Well, it’s week 9 of 10, and I suppose that it is better late than never to start blogging. Time here has well and truly flown by, and I can hardly believe that there are less than two weeks before I go home! It has been an amazing experience filled with many unforgettable memories. Here are some of them.
Like what Matt said in his entry, before I came onto this trip, the only real insight that anyone of us had into this program was from the previous entries. Being an intern in the Senate is one of the greatest experiences that one can hope to have. Despite the joys of getting free breakfast and lunch at AEI, the sheer ease of walking to the Asia Foundation and the fulfilling work that is Global Giving, I would not trade my internship for any other. There are three main reasons why working at the Senate is the internship choice for you.
1. It's the Senate
Seriously, it's the United States Senate. What more could you ask for? The buildings are beautiful within and Senator Inhofe's room, which is located in Russell Building, is perhaps the grandest of them all. It is the oldest building for the Senate and his office used to be vacated by Joe Biden! Back when good old Biden was still a Senator. The staff is very friendly, as Oklahomans and those who live in the South tend to be. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to work in US Congress and understand the role that the government has to play when running the behemoth that is the United States. Moreover, if you're like me and have an interest in politics- this is the internship for you. The amount of extra knowledge I have gained about US politics is astounding. Facts that I would not have even thought of knowing are now stuck in my head. The seemingly endless briefings that educate those who work in the Senate, and luckily myself, on the current affairs along with the constant reading of political news is an intense explosion of knowledge in a very short period of time.
2. Challenging your beliefs
It is pretty obvious from the beginning that your Australian beliefs will differ immensely from the Senator's positions but it is very interesting to listen and learn the arguments for those positions. The conservative agenda of less regulation and an emphasis on free market economic principles will bode well for the young Commerce student but perhaps their position on gun control will irk the budding politician. Either way, prepare to be invigorated by the dynamic nature of an internship on the Hill because the research tasks and roles that you'll have to play will change day in day out.
3. Get out from your comfort zone!
Being commerce students, it’s a rarity that you’ll get to experience life in policy making and government work. Sadly, we’ll most likely be victims of over regulation in the future and poor fiscal management. Washington DC is the place to experience politics, if only once in your lifetime. Getting immersed in the culture allows you to understand that politics exists outside of the normal frameworks of life here, rather it is embedded so deeply that it’s impossible to understand DC without having understood where politics stands. I’m personally taking a Sociology of Crime class at the moment as well and this brief dabble in Arts has been very enjoyable so far. An internship on the Hill is something that would benefit most Commerce students for their career to come, if not just for the experience of it all.
Have a good one,
Howell
More than halfway actually - here's a quick update on all the fun we've been having/ going to have - I would post pictures but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.
- BOSTON THIS WEEKEND. After the snowstorm last weekend, please God let it not be -10 degrees in Boston this weekend.. We are flying out Saturday morning from Baltimore, which means probably another 3am wake-up, not that sleep-deprivation is anything remarkable these days.
- CONCERTS. I saw BON JOVI 'giving love a bad name' on Sunday night (woooo) and Avicii perform the Friday before - note: going out in -0degree temperatures in a SINGLET or T-SHIRT to save the cost of coat-check is not a good idea, because the plan to "brave it out, jump in a taxi, get in, come out, jump back in a taxi" is sadly ruined when upon arrival there is a 1 hour queue to get inside and everyone slowly dies of hypothermia... On a brighter note, watched Cabaret the musical with UCDC kids and now I am so hooked that I binge-purchased tickets to Jersey Boys at Boston Broadway and Hughie at the Shakespeare Theatre Company for the upcoming days. My bank account is really suffering, but that's the price to pay for 2 hours of absolute glee. Also, there are some really cool deals that let you purchase $100 theatre tickets for $18 if you happen to be under 35 years old, and lucky I am.
- EXCURSIONS. So far, either through the US Studies Centre or our Presidency elective, we've been to the Whitehouse to meet with Clinton and Michelle Obama's chief speechwriter; the Pentagon, getting cosy with the Department of Defense and military personnel; ABC news - the american one; lunch with Ambassador Kim Beazeley at the Australian Embassy; and tomorrow - Federal Reserve and Capitol visit!
- ONLINE SHOPPING. Because it is even better than actual shopping, in the sense that so little effort is required for so much addictive pleasure. The girls have become hooked on shoedazzle and justfab (which has free shipping), which is perfect because one can never have enough shoes, especially at ridiculously cheap prices.
- Other fun things: There's a great dance studio around the corner that my American friend and I have been going to: perfect stress relief after a day of work. Today is also Valentine's Day! My American housemates were up baking 'funfetti' cupcakes (this popular american thing that tastes pretty amazing) at 2am in the night/morning.
It's also Thursday night tonight - the end of the working week. A 4-day weekend for presidents day beginning now!
Before starting the program, I found that reading the blogs of previous students was very helpful in preparing me for the experience, however I would have liked it if there were more posts describing the type of work involved in the internships to give me a better idea of which ones to preference. With that in mind, I thought I would write a little bit about my internship to give a general overview for future students.
On Tuesday the 8th of January, Becky and I started our internship at the Council of the District of Columbia in the Office of Councilmember Tommy Wells, and most of the other students also began their respective internships with congress members, think tanks and non-profits. After the first few days of settling in to DC and getting to know the streets, I think we were all pretty excited to start doing some actual work. In terms of how far the internships are away from college, it’s a bit of a lucky dip. Obviously the interns on Capitol Hill have a long trip to work everyday so they normally catch the metro, but others are less than a block down the road, so getting into the gym before work in the mornings is standard procedure. Unfortunately the metro doesn’t really speed up our journey (it takes us about half an hour) so we usually just walk. Temperatures are starting to get below freezing on a daily basis, however, so that philosophy may be out the window in the next few week or so.
To give a brief description of how the DC Council works, it’s first important to understand that the District itself is broken up into eight areas called ‘wards’. Sitting on the DC Council are thirteen councilmembers. To begin with, there is a Chairperson and four ‘at-large’ members who don’t represent any of the individual wards, but rather the interests of the entire District. The remaining eight members of the council each represent one of the wards. Councilmember Wells represents Ward 6. Together, all thirteen of them (and the staff in their committees) will introduce, draft and edit pieces of legislation affecting the District. These thirteen members will then vote upon the legislation. In essence, this Council acts as an effective local and state government for the district. Below is a picture of the building where all of this takes place.
So far I have felt incredibly lucky to be working in this office. The work Becky and I do on a daily basis begins with reading through pieces of legislation passed by the council concerning a particular area – for example, the rights of ex-offenders to seek employment without being discriminated against based upon their criminal records. We then compare the existing legislation to the provisions of a newly introduced bill that seeks to make amendments. From there, we draft a summary of the existing and proposed legislation, write an overview of how similar laws work in other American states, and then conclude with an analysis of the proposed legislation based upon these findings. The best part for me is that, due to its nature as a local/state government hybrid, the issues aren’t necessarily as big as federal issues like Obamacare, gun control or abortion, but for that very same reason, it feels as though the work that Becky and I do actually makes a tangible contribution to the direction that Councilmen Wells’ staff take on certain pieces of legislation.
Also the staff members are all incredibly nice: when things aren’t too busy they take us out for lunch to this awesome taco place (three tacos for $7 is hard to beat). I also fist bump the security guard every morning on the way in to work, which is usually the highlight of my day. And just yesterday, Councilman Wells gave Becky and I each seven box-seat NBA tickets to the upcoming Washington Wizards games. I feel bad now because all I’ve got for him in return are some Koala pins from the $2 shop…
Anyway, I hope that helps any future students to get an idea of what goes on in these internships.
Bye for now.
Matt
An internship really is in many ways what you make of it. Because this is Washington DC. Because everywhere you seem to bump into people infinitely more intelligent, experienced and important than you – but if you stay alert and active, and look and act important too (leveraging that Aussie accent to good use), chances are you can entertain a fair amount of excitement and rare encounters no matter where you work, and learn a whole heap on the side too (“Heap” is not even a word here in America. They have never heard of it as a concept).
Capitol Hill!
Washington D.C. is simply beautiful. Beneath the snow covered, icy streets and avenues (all square and conveniently lettered or numbered for the tourist…), lies a vibrant city pulsating with unlimited happenings and an overwhelming sense of culture and patriotism. Exploring what lies at the heart of Washington D.C. is like taking a leisurely walk into sophisticated mix of national culture and history.
Home to the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, I’ve already visited a quite a few of them during my time here so far…each and every exhibit is uniquely spectacular.
Every day in this illustrious city some sixteen hours worth of time zones away has been distinctive and memorable. Having taken on three personas, I can’t specify a daily routine but I’ve certainly become an intern by day, a student by night and a tourist come the weekends...
It’s Friday 25th of January 2013. As I sit here, there is an exciting level of snow falling outside, covering the ground in a decent layer of future snowball fight ammunition. The Australian flag I bought at the dollar shop back in Sydney is hanging proudly on the wall next to me from wall hooks I bought on special at CVS. I’m in a particularly good mood because my Washington Wizards vs Chicago Bulls basketball ticket just turned up in the mail, fashionably just a day before the game. Section 210. Row H. Seat 5. Obviously you won’t get yourself courtside with student discount tickets, but I’ve got a good feeling about this seat getting picked for the half-time blindfold shot, so it’s all good. Tune in next week for the epic conclusion to this gripping tale.
In this, my first blog post of the trip, I hope to accurately record some of the highlights of my first four weeks in Washington DC and reflect upon the intense experience we have had so far. And where better to begin than the most exhilarating event of our first night here: shopping for groceries at Wholefoods. My roommates, Andrew, Alex and Aaren (“Triple A” as they are more uncommonly known), and I embarked upon a two-hour trek through this wilderness, impulsively deciding upon ‘essentials’ that would be required to maintain good health and nutrition over the next week. Spoiler alert: we did such a bad job that first night that we returned no later than the very next night with a proper shopping list and a better idea of what foods people actually eat. Below, for the reader’s enjoyment, is a picture of Aaren showing us all how it’s done with his trolley full of winning products. You can tell from the look on his face that he’s very satisfied with both the quality and the everyday low prices.
I would have to say that another big moment for me that week was the following Sunday night, when Andrew and I cooked butter chicken for dinner. In my diary that I have been using to keep track of notable events each day, I wrote: “It was awesome.” Less is more, apparently. Speaking of which, that night I certainly learned that less rice pre-cooking is certainly more rice post-cooking. You see, Andrew and I were very much improvising our way through the recipe (although we did learn how to properly slice an onion from Jamie Oliver on YouTube), so when it came to measuring out how much rice we would need, we decided that four cups for a four person meal would be appropriate. I will admit that Andrew was convinced that two cups would be enough, but I was adamant that I could easily eat a cup of rice, so we went ahead and cooked more. That wasn’t a good decision. About forty minutes later when we were stuck with about twenty times more rice than we could possibly consume, we drew upon our shared passion for Masterchef and decisively concluded that if you get the presentation right, you can put as much rice on the plate as you want, because it’ll just look like it was meant to be there. So, using rice and cereal bowls similar to how one might build sandcastles on a beach with a bucket and sand, we constructed one mighty fine main course (pictured below).
The last experience I think I should describe would be that of waiting in freezing cold temperatures from 3am to midday to witness the second inauguration of President Barack Obama. I had three layers of clothes on, an Australian flag over my shoulders and a burning desire to get to the very front row of the 800,000+ people that would swamp the grounds outside the Capitol building to watch the President deliver another awe-inspiring speech. At 3am we woke up to a bone-chilling Monday morning and, at 4am, our little group boarded the first train of the morning. At 4.30am, we arrived at the first of many gates to get access to our area (we were lucky enough to get hold of these very rare tickets thanks to our friends working for congress members who managed to secure some leftovers). There were already about fifty people queued there, but by the time they opened the gates at 7.30am, this number had risen to about two thousand, so we were content to be amongst the first. And we had a plan to get even further ahead. Nothing intricate, but bold enough that we thought it might just work.
When they opened the gates, we sprinted. We caught those Americans by surprise – I think they were still complacent from their domination at the Olympics and consequently wrote us off as serious competitors. But our plan went off perfectly, and we arrived at the second gate (the one with metal detectors and body searches) literally at the very front of the queue. By then, however, the Americans had caught on to our dirty tactics and, when this gate was opened about twenty minutes later, we had a serious race on our hands. It was like the 1983 America’s Cup all over again. Except this time we had no winged keel – just the knowledge that, for most of us, this would be the only opportunity in our lives to get this close to an inauguration. So we pushed ahead, reached the front of crowd, claimed our spots and took millions of photos. Below are a few of my favorites from the whole morning.
The seats (pictured below) are reserved for important people. This is pretty much as close as you can get if you’re just ordinary.
In all, I’ve had a fantastic time here so far. We’ve done lots – so much more than I’ve written about here – and there’s still plenty more to do. I’m definitely looking forward to the next few weeks.
Signing off for now.
Matt.
