Only two weeks left :(

So not a whole lot of new things have been happening. I went to a Department of the Interor meeting this week and that was nice but other than that it has just been more interning and going to meet with speakers for class.

This week we meet with a man from the Family Research Council. I am not going to talk much about what happened because to be honest I was shaking when this man was talking.

On the exploring side today my roommates and I went to the famed wax museum Madame Tussaud. It was SOOO much fun and the wax figures looked so life like t was scary! Some of them looked just like the real person but then there were other ones that looked nothing like the person (Oprah looked Asian!)

It has been COLD out here in DC, not Chicago cold but it is cold! The thing is that the temperature just doped and it can be windy! I do with that there was some snow but I will have plenty of snow when I get home in two weeks!

It is just sad to think that I am going to be going back to Chicago in two weeks! I LOVE it out here in DC and I do see myself living and working out here ASAP!!

Thanksgiving 2010

So today is Thanksgiving and although I am alone it has given me some time to think about everything I am truly thankful for! So here is a list of some things that I am truly Thankful for:

- My Parents: You guys have giving me all the support in the world! When I told you I want to move to D.C. you guys are all for it. When I call you guys you are always there to listen to me rant and always offer me help. There is truly no way for me to put in words how thankful I am that I have you guys as parents!

- My Siblings: Although we don't always get along and I know that I can be mean spirited at times you guy have tought me things that I would not have known.

- My Family: From my dad's small sized family to my mom's large Irish family I always have a Great time when I am with you guys. From Rice Ball Day to when we made homemade paste these are memories I will have forever.

- My Friends: You guys keep me sane! From the friends I still have from OPRF, to my UIS friends, to my new friends in DC you guy truly are the best people that I know and some of you guys are more than just friends you are my family!!!

- My Grandma: You give me someone to write to every week and you are the link to my past! I love talking to you and listing to your stories!

(now for the less sentimaental and more funny/silly)

- The Movie Elf: Watching you on USA officially shows the start of the Christmas season, and who doesn't love Will Ferrell in tights?

- Politics and Politicians: Without these two thing I have no ideal who I would be! You are very fun to watch and be apart of.

- The First Amendment: Without you America would not be what we are and personally I love the fact that I can say anything to anybody and not have to be afraid that I might get arrested.

- Food Blogs: You guys have AMAZING recipes and I want to try and Make all the ones I see (Noble Pig and Smitten Kitchen are my favs)

- DVD's: I own WAY to many but when I am board and have nothing to do it is nice to be able to pop in a movie and/or show and watch it at my pace.

- Facebook: I am able to stay connected with so many people and have a nice farm to tend to.

- My Computer/internet: I have no ideal how people did things before a computer let alone the internet!

- flicker: you make me feel like I can be a professional photographer.

- naps: I don't know how I went through the day without you!

- Spell Check: I know that I am a bad speller and you always make sure I don't make a fool of myself when I do spell things wrong!

- I am very thankful that I live in a country where a African American can be President and women can run for Vice-President, President, and She can also run one of our legislative branches of government. And although not everyone will agree with what they do/say OUR GOVERNMENT STILL FUNCTIONS!

Well that if all I can think of for this year! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Great People = Great Weekend!

This past weekend I had an AMAZING time when I got the chance to show around a great group of Women around!!!

Colleen, Mom, Carol, Lori, and Jenny all came in for the weekend and boy did we have fun! It all started of Friday where in the morning we got a tour of the Supreme Cort by one of Justice Kennedy's Law clerk. The tour was great because we got to see inside the Supreme Cort and the Law Library! The architecture alone in that building is beautiful! Than we walked across the street to the Capitol and took the capitol tour (third times a charm for me!lol) After a lovely Capitol Tour I took the ladies to one of the most amazing burger places in the world Good Stuff Eatery! I LOVE Good Stuff so much!!! and it is one of Spike from Top Chef's restaurants and he was there when we went! Than after some more walking around we went back to our hotel to get ready for our West Wing tour!!!!

One of Mom's friends from grammar school son works in the White House in the economic department.

This tour was unbelievable! We walked through the whole West Wing and saw such important offices such as the oval office, the cabinet room, The Rose Garden, and The Brady Press Room! Seeing such important office's and hearing stories about the Obama's and how down to earth they are just mad the weekend so much better!

On Saturday and Sunday we did more sight seeing. Going to places like The Vietnam Wall, Lincoln Memorial, and National Cathedral (Where She She ended up leaving her phone Devin intervention? i think so)

All Together it was a great weekend and I am sad that it went buy so fast!

Meeting Colin Goddard

Today in one of my classes our guest speaker was Colin Goddard from the Brady Campaign. To me listening to him speak was absolution profound. Colin was a student at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Colin was shot 4 times. Colin currently works for the Brady Campaign, an organization that wants to prevent gun violence. One thing that Colin kept bringing up is how easy it is to get a gun and the gun show loop hole. The Gun Show loop hole is that someone can goto a gun show and get a gun from a privet seller with out having to go through a background check like people have to do if they get a gun from a registered seller.

At the end Colin talked what happened on that day and what he was thinking about when it was all happening. Colin also expressed some of his frustrations with Virginia Tech administration for how they dealt with the situation.

Needless to say it was very interesting to hear him speak.

Interesting People and Events

One thing that I have been making sure to take advantage of while in DC is free things! To me the best price in the world is free and in DC there is plenty of thing to do here that are free!!!

About 3 weeks ago I went with NFFE to meet with Congressman Steny Hoyer. Congressman Hoyer sat down with us and talked about what could be done to get people fired up for the election. Also at the beginning of that week I went with my WII class to meet with former Congressman Tom Davis. Congressman Davis is a republican congressman who made compromises and worked with the Democrats on issues that were in congress. With Congressman Davis I was able to talk to him and ask him questions. The class talked with Congressman Davis about steroids in baseball and why congress talked to only baseball players, the current status of the republican party, health insurance/the obesity epidemic, and what happened at Walter Reed. I will admit I was the one to bring up Walter Reed and I questioned him why it took so long to get help for our veterans that were supposed to be getting helped at Walter Reed.

I also had the chance to talk with the main lobbyist at Public Citizen. To be honest he has not been my favorite person to meet with it was interesting at the end because at the end I asked this man what he thought of the tooth pick law. The tooth pick law is a law that says that if a lobbyist wants to feed an elected official that the food must be able to fit on a tooth pick. When I first heard about this (Thanks to Top Chief!) I thought that it was crazy and idiotic. Well to get back to the lobbyist I asked him what he thought about it and I told him that I was asking this because of my feeling towards the law. Well can you guess what happened next? Well the lobbyist told me that the tooth pick law was HIS ideal and HIS law!!!!! So as you can guess I was a embarrassed about it but the lobbyist was very nice about it and he explained the in depth what the law is about.

Other than people I have also attended some pretty interesting events. As I wrote last weekend I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear and as I wrote it was AMAZING!!!!

On Wednesday I went to a town hall debate hosted by Fault Lines. Again very interesting event to attend. There was lots to talk about and lots of debating and I can tell you that I was part of that debating! The only thing that stink is that the comments that I made ended up being cut from the final show :(

With meeting these people and going to these events I have notice and have become a bit of a ball buster and to be honest I love it!

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

Today was the Jon Stewart/ Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. The rally was so much fun and I am so happy that I went!'

I got to the rally site probably around 8:30 and I walked to get to the best spot I can get and I did get a great spot. I ended up standing about 30 feet from the stage!!! I was also very close to the VIP section of the rally and there is were all the other famous people were like Eddie Izzard and Jeff Ross!!!

The Rally started with a performance from The Roots. This is the second time that I have seen The Roots live and again they were awesome! Then The Roots brought out John Legend to sing song from there new cd. When they preformed it was mind blowing!

Than the main event!!! Stewart came out and started to talk to the crowd. Then Colbert came out. Colbert came out the same way Chilean came out, in a tube through a hole from underground. The rally continued with performances from Jeff Tweedy (From Wilco), Ozzy, Yusuf Islam (formally known as Cat Stevens), Tony Bennett, and Mavis Staples just to name a few.

To me one of the most interesting things was that at the end Jon Stewart gave the final speech. The speech was so inspiring and moving that it just took my breath away. Stewart's speech was non-partisan and it left politics out of it completely. His speech mainly criticized the media and talked about how we the people need to think about what we saw and what we do. and he did make one jab at Rick Sanchez.

All around it was an AMAZING time and I am so glade that I went!

I made a big Decision!!!!

So in the short time that I have been out here I have made a big decision:

I am going to move out here after graduation!

I know that it is going to be a huge change but I am so in love with this city, the people that are out here, and what is going on out here. I finally fell like I am somewhere where I belong! I can sit in my office and talk about what is going on with the midterms and make comparisons to the Lincoln campaign and people get what I am talking about. I just love it so much out here I can't imagine what is going to happen in December when I have to go back home. Don't get me wrong I love my family and I think that Chicago is the best city in the US but I just feel like this is where I am supposed to be.

When I talked about this with my parent they were both so supportive of me making this decision and I think that they might have seen it coming at least I hope they did.

Other than that I have been doing a lot of stuff with my internship. Last week I went to a congressional hearing on the gender pay gap, a bill mark up, sat in on a conference call with some of our locals about a problem that they are having with the government, and then I went to an Office of Personal Management meeting about federal health insurance. Not to mention I have been doing a lot of writing and note taking for NFFE.

On Tuesday I ventured up to Aberdeen, MD for a membership drive. Aberdeen Army base is where they tested LSD on Human people so needless to say it was an interesting day.

Today I was helping out the NFFE General Council with a league brief he had to file. The brief was about a confrontation between a NFFE local president and a supervisor at their place of employment. Long story short the supervisor felt threaten by the NFFE president because the president was gestures with their hands. The presidents response was "I'm Italian, I talk with my hands" I think that that is one of the best arguments someone can make about talking with their hands and I am going to use it!

That should be all for now!