. Stan Wachstetter is an older minister, but he has quite the history. He has served on advisory boards to George W. Bush and met with every president since Reagan. Tom Costanza is head of Catholic Charities in New Orleans and is pretty well connected to Louisiana congressmen. He’s also very good at talking.

I only got to sit in on one actual meeting, but that was interesting enough. The rep we were supposed to meet with was voting on something else at the time, so we meet with a member of the staff. Usually what happened was a few of our guests would meet with a staff member for a bit and then the congressman would come in for a few minutes and say hello and ask a few questions. So it was unfortunate that the one meeting I was in was one of the two meetings in which a congressman didn’t actually join us.

Anyway, my job was mainly to shepherd our guests from building to building as we changed venues for meetings. Dirksen and Rayburn were the two buildings in which we had the most meetings, but we also met with Barbara Boxer in the Capitol building. (I also had to run to a restaurant named Cosí to pick up lunch for everyone.)

Despite not getting to be in the meetings, it was a really cool experience. I got to see a little bit more of how things actually got done. We met with politicians on both sides of the aisle, as our issue was one more of humanitarian concern than actual politics. For the most part I just talked to other interns in the building while I waited during the meetings, but I did have one neat encounter. When I was sitting in Senator Wicker’s office (talking to the interns there who knew Davidson students) a gentleman came in to meet with the senator after our group. It turns out that this man was former Congressman Jim Walsh from New York. He served 20 years and then retired in 2008. At least, he said he retired – that may have been code for “I lost.”

He was kind enough to sit and talk to me about his career and life for most of the time my group spent meeting with the senator. In his retirement he has become a lobbyist, and ironically enough he was there to talk to the senator about fisheries that needed support on the Gulf Coast. Anyway, he really did have an interesting viewpoint on everything that was going on and his journey through politics. Finally, it was 5:15 and all of our meetings were done. When we were sure all of our guests knew where they were headed, I scrambled off and went straight to class.

Ok…on to part two.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about this weekend. Friday night we got a late start and ended up wandering around the Georgetown area for a while before we just decided we were all tired and it wasn’t worth spending any money to go anywhere. Saturday I had a slow start to the day (meaning I slept in longer than I planned to), but in the afternoon I went with Paul, Kellyn, and two other Davidson friends, Keeley and Roxanna, to the Nationals Barbeque Battle on Pennsylvania Avenue. There were dozens of tents set up selling BBQ and a variety of other things. However, you had to pay to get in, so we didn’t really want to pay for food once we were inside.

Thus, we stood in the 90-minute-free-sample-line and got more than we bargained for. There were probably 25-30 tables lined up, and once it was your turn you had to be ready to go. About every third or fourth table there was a small cup of some kind of soda or Gatorade, but every other table was either some kind of BBQ or chips or fries or something of that sort. It was an eating experience unlike anything I have ever done, and by the end we were all quite full. I was just glad I had held everything down.

After wandering around the festival for a while, we eventually parted ways and headed back to our apartments to get ready for the night. One of our friends who lives in Arlington was kind enough to have us over to hang out for the evening, and her house is very nice. It was a lot of fun just to hang out with a bunch of other Davidson kids, though we didn’t receive the most comprehensive directions on how to get back to the metro stop so that took a little bit longer than it should have. Still, it was a fun night.

Sunday afternoon I went back out to the Arlington area to see Ashley Siemers, a friend of mine from abroad who was in town. (She is in the first picture in this post and is described in greater detail in this post.) It was really fun to see her and catch up, plus she was at her cousin’s apartment, which was incredibly nice and had a pool. Sunday evening I went and visited Katie Mixon and her roommate Eve for a bit, but then they decided to watch Black Swan (a “psychological thriller” that I wasn’t particularly in the mood to see) so I left and went home.

As a final wrap up thought, I’ve watch/followed Wimbledon as much as possible, and both the men’s and women’s draws have turned out to be rather intriguing. On the women’s side, there is only one remaining player who has ever won a major, and I don’t think it would surprise anyone if Sharapova cruised to a championship. On the men’s side, however, there is about to be a flurry of great matches. Federer and Nadal are both chasing history, Murray is looking to win his first major in his home country, Djokivic is the hottest player on tour, Mardy Fish is the only remaining American (and at 29 this may be his best and last shot), and there are plenty of other story lines. I’m a little bit sad that I’m going to have to break the streak of 3 (or 4? 5?) years in a row that Sean Favreau has come over to my house to watch the Wimbledon final. Or…at least our streak of being in the same place (one year we were in Colorado and we climbed up the mountain every hour or so to use our cell phones to receive updates). Hopefully it is a great finish though!

I’ll probably try and post again later this week. Last night Paul and I went and studied on the back of the Lincoln Memorial. It was a really pretty night, and we mostly just watched airplane after airplane fly in over the river.

A chandelier inside the Capitol building.

A few of the people we flew in.  The Man in the blue shirt
is Eric Sapp, my boss.

This was outside the Capitol.  A giant motorcade ready to
depart.

The man in the pink tie is Rev. Stan Wachstetter.

The Supreme Court. Not a particularly impressive building.

Headed in to meet Senator Landrieu.

Eric Sapp talking with Rev. Dawn Flowers.

Union Station!

The Barbeque Battle - in the background you can barely see the Capitol building.

They were having a dunk contest.  I decided not to participate.

The Lincoln in the evening.

Airplanes.

The Mall at night.  This would be
really cool if the reflecting pool
wasn't all torn up.

State Department - Don't Even Think About Joking Around

(At the end of this post you will find a virtual tour of our apartment…it’s the best I think I can do to convey how our apartment is set up.)

I made a giant mistake. I chose not to blog on Monday and Tuesday of last week because I didn’t have too terribly much to blog about. Suddenly, I haven’t put up a post in a week, and for the first time in three weeks I had zero hits on my blog throughout the course of Sunday. Whoops. (I know – this is a large, real life problem people struggle with every day.) As a result, once I did start to have things to write about, I had no time to write about them because everything came and went so quickly. Therefore, between the next two posts, I will be covering four main topics: a visit to the State Department, a day spent running around Capitol Hill, the last weekend, and the book I just finished. I’ll try and go in some reasonable order, so this one will cover the book (which I finished on Monday) and the visit to the State Department on Wednesday (which I am going to discuss first, even though it comes second chronologically).

Wednesday I got to leave work at 11:40 so I could run home and put on the rest of my suit. By 12:23 Paul and I were walking towards the State Department, located only a few blocks from our place. It was a rather warm day, so we started to break a sweat. This turned out to be the least of our problems. For starters, Paul’s shoe began to decompose. By “began to decompose,” I mean in about six steps it went from being a shoe to two separate parts loosely attached at the heel. His sole was completely separated and flopping around like a fish on a dock. Far more importantly, I had forgotten my sunglass at home, failing to both protect my eyes and complete my look.

Fortunately we had only a couple blocks to go, so my eyes made it. Our professor organized our tour of State, so all 22 of the Davidson students on my program went on the tour with us. Upon arrival, our professor just laughed at Paul’s wardrobe malfunction and said, in short, “It happens.” He proceeded to tell Paul that he usually carried an extra shirt with him on his way to work just so if something spilled on it he would have a backup. Paul didn’t find a terribly large amount of comfort in this, given that he clearly didn’t bring another pair of shoes with him. Our professor did, however, suggest to Paul that he find a way to reattach the shoe, such as a piece of gum.

Unfortunately, I was chewing a piece of gum. After savoring as much flavor as I could, I reluctantly turned my gum over to Paul. While this sounds gross, I was far more concerned that the security was going to see Paul take something out of my mouth and put it in his shoe and think we were a threat. At any rate, Paul also started chewing a piece of gum, and a half hour later his shoe looked almost normal. It was quite the interesting, gross, and effective solution.

We walked down one hallway that had a low ceiling and plain walls. Evidently the whole thing is color-coded so you can tell which part you are in, because besides that it all looks the exact same inside. We were led into a conference room (across from some really intense-looking “debriefing room”) where we sat around a table and listened to a variety of different speakers. Most were Davidson alums, each of which had previously believed they were the only Davidson grad working in the State Department. At any rate, we heard from people on recruitment and application to State, from people at the Iran and Somalia desks, as well as a couple other areas. A couple of them said things like, “Now don’t go blogging this, but…” Unfortunately I wasn’t able to write about it until now, so I don’t remember what most of those things were. I guess maybe that’s a good thing.

It was all very well put together. State is an interesting place and very firmly locked down. The Foreign Service sounds quite interesting and would certainly be one way to travel around the world after graduation. Unfortunately, I don’t have the “critical language skills” they’re looking for (Arabic, Mandarin, Farsi, etc.), nor do I have any particular desire at this point in my life to be posted for two years in a country not of my choosing overseas. Still, I guess that’s why I’m here this summer – to learn what it is I really want to do and what I don’t want to do. And what I need to do to even have a chance at doing what I want to do.

Similar to our trip to the State Department, on Tuesday night in class our speaker talked about managing crises and helping with stabilization in Africa. (I realize I’m working backwards in the week – my apologies.) I stayed after to chat with him, Dr. Menkhaus, and a few other kids for a couple minutes. In the elevator on the way out I asked Dr. Menkhaus (who plays tennis frequently with other professors at school) if he was interested in playing. While he said yes, our visitor also turned and said he played DI tennis at Davidson when he was there. So we’re going to play sometime this summer. I was pretty pleased with my accidental networking.

On to the second part of this post.

On Monday I finished reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. It’s actually a collection of stories, but “The Silmarillion” is the longest one. Together they make a crazy, odd, and completely new creation story about the world. While I don’t think that Tolkien believed in the fantasy world he created, I’ve done a bit of research and I wouldn’t be surprised to discover otherwise. For example, he evidently referred to his wife as “my Lúthien” (a central character in the stories and a participant in a tragic love story), he also tells a tale of how the world was rounded into its current shape, and all of the tales (culminating with the Lord of the Rings) tell of the dawn of the dominion of men.

Anyway, there were a lot of names in this book, which made it a bit difficult to follow. Even worse was the fact that it was supposed to cover hundreds of years, if not thousands, and that meant that a lot of things happened. It was terribly difficult to keep track of who was fighting whom, who was the son of whom, and which people were “good guys” and “bad guys.” Now that I’m typing all of this out and thinking about it, it is kind of a compilation of every other famous story that was ever written. There’s a creation story, like in the Bible. Romeo and Juliet clearly make an appearance (at least once, if not a number of times). There are plenty of battles and evils that need curing. Jealousy and greed take center stage.

I guess what I’m saying is that, while hard to follow, it really made me think. I can’t even tell you exactly what it made me think about. But there’s something deep and thoughtful about the stories, and he makes the characters in them seem so fair, so elegant, that it almost makes you wish the story were real so we can believe we’re actually descended from people like that. People who are that genuine and noble and good of heart. Almost. Anyway, I’ve now read all three Lord of the Rings book and this prequel this summer, and upon finishing this book I discovered that I would much rather read for personal enjoyment than for class. Which is why I will be going to a bookstore soon to get a book to read so all I have isn’t a textbook. (Thanks to Keven O’Grady for letting me borrow your copy of The Silmarillion three or four years ago only to read it now. I’ll bring it back in August!)

Since this is already a super long post and I have another one to write by tomorrow, I’ll save my thoughts on Wimbledon for the next one!

Here's the virtual tour!
 

The hallway to our room. Ours is the
door all the way at the end.

This is right inside the door, our entrance hall with the
"living room" on the left. Initially Paul and I found our beds
in the living room. We've since moved so we could have
a door to our room.

This door on the right of the entrance hall goes to our
roommates' (Ryan and Ben) bedroom and the bathroom.

This is their bedroom.  The far door on the right wall leads
to the bathroom (which is a rather odd set-up).  Also, it is
unfortunately right next to Ryan's desk!

Our small bathroom. One sink, toilet,
and shower.  I guess that's all we need.

This is a little hard to see (you can click on it to see a larger image)
but it is our living room.  Paul and I both have our desks in here, as
well as our two couches, dining room table, and four chairs.  The
door on the left leads to our room and the kitchen.

This is a view through that door.  To the left
is the kitchen; to the right, our beds.

A further view through the door, turning a bit left to see
Paul's bed.

This is the only divider between our beds and the kitchen.
But at least there is something.  And now we have a door.

Paul, modeling our kitchen.

I bet you can't guess which bed is mine.  I'll give you a hint,
I chose to bring the floral comforter over the Mickey Mouse
one from my aunt and uncle's.  I'm not sure I made the
correct choice.

Seeing Family in DC and another weekend

Quick note at the onset – at the urging of a friend I have changed the tagline on the blog to say “There and back again – Jack Peterson’s travels, tales, and experiences,” since I’m not abroad anymore. I included this in here because it isn’t particularly easy to read in front of the pyramids, but I don’t want to change the picture! Anyway, I suppose the easiest way to cover this weekend is just to go day by day? There’s plenty to report (as always), but I’ll do my best to keep it cheery and short. As short as possible at least. Pictures are uploaded at the end too!

Friday was a pretty slow day at work. The two partners as well as Rachel (who isn’t a partner, but is a lot more than a receptionist, so I don’t know what to call her – she is also the person who oversees my work) were all at a conference in Minneapolis from Wednesday thru Friday. Thus, they left us some projects (such as launching Dave Strohmaier’s campaign for Congress), but by Friday afternoon we (the other intern and I) had done about all we could do.

Right at 6 I left the office and met Paul and Evan Carter (another Davidson friend) at my apartment, changed quickly, and then we headed out to go to a Washington Nationals baseball game. My Aunt Carol Beth and Uncle Rick had bought a few tickets and invited me to bring two friends along! As we walked out of the metro station, it began to absolutely pour. We got soaked, but we went into the stadium and got under cover and ate some food. Fortunately the rain stopped around 7:20, and the game started by 8. The Nationals were playing the Baltimore Orioles, and there were probably more Orioles fans there than there were Nationals supporters. Still, the Nationals won 8-4, and it was really nice of my aunt and uncle to invite us out!

After the game, Paul and I came home and changed into dry clothes and then decided to go out. Natalie joined us, and we decided to meet some other Davidson students in the Adams Morgan area. This is kind of far from our place (to walk at least), so we took a 10-minute cab ride. Our friends were in a place named Madam’s Organ, which turned out to be a really cool place. On the first floor was a bar with live music; the second was more contemporary and “popular” music, and the third floor was an open roof bar. We mostly just hung out on the roof, but it was a great place to be. Eventually Paul, Natalie, and I left, and on our way home (we decided to walk) I ducked into Jumbo Slice. About 20 seconds later I emerged carrying the largest slice of pizza I have ever seen. The three of us took turns eating on the way home, but it was an amazing find.

The next day I got up early (for me on a weekend) to meet my cousins Emily and Angie, and Angie’s husband, Adam, and their two kids, Izzy and Althea (3 and ten months old), to go for a walk around the mall. My cousins in Minnesota were holding a 5K run to raise awareness and funds research to be done on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). My cousin sadly had her son pass away at four months last winter from SIDS, and she and her husband (and many other members of my family) have been very strong and faithful through this push to raise awareness. More about the event itself can be found on this Facebook page, but I thought it was important to note why I was gathering with my relatives on this specific day.

The six of us walked all the way down one side of the mall and meant to turn at the Lincoln and walk back down the other side. Unfortunately the reflecting pool is all torn up due to construction, and we got a little lost and ended up outside the Jefferson memorial – way out of the way. We walked a lot farther than we meant to, but it was still fun and we all had a good time. Angie’s kids are absolutely adorable, and I could have just played with them for the rest of the day (though it did get tiring constantly picking Izzy up and running around with her). Hopefully I’ll get to see lots more of them before the end of my time here in DC. After our walk we ate the restaurant in the sculpture garden, which was a nice little restaurant.

That night Paul and I, along with some of our roommates and Richard (a Davidson friend) walked to the Georgetown area to explore. We ended up at a place named Rhino with about 7 or 8 other Davidson students and spent the night just hanging out there. The Georgetown area is really nice, and rather safe. Plus, it’s a little bit of hike, but we can walk to and from Georgetown instead of having to take a cab. After being here for about two weeks, it is pretty clear that I’m going to have to cut the spending as far down as possible.

Today (Sunday) was a relatively slow day, but Katie (Mixon) and I did go walk around for a bit. She showed me a really good bagel place near Dupont, and there were a lot of restaurants in the area as well. Paul and I later went to the GWU fitness center – it is a very, very nice place. Four or five stories tall, filled with any kind of fitness equipment one could need, four basketball courts, a climbing wall – this place had it all. I guess you should expect that if you pay to go to the most expensive school in the country, but still it was really cool to look out over the city while we played basketball.

Hopefully this coming week is pretty routine, at least as far as work and class go. I may update a couple times with some thoughts about class or things going on here, but we’ll see how much time I have. On a side note, Wimbledon starts tomorrow, and John Isner plays Nikolas Mahut in the first round – the same pair that played the record setting match in the first round last year (it ended 70-68 in the fifth set). I’m looking forward to watching as much of it as I can online after I get home from work. Anyway, enjoy the pictures!

The White House...obviously.

The Capitol Building...obviously.

This...is Izzy.

Adam, Emily, me, Izzy, Althea, and Angie about to set off
on Ray's Run!

The Washington Monument...obviously.

They're so cute.

In front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Somehow we ended up on the river...

The Jefferson Memorial...perhaps less obvious?

Three's a party - Davidson Life in DC

Living in a city is so much different from living at Davidson. The opportunity to live in a city with, near, around, next to, and close by a bunch of Davidson students is a delight. With no need to worry about cars, catcards, court parties, or social clicks, living in DC is going to make for a wonderful summer. The following is an account of two things – my social experience in DC thus far, and the class I am taking. But I guess I should probably give a bit of background on Davidon’s connections to DC in the first place. Oh and by the way, this is kind of a long post, and pictures are at the end so feel free to skip down if you like.

Each summer there is a “Davidson in Washington” (DIW) program that takes on roughly 15-20 students. This summer we have a slightly larger class of 22. Each student is responsible for securing his or her own internship for the summer. At the end of the program we receive two political science credits back at Davidson, one for our internship and one for a class we are required to attend two nights a week (Tuesday/Thursday). This year the class is being taught by Dr. Menkhaus who, ironically, also taught the DIW program when my boss was on it years ago. Ok.

For starters, I had a very fun first weekend in the city. On Friday I got off work at 6 (which is a little late for a Friday!) and went home and ate dinner. After spending some time with my roommates and neighbors, I headed to an apartment building about three blocks away to hang out with some friends from Davidson. One or two of the people there I would see on a semi-regular basis (namely Kellyn Sloan who is also from Kansas City originally), but for the most part they were all people I knew and would say hi to but never really spend time with. (I should probably note, they are all very friendly people, we’ve just never lived in the same place or hung out with the same people…but I like them all a lot!)

Our gathering grew over the next couple hours until we left to go out. Thus, we left and were walking around the city with a group of 15 people. This was an adventure by itself, making sure we all made it across streets at the same time and didn’t lose anyone. We (fortunately) only made one stop on the evening, a place named Sign of the Whale. It was really fun, but there was a cover charge and it was very expensive inside. As a friend put it, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of paying to pay for drinks.

The next day my roommate, Paul Ream, moved into our apartment. He lives in Richmond, so his parents just drove him up with his stuff. After he was settled in we decided to just go walk around. Our path took us past the White House where we witnessed a very small group of Iranian protestors. On a side note, it seems to me that security officials (and politicians in general) are (or should be) more than happy to let them stand there and protest in such small numbers as long as nothing threatening is going on, mostly because they were just yelling in Arabic or Farsi into a megaphone. I didn’t understand a single word, nor did most anyone else who was around I would guess. Doesn’t seem like the most effective way to protest…

That night Paul and I hung out in our apartment with our neighbors for a while, and then we went on a search for Davidson friends. At first the going was slow, and we met up with a couple people and just stood and talked for a while. Eventually we met up with Natalie Tagher and Nick Carney and went to a place named The 51st State. It was pretty fun, and we just sat and talked. Before we knew it we looked up and the place was mostly empty and it was 2am. At this point, my memories of being out in a city when I was abroad kicked in, and Paul and I decided we dearly wanted a kebap.

We walked about 20 minutes to a kebap place we found on our phone. Fail. It closed at 11. So we walked 20 minutes back and decided to head home. On the way, Paul convinced me it would be worth to go to McDonalds, which wasn’t exactly on the way. But we walked there instead, spent 40 minutes in line, but eventually ate two of the better McDoubles I have ever had (I don’t know if that is saying much). Since my mom reads this, I won’t say what time we got back to the apartment. Some things are better left unsaid.

The next day we ate lunch at Bennie’s with a few other friends from Davidson. Bennie’s is famous for their chili-covered-dogs with mustard, onions, and cheese. Let me tell you, I understand now why they are famous.

This week has been fairly routine, although I did start my class on Tuesday night. Dr. Menkhaus is currently out of the country, so this first week we are being taught by Dr. Rigger (whom I had for stats last semester). The first night was actually really interesting. Dr. Rigger is pretty easy to follow and learn from when she is lecturing about material she really knows. This course is on foreign policy, so we started by talking about the controversy brewing over Libya and the War Powers Act. I don’t know how Menkhaus will conduct the class, but we had lots of discussion throughout the class, which I love.

To wrap things up – three important notes:

(1) At work today we sponsored the launch of a campaign for a congressional race in Montana. In fact, it is the only congressional race in MT because it is all one district. Anyway, this is the Facebook page for Dave Strohmaier’s race, and though I didn’t have much to do with the design, it was cool to be behind the scenes for all the prep work and announcement.

(2) My dad was in town from Sunday-Thursday of this week for work. He was kind enough to take me to dinner Monday-Wednesday night. Paul joined us on Tuesday and got to meet my uncles who were there working with my dad, Jeff and Chris (in order of age, not coolness).  Afterwards he remarked: “your dad’s brothers are really funny to be around. They just go on and on and on.” To which I completely agree. Wednesday night Dad took me, Richard (who visited Vienna and is in this post), Natalie (who was mentioned earlier), Paul and myself out for dinner. Thanks A BUNCH to him for that…we stumbled into a place we thought would be good, but it also turned out to be super fancy. The food was unbelievable though, so…thanks Dad!!

(3) Class tonight was one hour of lecture and a second hour of a visit from Tommy Ross. Mr. Ross is the son of Tom Ross who was Davidson’s president my first two and a half years. More importantly, he is currently Harry Reid’s advisor on defense and intelligence policy. He is a Davidson grad (majored in sociology) and has certainly carved a path for himself here. Quite the interesting viewpoint on the Republican sweep in 2010, what it has meant for the last few months, what it is meaning for the Libya situation, as well as what the relationship is between the President and Congress, etc. Really cool stuff, and it is going to be great to have people come and visit every class.

That’s about all for now (sorry it was a lot). Enjoy the pictures and descriptions. Paul and I would like to encourage anyone who wants to come out and visit to feel free. I’m mostly looking at you, Paul, Sean, and Pat. The best way to get in a blog post is to be in DC. Or, complain about not being in it so I feel inclined to include you.

My Uncle Jeff at his daughter's wedding in May.  His 4 brothers gave him a
Henry Repeating Rifle for a  retirement present.

Our fire pit out back. I took this at
some point before I came to DC.

My sister's orchestra concert!

This is the view from my office out over the river.

The escalator at the Rosslyn metro stop in Arlington.  One
of the bigger escalators I've ever been on.  I get off at
Rosslyn for work every day.

The building straight ahead is my office building.  I work on the 9th floor
though my office looks out over the other side.

This is the view of GWU's "quad" (as Katie Mixon described it) at night from the rooftop of one of the buildings that
surrounds the "quad".  Paul and I went on a bit of an adventure.  It was fun, except there is so much light pollution that
the big dipper is barely visible.

On the Job

The following is a brief account of what exactly it is I do at my place of work. It was my attempt to present it in the least partisan way possible, but I’m afraid I have likely failed. Anyway, here it is:

Monday thru Friday I am an intern from 9:30 to 6:00 with the Eleison Group. Our group also helps oversee the development of a non-profit organization, the American Values Network. You can click on those links to learn more about the groups themselves. Eleison is a political consulting firm specializing in progressive faith outreach. We are beginning to work with a few congressional offices to prepare for the 2012 elections, and we also work with a number of different congressmen on both sides of the aisle on specific projects, such as climate change and the gulf oil spill.

The American Values Network (AVN) has specifically directed its efforts at climate change, healthcare, and nuclear security over the last few years. AVN teamed with a coalition of pastors and army veterans in 2010 to help encourage the passage of the New Start treaty. Currently, AVN is working with veterans in the Los Angeles area on a lawsuit against the city (land was donated to care for homeless vets and it has been misused and turned into other facilities, leaving the vets to sleep on the street in front of the property).

What exactly do I do? For both groups I do a lot of social media work. I was in charge of creating and maintaining the facebook spacepage for the conference the AVN partners are attending this weekend. I made a DVD of AVN’s projects for this conference. I have also been assigned the task of compiling facebook and tweeter (twitter) profile accounts for media relations in a specific state in which we are about to sponsor a candidate (not sure if I am allowed to name the state yet?).

Perhaps more interesting is all the emails I get to respond to after we put out videos and blog posts. Some are nice and thank us for our work, many ask questions about how we approach certain issues (what our stance is), and some are mean, nasty, and explicit. I’ve also written a couple of blog posts, but those mostly just ask for donations and are a bunch of fluff language.

Anyway, here is a video AVN recently put out about the doctrine put forth by Ayn Rand. We’ve received quite a few responses, both positive (donations) and negative, and a couple days ago Glenn Beck, a FoxNews host, attacked our video on his radio show (and then after listening to our ad changed his view point on Ayn Rand). Thus, we have had an even busier couple of days. That article, by the way, is by my boss, Eric Sapp. Here’s the video – I won’t go into what it is intended to mean as there has been plenty of discussion already, in the office, on youtube, and around the blogosphere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TxCWbTqz9s&feature=player_embedded

I suspect that after this conference at which AVN has a panel most of my work will turn to Eleison stuff. Still, it has been interesting doing this much with a non-profit organization and learning how non-profits work.

That’s all I got for now. Feel free to email me questions for clarification or whatever: jpeterson@eleisongroup.com. I’ll probably post again pretty soon (maybe this afternoon/evening?) as my dad has been in town for the last couple days so I should probably report on that. Also, given the number of links in this post, I’m not putting in pictures (except one). Plus I haven’t uploaded them from my phone yet.

Hallstatt, Austria.  Katie Mixon (yeah, this it is a little annoying having to differentiate between the two) and I went through a couple of photo albums last night just looking at pictures.  I miss Europe a little bit.

"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary."

Washington D.C.

On June 4th I flew out to Baltimore where my Aunt Carol Beth and Uncle Rick were gracious enough to pick me up. They were hosting a going away party that evening, so we ate some lunch, did some grocery shopping, and prepared a few things around the house. Then I took a nap because I had to get up at 5 to leave for the airport. The evening festivities were fun; I met all of their friends who came over, and then spent a decent amount of time playing ping-pong in the basement with two grade school age girls who had come with their parents. The next day I opted to watch the Nadal-Federer final instead of go to church, and I was fortunate enough to turn on the TV just as McEnroe was saying, “That was perhaps the best 30 minutes of a first set that I’ve ever seen.”

At any rate, it was still a great match, though it seems to be growing more and more difficult to assert Federer as the greatest of all time given his 8-17 record lifetime against Nadal, including a 2-7 record in majors and a 2-6 record in major finals. I guess we have to see where Nadal ends up in the major count, but it doesn’t seem to be necessary for him to best Federer’s 16 to join the conversation. Certainly he isn’t quite in that top tier yet with Fed, Sampras, and Lendl, but he’s getting there.

Anyway…later that afternoon my aunt and uncle were very helpful and drove me into DC to move into my apartment at George Washington University. My building is named The West End, and I am living in a quad. One of my three roommates is Paul Ream, who can be found in this post about my trip to Madrid and this more recent post about his visit later to Vienna. My other two roommates are from the University of Pennsylvania, and despite the fact that they’re both from Massachusetts they didn’t know each other before moving in here. Both of them (Ben and Ryan) are really nice guys and have been fun to hang out with so far.

Our apartment, however, has a rather odd set-up. Through the door is an entrance hallway. From this hallway to the left is the ‘bedroom’ that Paul and I share. There is not, however, any door to this room – it is completely open and there is no privacy (which isn’t really needed…but is nice to have). From our room, there is a door that leads to a living area and kitchen. Back in the entrance hall, on the right there is a door that leads to Ben and Ryan’s room, so they have more privacy, except that on the other side of their room is our bathroom. So both bedrooms are entranceways to other rooms, which to me seems to be a reasonably poor set-up.

Still, the building is in a great part of the city. Uncle Rick and Aunt Carol helped me check in and move my stuff up, and then they took me to the store and bought me a few necessary grocery items. Afterwards they dropped me at my apartment once more and turned around and headed home to prepare for their trip to Seattle.

Shortly after they left a good friend of mine from abroad, Katie Mixon, came over to say hello. A little more about Katie can be found in my account of the trip we both took to Hallstatt and Graz last year. She’s going to be a senior (International Relations major) here at GWU and lives close by, so she came over to say welcome and show me around for a while. We walked for a while and she pointed a few things out, but eventually I was just very confused, turned around, and hungry, so we ended up eating at a place named the Thunder Burger. She used to work there, and the theme was pretty interesting, but most importantly the burgers were amazing.

After we had eaten and talked for a while, Katie Lovett, a Davidson friend (and my roommate Patrick’s girlfriend) showed up to also say hello. (More on Katie Lovett and her visit to Vienna can be found in this post.) The three of us chatted for a while (the Katies know each other through me and Patrick and their time spent in DC) and then walked back towards my apartment. Katie Mixon went to see some other friends and Katie Lovett went back with me to help me put a few more things away and to see where I was living. This could get remarkably confusing if I see them both a lot more this summer. And I plan on doing that. Uh oh.

The next morning I got up and went to work. I think my next post is going to be mostly about what I do at work, so I’m going to finish this one just by saying that I live about 3 minutes from the Foggy Bottom metro station and I ride the metro one stop to get to the Rosslyn stop, and from there it is maybe 2 minutes to my office. So on a good day I can make the commute in 10 minutes, which is awesome because it has been super hot here so far and the less time I spend getting sweaty in the heat the better.

This week was reasonably low-key. I work from 930 to 6 every day, so most days by the time I get home I am really hungry and tired. Monday night I went to Katie Lovett’s apartment in the Georgetown area, cooked dinner with her and her roommate Whitley Raney (a Davidson student), and watched a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Tuesday I went to TGIFridays with my roommate Ben to watch the Dallas Mavericks-Miami Heat NBA finals game. Wednesday I hung out with Katie Mixon (yeah, this is already annoying) again. We ate at a restaurant named Chop’t, which is a salad place with Chipotle-style ordering (you pick your kind of lettuce, what you want in it, dressing, etc.). Thursday I just ate at home and watched a basketball game with some guys next door. I’ll save this first weekend and work stuff for another post, hopefully that one will include more pictures too?

Ok - I'm a little bit worried.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to spend the entire semester playing tennis and basketball. For about a month my roommate Patrick (who I’m reasonably sure is mentioned in every single one of my blog posts so far) was preparing for or undertaking interviews for summer internships. He was eventually offered a summer position with Wells Fargo Investment Banking and is currently working with them in Charlotte. Oddly, one of my good friends from Kansas City, Thomas Henry, was also offered the same job in Los Angeles.

Right as Pat was done job searching, my job search kicked into full gear. I applied to a few different places, and had more success with some than others. The Davidson network in DC is quite broad, and I spend plenty of time on the phone with people trying to work out connections. There was one particular lobbying firm where I was told I made it to the top two candidates, but they chose to go with the other guy because he had a connection to one of the partners. That’s how it is here – it’s all about who you know.

In the end, I ended up accepting an intern position with the Eleison Group. They also oversee a non-profit organization, The American Values Network. A further explanation of what all we do and what my specific job is will come in another post or two, but basically this is all to say that for a while Patrick and I were busy at different points during the semester. Obviously we still saw each other often, but things were a little hectic and we didn’t get to hang out a whole lot.

*Edit* In March for their spring break my family came and spent 4 or 5 days with me in NC.  It was a little bit warmer than home, and it as nice to see them because I didn't have that much time at home over winter break due to my delay in London.  The day they left, Katie Mixon, a friend of Patrick and I's from abroad who lives in NC, came to visit over her spring break.  It was really nice to see her and we went and saw a few people she had met when they came to visit Vienna and then just hung out for a while.  Good thing I left these all out the first time, right? Sorry!!  Anyway, it was great to see all of them, and I hope next year a few more people from abroad get to come again.  I'm looking at you Dürergasse 18/6 roommates, Morgan, Julia, Allison (given), Michelle, Annie, Ashley, Roger...was I friends with any other guys outside of my apartment? *End Edit*

Anyway, as the course of the semester went on we both secured summer internships, as did most of our friends (Paul Britton was the last one, but in the end he still got one so he was happy…I think). This made April pretty fun as most people were content to relax a little bit between securing an internship and finals. We beat Elon in club tennis and lost good matches to Wake Forest and UNCC, both of whom we could have been with full lineups. Actually, I lost both my doubles and my singles matches in tiebreakers and we lost to UNCC 7-5 – after we choked against UNCC at Sectionals. Still, I made the decision to play our lone senior at #1 doubles and sit our top team, so I’ve no doubt that next year we’ll beat them. But I still wasn’t particularly happy, and it kind of reminded me why I don’t miss playing competitively.

For Easter we get an extra two days of classes off, so for the second year in a row a few of us went to the beach. This year, Jonathan Fisher’s aunt (he will be known as Fish from here on out in any and all of my blog posts he shows up in – he lived across the hall from me freshman year) was nice enough to let us stay at her place for free. This means we only had to pay for gas and food, which made it a far cheaper trip than last year. On this trip was Fish, Patrick, Paul, and myself, as well as two girls – Minisha Lohani and Nicole Haug. The water wasn’t particularly warm (meaning it was pretty cold) but once we got in it was ok. After driving down on Friday we spent most of Saturday learning to skim-board, swimming, and building sandcastles.

I got absolutely fried. My shoulders were the color of cranberry juice. It certainly minimized my farmers tan, but not in the exact way I wished. The next day I could barely be outside for 15 minutes before it just hurt too much and I had to go back inside. We did play our traditional round of mini-golf, which Paul unfairly won (a – he plays golf, and b – no one has ever had that many lucky hole-in-ones in a single game of mini-golf in history). Two other girls had joined us, Molly Crenshaw and Jenna Ptaschinski. We had a great time though – plenty of long laughs and hilarious quotes, and Tuesday and the drive back came all too soon.

The rest of the year went by as the end of any semester does. I had a weird combination of finals, papers, and projects due over the last couple weeks, but I successfully turned them all in on time, got good grades, and was done by my birthday on May 10th. For those who don’t know – I turned 21.

Two days later I flew home to drive up to my cousin Sarah’s wedding in Minneapolis. Though it was rainy most of the time, their wedding was great, they’re really cute, and it was wonderful to be around all of the Peterson family for a couple of days.

I spent the next 2 weeks or so working at the country club, spending time at the lake, and hanging out with friends. Eventually, I got everything packed up and ready to go (and by eventually, I mean all day on June 3rd I spent getting ready). On the 4th of June I flew to Baltimore where I was picked up by my aunt and uncle, and I stayed with them that night. The next day I moved into my apartment on the campus of George Washington University – but that starts a whole new chapter - which I will save for another post. Here a few pictures – I’ll hopefully be caught up to real life by the end of the weekend!

Artsy beach picture?

One of our castles.

Pat, Jenna, Molly, Fish, and Paul

One of the least exciting mini-golf courses I have ever seen.

Looking down the pier.

Our castle at sunset.

Molly and Fish on the beach.