Déjà Vu?

So I am struggling to locate the cord that connects my camera to my computer…so I’ll post pictures to this post whenever I find it?

What a weekend. As I noted at the end of the last post, Paul Britton and Patrick arrived very late Friday night in DC. Saturday Paul and I walked around the mall, taking lots of pictures and eventually wandering into the natural history museum. After an afternoon in the muggy 100-degree heat, we spent an hour in my apartment recovering and then walked over to Katie Lovett’s. Saturday was her birthday, and her family was in town. They were nice enough to take a few of us out for dinner to a Mexican restaurant. The Lovetts are a great family – and their make up is a bit like my family when I’m not there (meaning the father is severely out-numbered because they have two daughters a few years apart). It was a lot of fun to get to hang out with Patrick and Paul again, and I had a great time getting to know the Lovett family.

After dinner we all went back to Katie’s apartment in Georgetown and ate a delicious cake and ice cream and shared some champagne. Eventually Paul, Pat and I left to go meet Pat’s brother at a place named Cantina Marina on the river to celebrate Katie’s 21st. Due to dinner and cake, we were running a bit behind, and didn’t get to be there and hang out for all that long, but it was nice to see Pat’s brother, Stephen Muller, again and to meet his girlfriend Suzanne.

Sunday morning I woke up about 9:30 to watch the Wimbledon final between Djokovic and Nadal. Djokovic has certainly earned the #1 position in the world and deserved the Wimbledon title. It is a little absurd to think that we are now in July, the seventh month of the year, and he has still only lost one match. Similarly, it is crazy to think that until this tournament, Roger Federer was 178-0 in matches when he won the first two sets. Wow.

Unfortunately ESPN was not streaming the match online so I was using some other streaming device that used a lot of what appeared to be Russian letters. Every 15 minutes or so the stream would be obligated to show a commercial, and you could choose to watch it a minute or two before time was up or to wait out the full time. Unfortunately, right at the end of the match I didn’t see the option, so as Djokovic went to serve on match point, my stream switched away to a commercial in an unrecognizable language. When it came back, Djokovic was looking at his box screaming with joy and pumping his fists.

Needless to say, I was not very pleased.

Sunday afternoon Paul and I did some more walking. We saw the American History museum, and decided not to stand in the very long, slow moving line for the National Archives. We ended up walking around behind the capitol building to see the Supreme Court. Dinner was a gyro and chips from a store down the street, and then we went to meet up with Pat to see a movie with Stephen and Suzanne. ‘Transformers 3’ was the selection, and mostly it just made us all laugh. If what you’re looking for in a movie is an hour-long giant robot fight scene, this is the movie for you. If not, well sorry.

Post-movie the three of us just went back to Katie’s, watched a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and then Paul and I left to go back to my apartment. Monday (July 4th) Paul left to drive back around 11:30 (Patrick was flying home to get in soon enough to go to work for a couple hours). After eating, showering, and getting ready, I went down to the mall and met up with Katie and her family again. I spent the next few hours walking around the mall with Katie and her sister, Julia, exploring the festival that was set up. Eventually we headed back up to the Capitol lawn where we watched the concert and fireworks. Mr. Lovett had scoped out a great area for us to sit so we could see both. The concert itself wasn’t particularly great, but it likely exceeded my expectations (because they were pretty low). The fireworks show was also amazing, although music was still going on which ruined it a little bit for me.

After the show I walked with the Lovetts to Good Stuff, a restaurant run by a former Top Chef competitor. Katie works here a couple nights a week as well. We all just got milkshakes, but it smelled absolutely delectable. I was almost convinced to buy a burger even though I had already eaten just by the smell inside. Finally around 11:30 (after a long, exhausting day in the heat) we all boarded the metro. The Lovett family stayed in a hotel about a block from my office, so we took the same train and I got off one stop before they did. Again, they’re a great family and I’m glad I got to spend so much time with them!

Sorry this was a fairly detailed post. Hopefully having a 4-day week makes it go by fairly quickly. It was funny having guests in town (did I mention Paul Ream’s girlfriend was here this weekend too, and that our other roommates also had visitors?) – kind of reminded me of our weekends abroad when we would either travel or have guests in town. And this weekend, with all the sightseeing, it felt like I did both. I’ll certainly sleep well in the upcoming nights!

(Final side note – this weekend was a Noren family reunion in Kansas City, which I was not really invited to attend. But I hope it was fun for everyone that made it!)

*Edit to add pictures*

Paul Britton in front of the White House.

Paul again behind the Capitol.

The Supreme Court...I guess this has already been put up.

Julia (left) and Katie Lovett in front of the Capitol.

Katie and I!

A look all the way down the mall.  There were
so many people there. Click to enlarge.

One of the singers at the concert.  She sang some song from
the West Side Story.

Jordan Sparks singing "Beauty and the Beast".

Fireworks behind the Washington monument.

The Lovett family!

Should we tear down that wall?

The past week was reasonably uneventful. Wednesday for work I got to go to a screening of a documentary on Christianity and immigration. There were plenty of interesting thoughts behind it – part of it was dedicated to “exposing” myths about immigration (like the fact that at most 500,000 people officially immigrate and become US citizens a year, so the theory that they all should “get in line” and stop being lazy just doesn’t make sense for 12 million people) and part was dedicated to providing reasons Christians should care about the issue (we’re supposed to care for all of God’s children, etc.). Interestingly, the faith community has really joined forces on this issue. There were a wide variety of denominations represented at this screening, and the Southern Baptist Convention just passed a resolution calling for immigration reform making it easier for immigrants to enter the country and find homes, work, etc.

Certainly there was a lot to think about in the 40 minute film. One particular thing that caught my attention was the fact that undocumented immigrants with jobs still have their salaries taxed by social security, yet with no social security number this money is just going into a big pot somewhere. Which means they have been paying for no benefits, and the system has been growing richer – yet no one has said anything about it because it makes the system richer.

Unfortunately, the film just was not that good. They needed someone who knew how to make a film to help them out. There was no real plot, the explanations of what were going on weren’t great, and I didn’t particularly connect to the characters. There were scenes when a father of six was potentially going to be taken and deported (his wife and all of his kids are legal US citizens), and it should have been very sad and emotional. But it just wasn’t, and they hadn’t made it so I connected with the characters. I thought, well that’s really too bad for them, and moved on. And I’m a pretty easy person to connect with through a film.

Anyway, it probably won’t go the places they want it to go, because after the discussion it was clear they hadn’t thought a few (relatively major) things through. But that’s ok, and it is good to know that there are people out there who really care about an issue and are willing to do something about it, even if they don’t know exactly what they’re doing

Wednesday night there was a large gathering of Davidson College alumni in the Botanical Gardens there in DC. They invited all Davidson grads in the area as well as any students currently interning here. They expected about 50 to show up, and the final RSVP count was 285. I’m not sure that many actually came, but it was really cool. Plenty of time to network, make connections, and get business cards. I read one guy’s text over his shoulder as he sent it to a friend: “This event alone was worth the price of tuition for four years.”

I’m not sure that is entirely true, and I’m sure my loving parents would say otherwise. But it was really neat to see all of those successful people, and they were all willing and happy to discuss anything with you – their job, their time in DC, or where the best place was to view the fireworks.

Thursday and Friday were relatively normal days. Thursday night in class we had a speaker who graduated Davidson in 2003, Andrew MacDonald. He works in the Foreign Service and spoke to us about the Arab Spring. In a few weeks he deploys to Kabul for two years! He was really interesting to listen to and really knew what he was talking about. And if someone asked him a question he didn’t know the answer to, he just said so and moved on.

Last night (Friday) I got off work early and got to relax at home a bit. After dinner I went over to Kellyn’s and hung out for a while. She had won some free “happy hour” thing at a bar here in DC where anyone that mentioned her name got in free and received major discounts. A group of us went and did that for a couple hours, and then I left to come home. Around midnight Patrick (my roommate in every post from abroad) and Paul Britton (found in this post) pulled into DC, so I met them and made sure they found a place to park. Patrick is staying with his girlfriend, Katie Lovett (who is in a couple other posts about DC), but Paul is staying on the couch with me and the other Paul.

There are lots and lots of Davidson people in DC for this 4th of July weekend. Which is actually really fun. As Paul (Britton) put it, “Davidson should have just chartered a bus up here from Charlotte there are so many of us.”

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.