I actually was productive today! I woke up, finished my DLP class stuff, and took a shower. Then I went out on my own to Target in Columbia Heights. It was SO nice to just get out and go... and do ya know what? Walking in worn-in Sperry's is SO much more comfortable than walking in heels. Weird, I know. Today was the first day, besides when we braved the blizzard, that I've gone out wearing comfortable clothes- aka a hoodie and jeans. It was so weird.

On my way back, I was gonna pick up some roses from a street vendor, since they were on sale $2 for a half-dozen = SUPER cheap. So I stand there for a couple of minutes, looking around at the roses and looking for the actual vendor guy, since he wasn't there. Then, this random kinda sketchy guy comes up and goes "You wanna buy some roses lady?" Obviously, he didn't own the stand. So I declined and walked off, just to turn around and watch him keep walking and cross the street. Seriously, did this guy think I was an idiot? Ugh...

Anyways, after that, I came back and watched the Gold Hockey game.... such a disappointment. After that I ironed and made dinner. I feel so domestic. Feel, not am.

Work week starts tomorrow...

I definitely did nothing productive today, until just now. I just did one of my two DLP classes.

Side note: We just started watching Robin Hood Men-in-Tights... Wow. That's all I can say.

Back to my unproductive day. I slept in, did a little eating, a little movie-watching, and a little more sleeping. Then my mom called and was like "HEY! Watch the tsunami!" So I watched it... I think. It was pretty unimpressive so I couldn't really tell if it was there or not.

We decided to get out so we went to Potbelly, where I was called "baby" by the guy making my sandwich more than anyone else in my entire life within a 2-minute time span. Just livin' the dream.

The last two days have been c-r-a-z-y... until today. It's as dead as the grave here right now. Votes are over and members have all gone home. Plus we have 2 sick staffers, two at home, the COS is out, and others have been in and out. So I've been the only one consistently here right now.

I've had some possible job connections come up in PA. I'm working on that right now. All I gotta say is networking is king in politics. Definitely. None of this would come about without my internship.

Also, for the record Joe Pitts is not going to vote for public funding of abortion through health-care. We've had a lot of constituents call about that, and obviously none have heard about the Stupak-Pitts amendment. That works out great for publicity though... they become major fans when we tell them about that.

It has been ridiculously windy outside. Like, there's gale-force winds out there. I've never seen anything like it, and I'm in love with it. Wind is so amazing. It kinda reminds me of God actually in that when you wait for things to happen, and life feels so still and stagnant, sometimes it feels like nothing is going to happen. Then, all of the sudden, out of nowhere, this incredible force comes and has the strength to move unmovable things and push you in directions you may not want to go. All of this power comes from something invisible that you can't see, and you don't know where it came from, and you have no control over it. It's pretty crazy to think about.

It's also officially 10 minutes away from the weekend right now. Woot!!

Today was such a CRAZY long day.

It started off with my (now) daily Starbucks run. Lest you think I'm made of money (which I'm not), I'm letting you know and setting the record straight in saying I get a tall drip coffee. Enough to jumpstart me, and I get to walk around with a fancy cup and look good for $3 less than everyone else probably pays for their soy, skim, no-foam junk.

I got to the office and spent an hour or so doing piddly work around the office, and then remembered "Oh yeahhhhhh... the Toyota hearings are today... I should check into that." Lo and behold I was allowed and able to go, so I met Alex down in the tunnels and we went. It was a MOB down there. Nobody knew where anyone was supposed to be, especially where staffers were supposed to go, and the press was going buck wild. Then there was a whole line of Toyota dealers and homeless people waiting to get in. Turns out, people PAY homeless guys to stand in line for these kinds of things so they can just walk right up. I'm not a fan, personally. So after standing in that line for about 30 minutes, a homeless guy got a little obstinate with me and Al and was like "Did you cut in line??" which we kinda did, but there wasn't quite a straight, single-file line so it didn't matter in the long run, and a Toyota exec turned around and was like "Oh they're ok, they're staff. You do know you can just walk right in, right?" Ohhhh weird. Cause when we tried that they told us to get in line. Hm. So we go into the Committee office, and they were like "um, let's see." Well, by the end, we were in a couch in the office next to the hearing watching it on TV like in the overflow room, except we had a couch and A/C and they didn't. So we still kinda won. Kinda. I did almost get on CNN accidently... I was standing next to the girl on TV.

After that I got back to the office where I was immediately sent to the Capitol to go get prescriptions. Bet you didn't know there's a pharmacy off of the crypt hm? Random place, I know, but it's there. On my way there, who do I run into but MY congressman! I stopped him and introduced myself, and he was the nicest guy ever. He was like "Why didn't you intern for ME?!?" and I explained how he was already full when I applied... but that I'd LOVE to work for him here in May, hint, hint. He seemed open to the idea, so we'll see if anything opens up!

Also, we had some random Canadian senators come by our office today. So technically, I met some foreign dignitaries. They were super nice. I didn't mention how we beat them in hockey though... it wasn't the polite thing to do.

Today we slept- alot. Till like, noon. We were wiped. Then I woke up.... lounged around..... read a book...... and took a nap. For like, two hours. It was ridiculous. We had great plans of going out to dinner and going shopping at Target and stuff, and we totally canceled it because we just felt like sleeping. And it was a great nap.

So we woke up around 6pm and felt convinced of being the bums we are, so we decided to go grab late dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. So we got there around 8pm, and there was a wait for a little while so we sat outside on the steps of Ford's Theatre (where Lincoln was shot), and stood in front of it. Then this super-sketchy guy came and stood about 10 feet away from us. So Al suddenly acted all excited about going inside and was like "Hey! Let's go check out the shop inside the cafe!" So we started walking towards the restaurant. The guy was wearing swishy pants, and so we could hear that he started following us, and that his steps were getting faster behind me and to my right. I realized that this guy was going to go for my purse on my right shoulder, so I whipped around and looked right at him... and scared him off I guess.

After that, we went back home, but we ran into Chris and Danny at Union Station, so we went and hung out with them at McDonalds for a while. On the way back, Chris and I passed a tie shop, so we started talking about how we're both tie fans. He mentioned that he just got a sweet tie from the House Gift Shop. Later, he stopped by my room to show me, and we decided to learn how to tie it. Thirty minutes later, he still couldn't figure it out, after I showed him a million times. Al is standing there holding the floor length mirror for him and we had a youtube video up. So the one random non-LU guy on our hall walks by, and we asked him if he knew how to tie it, and he said "No! But my boy Keith does down in 410. Go down there right now and ask him, and tell him Anthony sent you." I was pretty sure we'd get shot or Keith had just lost a bet or something, but we all four went down there, and Keith and 2 of the other people in the room answered the door, wine glasses in hand, and showed us how to tie it! It was hysterically awkward, but they were super nice... and tipsy. The best part was at the end, when we awkwardly introduced ourselves... the girl was like "so what are y'all up to up there?... you seem awfully.... sober...." and we were like "yep. we are." And one of the guys goes "Y'all can't drink at Liberty right" And we were like .... "yeah... LU tends to frown on that...sooo... Thanks! See ya!"

The Pentagon tour today was AMAZING. We got lead around by a few young soldier guys, who walked BACKWARDS the ENTIRE time, without missing a beat. Never tripped, never got lost, never bumped into anyone. That was incredible in itself. It was a 2 mile tour and they did it perfectly. We got to go into Ground Zero where the plane crashed into the building. That was pretty interesting. There's a memorial room there. They also showed us the magnitude of just how much damage was done, and it was monumental. So much more than what you would expect. It looks like a hole in all the pictures, but really, it was an entire side of the building. Also inside, they have fun stuff like we do in the tunnels at the Capitol, but their stuff is way cooler. They have an entire Redbox ROOM, full of them. They have a chocolatier, 27 (I think? Maybe 23) restaurants, huge gift shops, a Best Buy, etc. It was pretty swank. The courtyard of the Pentagon is pretty interesting. There's a hilarious story about a hot dog stand that was great, and an interesting fact is that it's the largest no-hat/no-salute zone in U.S. territory. It was made so people could get away from the military scene and go call their folks or eat lunch without having to stand up and salute a superior officer.

Anyways, my pizza is here.

I didn't have to work yesterday. So I slept in, lounged around, watched some teeny-bopper "turn a loser into a ladies man" show on MTV. That's embarrassing to admit. And I knocked out some of my school. Then we had this intern/alumni reception that we all went to. There were some interesting alumni there that we got to network with and talk to.

I had to go back to work today. I'm kinda liking this temporary Staff Assistant thing. It's giving me an actual challenge. I have stuff to do for the whole day, constantly. I'm getting a real handle on working on the Hill, as opposed to kinda sitting around and observing it.

After work, Al and I went to Barnes and Noble and read tacky gossip magazines and drank coffee, and then we got her an LSAT book to get her ready for the LSAT in June. It's kinda good that I took it last year, because now I can help her figure out what she needs to do.

Tomorrow= Pentagon Tour!

Oh my lanta....

I am SO exhausted. Good night. Today was my first day taking over the Staff Assistant duties, and it was insane! I had to figure out a whole bunch of stuff on my own, which wasn't bad, but I had to multitask while doing it. UGH. And when I got to the office to unlock it, the new intern was there, so I had to start training him in everything WHILE doing my multitasking, and when I trained, I basically had to do the work to show him what to do. If I can get him trained fast, that will take a load off my back for sure.

It's supposed to snow next week. Poop.

And I don't have to work tomorrow! Staff Retreat!

So I'm sitting here in my room with the roomie waiting for the awesome older Chinese couple to skate again. A Russian couple just went, and the commentator mentioned how the girl is actually Japanese, and that she revoked her citizenship and moved to Mother Russia and became a Russian citizen so that she could live near a coach. Silly girl. It's gonna stink for her when she's old and living on a Russian pension and not getting star Olympian treatment.

I spent all day doing nothing. Actually I read. I've been reading "A Voice in the Wind" by Francine Rivers. It's super good; I'm really enjoying it.

I also cleaned the bathroom, so I did something productive. And baked brownies.

Work tomorrow...

We tried out a new church today- City Church up in Tenleytown. We loved it! It's a super great church. Worship was great, the message was relevant... I really liked it. Looks like that's where we'll be going. Al's manager came and picked us up this morning. It was the first time I had been in a car since January 18th, so almost a month. I thought her husband was speeding until I looked and saw we were going 35mph! I guess that seems super fast when you're used to walking everywhere and only going fast in dark tunnels. So weird.

Weird thought for the day: It will be a full four months that I don't go to Wal-mart. How odd is that?

Besides that, how did I spend Valentine's Day? I napped. And ate chocolate. And watched Glee. Not too shabby.

President's Day tomorrow!! I just love working for the federal government!

It's a 3-day weekend!! Actually, it feels like it should be Monday and that I just had the LONGEST weekend ever. But nope! And I also don't have to work on Wednesday because our office is having a staff retreat... so I'm working a grand total of four days out of eleven. Not too shabby... Our Staff Assistant had her last day today, so we had a cram session and she taught me how to do some stuff like flag requests. I also now have posession of the office key... which is super cool.

After work, Al and I went over to Chinatown to go see Valentine's Day at the movies and grab some Chinese food. The movie was pretty good! Tons of little twisted plots going on, but it was enjoyable. And I finally fulfilled my Chinese craving, which was amazing too.

When we got home tonight, we found out our parents had sent us Valentine's day stuff! Yay for that... we're all stocked up on chocolate now. :)

The snow finally stopped last night! Today, we actually got out and went to the corner store for some ice cream... ironic, I know.
We have to go to work tomorrow! So much for my 11 day streak... oh well! One day out of 9 ain't bad... There's a ton of snow out there. It's ridiculous. I'm basically in Antarctica. Sooooo... besides that and sleepin' in, that's been my day.

So this is nothing new... but... it's snowing again. Actually this is Round 2 of Snowmageddon. It's pretty bad out there. There's 50 mph winds going on, and they're saying there's snow drifts up to 10 feet. There were points today when I looked outside and you literally couldn't see anything past 50 feet. It was SO cool.

Yesterday I had planned on sleeping in, and bumming around the apartment all day. But I got an offer to go out to Pentagon City Mall with one of my friends, so I took her up on it, because honestly, who knows when I'm going to be able to get out of here again. So we roamed around the mall and looked around for stuff for her boyfriend for Valentine's Day. I haven't been to a mall in forever, so it was great to find one. By the time we got back to Union Station, it had started snowing again.

Today, I woke up around 10 because it was SO bright in our room from the snow outside. So Al and I watched Pride and Prejudice for a couple of hours, and made hamburger helper... She's NEVER had hamburger helper. She thought it was the same stuff as Manwich!! I enlightened her. After that.... I took a shower and a nap. It was a gooooooood nap too. I was out. I woke up around 6 or so. Now we're watching Miss Congeniality. We've done a lot of movie watching. We're basically movie experts now.

We ventured out into the city today... everything's just a mess. Messy sidewalks, messy streets, and the metro takes FOR-EV-ER. We waited over 20 minutes for one just to get home.

We went to Chop't at Gallery Place/Chinatown for lunch. It was great, just not as great as the other one off of Metro Center. I just love their salads!

After that, we went to go see Dear John. It's good! I'm not a Nicholas Sparks fan usually, but I really like this movie. The ending's awful though. Doesn't do it justice. It's definitely a tear-jerker, sob-story.

No work tomorrow! We're getting another foot of snow! Yay! Probably not on Thursday either I'm guessing...

I'm just posting real quick while my roomie cooks her eggs. I like scrambled, she likes over-easy, so we cook our eggs separately. We're having breakfast for dinner cause we have breakfast food AND time, which hardly ever happens. We're gonna do that and watch Superbowl commercials. Geaux Colts! I really don't care one way or the other, but I'd rather the Colts win. Actually the only reason why I know who's playing at all is because there's two offices down the hall whose doors get more and more extravagantly decorated every day.

In other news: we slept ALL day. Literally just ate and slept and ate and slept till about five when we got our lazy butts out of bed. It was delicious.

Ok, dinner time.

The snow finally stopped about five hours ago... took long enough!! It snowed for a straight 30 hours pretty much. We got somewhere around 25 inches of snow. RIDICULOUS. There's literally humps of snow that you discover are actually cars. You can't tell the difference between snow drifts and cars actually. A group of us went out to the National Mall today to go exploring. It was crazy hiking around! We went through the Capitol grounds to get there, and at some points literally had to wade through the snow just to get through. The bushes were all frozen solid, and we saw a snow drift that was a good 15 feet high... and we climbed on it. We also got on CNN, the guy pointed to us and said we were gonna go play snow frisbee. We just had the disc, we didn't actually play. There's no way you could play in that. We did have some crazy fun snowball fights though.

It doesn't look like there will be much work going on this week.... hopefully not till Wednesday or Thursday!!

Holy cow, I'm in a blizzard.

A record-breaking blizzard, at that.

This is insane!!

Who woke up at 7 and got ready for work by herself (cause her roomie got off work today), walked to the HOB in the freezing cold by herself, and got to work only to find out they emailed her (at the wrong email addy) to say "no work today"?

THIS GIRL!!

Upside? No work today. Duh. And I re-slept in till 2.

Downside? I got up at 7.

I'm also off on Monday. So it's a four-day weekend right here baby!!! So happy.


We're supposed to be getting upwards of 30 inches of snow in the next 24 hours. This is gonna be insane. Definitely going to be the most snow I've seen in my life period. I'm already planning on making a snowman army on the mall and snow tunnels. Its snowing right now, but it's not sticking. That's kinda gross.

I'm super super hungry, because I haven't eaten today. So I'm gonna go eat.

Today was a TON of walking. I only sat at my desk for about an hour today, tops.

I had to bring something to the congressman at the House floor.

I had to bring something to a staffer next to the House floor.

I had to go all over kingdom come (which means all 3 HOB buildings), and get signatures for a letter we're sending to Thailand. Apparently they're being mean to Burmese people.

I was able to get all of the signatures I needed except four. So I was sent back to go try again, as well as get about 5 more signatures. As well as the occasional phone call to give me more names to get.

So I got those, except for ONE signature, the MOST important signature, and I had to go back and get that. TWO buildings over. As well as a few more signatures.

This took about four hours. I didn't get lunch today. Now that's dedication, folks.

Soooooo, needless to say, my feet hurt.

MEANWHILE:

I get an email at work saying that the power will be out for about six hours. That turned into about 8-9 hours. The power just came on a few minutes ago, actually. So we weren't supposed to come back till around 7. Al and I found this awesome restaurant called Chop't off of G and 12th. It's so amazing. It's like Cold Stone for salad. Love it. We also found a Barnes & Noble, which is good stuff too.

So we got back to the apartment, and it's PITCH black inside. So a whole bunch of us interns got together and talked and all in the hallway. And some random kid from another hall that we think was high. We don't know why he wanted to hang out with us...But we had lanterns that the power people gave us, and it was good times. Lots of laughing...

I gotta go to work tomorrow. Al doesn't. Poop.

Some of the snow melted today... bumm-o. I spent my entire walk to work making enormous snowball and chucking them at signs. I missed a lot.
1.)Because I'm a lousy pitcher and
2.) I'm from Texas, we don't throw snowballs. Give me a break.

We're supposedly going to have another "blizzard" like the one back in December. It's gonna be a *minimum* of a foot of snow, up to 20 inches. So I'm satisfied. That will be just fine with me. I think I'm going to go build a snowman army on the Mall.

Tim Tebow was in my office building today. Did I casually/frantically go walk around and look for him? You betcha.

I learned a lot about the Amish today, seeing as they're in my district. I got to read a 2008 copy of The Budget, which is their newspaper. It's so cute! It has little articles in it from tons of little Amish communities all around the country, and they say things like "Fall is beginning to show its face around these parts, the ragweed is starting to show. Ada Hostetler wasn't able to make it to the church function this week because she was feeling poorly; Mabel Stoltzfus went and brought her some chicken stock for dinner that night." TONS of things like that. We call it Amish Twitter.

Also, I had to try to explain a bill to an Amish man today. It was about milk producing. He called because he was wanting to know what it was about since he was told to vote yes on it. So I pulled it up on our handy dandy little congressional site that tells us cool stuff about bills, and got the summary for him. I figured, "he's Amish, he'll know what this stuff means..." Stuff like Class II milk producers and all. If you're in the business, you'll know that right? Nope. He was just a nosy/curious Amish man who had no concern for the bill really, he just wanted to know what it meant. He had nothing to do with dairy. I have nothing to do with dairy. It was the blind leading the blind. Made for a good conversation though.

It's snowing... AGAIN! We got about six inches of snow a couple of days ago, and we're supposed to be getting about that much again tonight. If we're lucky (and Al and I are wearing our pj's inside out tonight for good luck), work will be taking off tomorrow. That would be AMAZING... snow day!

Last night, I suddenly realized just how long this internship's going to be. I mean, I love it and all, and I love the office I'm in. But I really started missing some people last night, and I really want to just get out and expand my horizons a little bit. Yeah, it's great practicality-wise to live right next to the Capitol and where I work, but on the other hand, it feels a little contained because I go to work, go home, and stay within about a mile of the same spot ALL the time unless it's the weekend. I see about the same 10 people all the time, and I love being with them and all, but at the same time, four months of 10 people feels a little like a reality TV show.

Also, on a lighter note, don't take things for granted. Today the blind people's association of America or something came by and there were literally dozens, maybe hundreds of blind people roaming the hallways of the buildings. They're all super nice people and all, but they're not all completely blind. Some of them can even read. Going with the assumption that they're completely blind just leads to some awkward situations. Not that I had any... but I experienced/heard some...