Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I've been working from 5:30-10 at The Loft, so when I get home, I'm exhausted and all I can do is stuff my face and go to bed.


I got in an elevator by myself with Barney Frank today. It was kinda funny.

I had the second interview with the office I've been talking to. They seemed to really like me, so I'm going back for a THIRD interview early next week. It sounds pretty good so far!! Hopefully I can stay here on the Hill, because I really do love it here, and I don't wanna leave. I just love being involved here.

Anyways, I'm exhausted, and I'm working from 11-4 tomorrow.

Thursday was my first day on the job at The Loft. I really like it a lot there. It's really nice and everyone's fun to work with.

*side note* There's a lot of Asians getting drunk and partying down the hall. This has never occurred before.

Friday, we had work. We went out that night and got dinner and stuff, which was fun.

Saturday, I had nothing going on. I went to Target and to go get my nails done... so that was all nice.

Today though, today was super fun. We got tickets to go to the White House Spring Garden Tour, which is where you get to walk around the White House grounds and look around. It was really nice and fun. There was minimal (obvious) security though, which surprised me. But it was really nice to just see the stuff you hear about all the time. We got to see the outside of the Oval Office, the swing set, the pool, the basketball court, etc. So that was cool.

I've started looking for housing. Pray that I get the job!! :D

Walking back from the Metro today, I saw some people hardcore mackin' at the Library of Congress. I was just about to mutter "get a room" when I noticed someone taking pics of them and kinda hiding... then I noticed that the girl had some BLING on her hand. I mean a huge rock. Apparently he had just proposed. So I became ok with the mackin'. The sun was setting behind the Capitol and everything. Good choice, sir. Good choice. He's a winner.

Today was a crazy awesome, exciting day.

It started off with me giving a tour that I ALMOST forgot about. It was for two people from our district. While we were getting ready to go, four people walked up and asked if they could tag along. They were from another senator's office, and they were about 30 minutes early and they just wanted to go ahead and go. Turns out, they were from Macedonia, so it was all very exciting for them. We went on our tour, and when we got near the Senate chamber, the door was open, so they were able to look down the hall from into the chamber itself, which was something I've never had a tour be able to do. So I told them "this is the best tour I've ever been able to give, y'all are lucky!" So we kept going on our way into the Statuary Hall. I told them the story of how I got to see the Speaker, and they were all wowed. We went to the stairwell to go down to the Crypt, and the Speaker herself walked under us! So I told them, "You know what? Back up! We're going to go look down the hall to her office and you'll get to see her." Right as we got there, she popped out of the stairwell! She saw our little group, stopped, looked at us, and said "Well hello, welcome to the Capitol!" And then she went in her office. Everyone was like "WHOA!!!!!!!" So we went back down the stairs. One of the ladies had double-knee replacements, so she wasn't able to go very fast. I was at the bottom, and I looked to my left, and there's Steny Hoyer. He was waiting for our group to get down. He noticed she was having trouble, so he went up the 5 or 6 steps up and took her arm and helped her down the steps. She had no idea who he was. When he left, I told her, and she was blown away. Even though I don't agree with their politics, they sure are nice. It was by far the best tour I've given.

Tonight, we had an awards ceremony with the Embassy of the Philippines. I was supposed to go get some of their delegation and escort them through security. Turns out, after much confusion, I had to go a couple blocks away to help them deal with the police and get them through the barrier. I helped them get in, and helped them figure out their way around. By the end, they loved me! They're so sweet! They were such kind people. They invited me to come to the Embassy and visit, so I think I'm going to go next week.

Also, I start working at the Loft on Thursday! It'll be good times!!

When it rains, it pours... in a good way.

Today I had two interviews lined up: one with Congressman Goodlatte's COS as an informational interview to learn about some opportunities in the district. Turns out, there are some that I would be a good fit for apparently. My second interview was with Congressman Linder's office for a staff assistant position. It went very well. I'm very impressed with the office, and the staff see

I'm genuinely content with working there. I'm also very impressed with the way the member is actually interactive with the work that goes on, and is involved- as opposed to some members who let the staff do all the work and just cast votes and attend meetings. The lady who interviewed me asked me to come back for a second interview next week, so they'll be getting in touch with me. It looks promising, and I'm very excited about the possibilities.

In between those two interviews, I got a phone call from... Ann Taylor Loft! The manager there told me a position "opened up" for me, and that they would love to have me work there! So now I have a part-time job for some extra income! I'm excited about that.

I also checked out some place to rent a room, and I found a couple of locations with some good Christian girls, so I'll be checking those out next week once I discover if I have a job/get my Loft schedule. Things are looking up!

Tomorrow, I might get to meet the president of the Phillipines!! We're having a reception so she can give Mr. Pitts an award, and I'm escorting her assistants through security so that they can set up and do a security sweep. Super cool stuff!!! I love my job!

Yay for my 50th post!

This has been a pretty decently good weekend. Yesterday, I was all by my onesies, so I went to Eastern Market and looked around, then I wandered around Chinatown for a while. It was nice to just get out in the sunshine!

Today, my friend Megan and I went over to Arlington National Cemetery and wandered around for a little while. We saw the Kennedy's graves and the Custis-Lee house. It was such a BEAUTIFUL view! Then we came back, made dinner, and gave Al her cupcakes for her birthday, which is on Tuesday.

When I got back tonight, I checked my email to find out that I got an interview with Rep. John Linder's office for a staff assistant position! So I'm very excited to see what comes of that. I'm really hoping to find a job before graduation.

So things are great! I'm so glad recess is over and that people are coming back all over the Hill and there's life here again! It's not just tourists here anymore! Yippee!

Today was slow/not slow and boring/not boring. Ironic, I know.

It started off with me giving a tour to 20 German exchange students who were here in the US for 3 weeks. So it was kinda interesting to see what they were interested/not interested in, or maybe just what I interpreted as non-interest was really just them not understanding a word I said. I dunno. When I got to the statue of Ronald Reagan in the Rotunda, I showed them the big chunks of the Berlin Wall in there, and they thought that was pretty cool, seeing as they were from East Berlin,... minus the whole not-knowing-who-Reagan-was thing. Minor detail. I honestly figured out of all the presidents in the 20th century, they would know Reagan, but they didn't have a clue. They were asking me for cool places to go in DC, and I almost had a faux pas and told them to go to the Holocaust Museum (cause it's my favorite museum here)totally forgetting that they're GERMAN, and EAST German at that. Oh geez.

After that, I came back to the office and did different odd jobs like researching things, and fixing email addresses that were obviously mistyped for our online newsletter that people can subscribe to. You know how sometimes when you fill out an online form, how you have to put an email address? Well, when I do that, I never think that an actual human would see that- I mean, obviously the computer just knows if it's valid or not and sorts through it because that's what computers do, and usually, yes, that's what they do; most don't ever have humans do anything with the process. So, it cracked me up to see what some of the email addrsses were that people put in... like: no@youcanthavemyemail.com or stopspendingsomuch@nomorespending.com . I assume most people are like me and don't think that a human eye will ever see these addresses, so why they heck do they try to send a "message" through them? I'd just put some old email or something or leave it blank, but they actually write something political. It just cracks me up that someone's sitting on their laptop somewhere thinking about what to put in Joe Pitts' online form to "send a message" through their phony name that they come up with. So lame haha.

Also, I had the most HILARIOUS letter come in the mail today. The best part is that it was a good-intentioned group of men in a Bible-study group sending a letter about things they were concerned about. The second paragraph of their letter said, "There are many issues we are concerned about. One of which is the right to bare arms." I don't care who ya are, I think Democrats and Republicans agree that we should all go sleeveless every once in a while... I don't know if the Amish do though... Maybe that's why they wrote... hmmmm.

I also went running tonight on the Mall. I went half-way down, then cut across and just stopped because the view was incredible. If I looked one direction, I had a perfect and clear view of the Washington Monument, and in the other direction, I had the Capitol. It was breathtaking, and it was one of those things that just gave me a "wow" moment. It was beautiful weather too. 80 and breezy. Al nearly died... apparentloy it doesn't get "hot" like that in New York. HA.

I feel so bad for not updating this as often as I should. But I'm busy, people! Busy!

I left at 3:30 on Friday morning for Union Station to take the train with my roommate to Utica, New York. We had a layover for about an hour in NYC, so we popped our heads out to say we were there. We were at 8th and 31st street. Remember that for later. So we took the train up to Utica, and got there around 3pm. After that we went and said hi to a bunch of family members and all. Then I went and hung out with Al's twin and her cousin while Al did some stuff with a couple of friends. We had lot of fun shopping and all. By the way, TJMaxx has a great selection of sunglasses right now. I shoulda got some. We finally got to bed around midnight. So we had been up for 40 hours by then. We got up the next morning at 6:30 to go to her mom's house to go have breakfast and pick her up to go to her salon. She gave us both highlights and they turned out soo good! Her mom is the best hairdresser I've seen. After that, we went home to get ready to have lunch with Al's friends at a place called Cavallo's. It's really good. I had a covered meatball sandwich. I thought by "covered" it meant "with a top" as opposed to "open-faced." Makes sense in my mind. Noooo to Italians it means, "with lots of marinara on top." So that was a new experience. It was good though. Everything is SO Italian up there. People, food, everything. And they all have heavy accents. I even picked it up. Sheesh. After that, we went and hung out with her family some more, then went over to her mom's house for dinner. It was super super good. More Italian food, of course. Then we went to another friend's house to hang out for a little while. When we got home, it was about 11 o'clock or so... by the time we got to bed we had been up about 20 hours. On Sunday, we got up around 6 to get ready for church, which was an hour away in Syracuse. After church, we went back over to her Nonnie's house for Easter dinner. We had cuppalettes (spelling?), which is a soup with handmade dumplings made from handmade pasta... it's a family recipe from 5 generations back in Italy. Along with that we had antipasta, fillet mignon, asparagus, scalloped potatos, pusties and canollis, and three layered cheesecake. SO good. I asked them to find me an Italian husband or adopt me. They could pick.

We left around 6 or so for our train, which was supposed to be at 7. The train didn't come till 7:45. By the time we got to NYC, it was after midnight. It was supposed to be 11 when we got there and we had had plans to go to Times Square and check it out since we had such a long layover. We didn't though because it was so late. Turns out, it was a good thing too because that night annually is notorious to being the Blood's initiation night in Midtown. There was someone shot right at 8th and 31st street, where I had been 2 days before. Something like 55 people were arrested between Penn Station and Times Square. So it was DEFINITELY good that we didn't go!

Our train out of NYC didn't get to the station till 4, so that pushed getting back to DC till 8. We went to bed as soon as we got home around then, and I slept straight till 4 o'clock this afternoon. I was SO exhausted. All in all, since Thursday morning at 8am, I only slept 12 hours till I got home. Talk about being wiped out.

I'm about to go back to bed...

Ok. I'm tired, but I feel super guilty for not posting much. So I'm doing bullet points.

*The majority of the week, I didn't do much. Lots of facebooking.

*I did give two tours back to back though. If you want some good stories, ask me.

*Because of said tours, I'm getting a sore throat from yelling.

*Laundry frustrates me. I had to run my clothes through the washer twice because the first time they didn't even get wet... I don't know how. One of the dryers didn't work apparently either, so I currently have one clean and dry load and one soppy wet load going through the dryer.

*I'm leaving for New Yawk tomorrow morning at like 5:30, which means leaving here at about 4:30, so I'm not doing great on the whole getting-sleep situation.

*I haven't packed for said trip.

*I'm exhausted.

*I applied and got an interview at Ann Taylor Loft in Chinatown. The manager really liked me and said I'm very "Lofty." But there's not a job opening. So pray for a job opening there so he can call me, k? Thanks.

*I'm going to Times Square tomorrow. Be jealous.

*I'm gonna rent a movie for my ipod tonight I think.

And I'm out.