But not the torrential downpour I experienced wednesday night when I was hanging out with a friend of a friend from camp. It was nice to have that connection and it was all kinds of fun. We went to this awesome restaurant called Cafe Asia. (of course I liked it b/c I could live off chinese). Unfortunately, I picked the worst night to forget my umbrella.
As far as work goes, I finally got a desk and got access to the server I need to do a lot of the work. Me and the other 2 interns finished the first drafts of the write-ups for the newsletter/blog we're hoping to get going next week. They helped out SO much! I'm glad I'm working with competent people. Jake and another one of our supervisors are going to look at them over the weekend so we can make corrections, edit, revise, etc.
I also worked on a list of citations of each time we've been mentioned in the press since February. It's probably not comprehensive and I struggled with it a bit, but all and all I think it went okay. My other big project for the week was a social networking brief on the 7-10 most popular sites in the world (facebook's, essentially, from around the globe.) I was pretty proud of that, but we'll see how the powers that be respond.
One of the highlights of the week was when a brazilian rapper named MV Bill came and spoke at Meridian. It was incredible. I didn't really know what to expect when I went in to cover it, and didn't really take it seriously beforehand. But, once he got started I was blown away. He's from the town that the movie City of God is based off of. Its a shantytown in rural brazil thats plagued with violence, corruption, and drug trafficking. This isn't unusual in many of the neglected areas where the population is dominantly black. Most people don't realize that so much of the population isn't light-skinned. He's such an accomplished philanthropist and you can tell he actually cares very much about what he's doing. He showed us a DVD he made in which he traveled around and got footage of the tragic conditions in a lot of the places. It was mind-boggling. Much of the background music was him and his lyrics were actually very impressive. The DVD wasn't completely focused on the sad aspects of the situation. There were sections he showed us in which local children were in classrooms starting to get the education they so desperately need. Both parts were very moving and MV Bill actually had to pause after the first bit to gather himself. It was pretty touching. I had to choke back tears a couple of times. We shot footage of it, so hopefully that will be up ASAP.
My new desk is outside the president of our company's office. Its a pretty high traffic area so things can get a bit overwhelming, but its a great way to meet people and he's an awesome guy. regardless, its a bit terrifying to have to answer phones when really important people call him. I actually dropped a really important phone call on Friday, but the person called back and everyone was understanding. I kind of just had to jump into the deep end, but I'm sure it won't be too difficult. His executive assistant will be back from vacation on Monday. Its insane because she actually graduated from lake highlands and her little brother graduated with me. INSANELY small world. Apparently she's incredible at her job and I can't wait to learn a lot from her.
I'm also kind of relieve that she will be back b/c she has a drivers license, ha. Which is apparently a commodity around here. Another absolutely terrifying part of my week occurred when the big man came out of his office, looked at me, and asked "do you have a drivers license?" when I told him I did he just said "Okay, lets go." And off we were, my first driving experience with DC and it was the most important person in our company. Luckily he drove to the place where is lunch meeting was and I only at to make a straight shot back down a one way street to our building. If I would have had to navigate around I might have ended up in Baltimore, or worse.
I finished my online class and got a A. YAY! I start the seminar workshops and stuff for the gaylord fellowship next week and I'm excited to see what that will bring. It will drive me crazy to take time away from work, but at least I KNOW it will be for an incredible experience.
Friday night was also awesome. I went to hang out with Jake and some of his friends again. They're all so incredible there really aren't enough words to explain. SO intelligent, SO educated, that I don't even feel like its real. We had cocktails and then a few of us went out for a bit. It was such a good time. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have them all to show me around.
Today I did a bit of my first sight-seeing. Me and a couple of friends went to the National Gallery of Art. Once again, I was completely blown away. There's so much to see that its almost impossible NOT to miss out on something. As far as the older works went, the sculptures and landscapes were awesome. I was particularly captivated by a couple of paintings that had fallen trees on them. The colors and details were incredible. The modern art was probably what I favored, though. I saw some Jackson Pollock and Henri Matisse that were inexplicable awesome. My favorite part was this piece by Thomas Demand and, not surprisingly featured the oval office. It looked like photographs, but instead the artist used magazines and other images to paint a circular view of the room. Then, he took pictures of the paintings and it looked SOOO realistic. Who knows what I will do tonight. Maybe take it easy? Maybe go out again? We shall see. Either way, I'm off.
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