It's the Climb

Ok so I have been slacking with updating this, and for those of you who take the time to read this i severely apologize. My time in D.C. is really flying by. I was home last weekend and that was nice. It was great to see all my family especially my sister Sam and her hubby Jeff who were in from California. It's funny, I have always lived so close to home I have never really experienced that whole come home for winter break or anything like most college kids. I see my parents at minimum once a week when I am home so it was weird to sort of feel like a guest just there for a short period of time. None the less I will be home in three weeks and will make sure to see them a lot in the months to follow before I make a more permanent move down here. It was also nice to spend so much time with Sam and Jeff. It's kinda funny how Sam and I were really not super close growing up, mostly due to our age difference, and the fact that I lived with my dad much more then she did. Now, even though the age difference is the same, we are both in a relatively similar life place, and I feel we have become much closer. I often feel guilty for getting caught up in my life and not calling enough or even getting back to messages or whatnot on facebook. I think my goal is to really make sure I call her more often even to just chat. I really want to maintain a great relationship despite being on opposite ends of the country. Seeing Harrison, Cait, Sam, and Lemon was also great, I am excited to have a fun and memorable last semester at UNH with all of them. The only negative thing to really come of the trip home was the true death of any relationship with my brother, someday perhaps he will change, but for now there isn't a compelling argument for me to have any level of attachment. So for now I am thankful for having great parents...all four of them, and two great sisters!

Work has been busy and exciting this week. I went to two senate hearings this week on two different aspects of the climate bill now making its way through the Senate. Basically my job is to just take good notes on whats being said that could be important to my office. I then take those notes type them all up and then send them out to a bunch of people in the office. Also this week I have been working on a response to a petition for rule making, and a briefing for our assistant administrator on some new stuff, cant go into details. This coming week I am supposed to do lunch with my bosses and hopefully have a meeting with someone from the office of general council to just get some ideas of what I want to do after law school. I really love what I do and I am looking forward to returning in January to keep doing it. I also had a good chat with my boss Nancy about exploring some options for a summer internship up in the capital or even trying to get onto a committee staff...who knows I guess she has some contacts.

Social life is going great! PJ Jenny and I went out last night and that was a lot of fun, Jenny is definitely great and funny, she can take my crap...which we all know is not easy. PJ and I also get along great and again can take my crap...and give it back haha, we also went and saw Bruno this week, funny but not as funny as i thought. Umm what else I went out with Jimmy, Eric, Ryan and a group of a few other guys on Friday night that was fun! Still very thankful to Jimmy for introducing me to people and inviting me to go out, but he is just an overall great guy, and Eric is possibly one of the funniest people I've ever met!! Definitely going to miss them when I head home.

Overall life in D.C. is great, and I am sure my last three weeks here will be just as great, if not better!!

Cat fish are jumpin that paddle wheel thumping black water keep rolling on down just the same

So time for another update. Work has been crazy busy this week. To get my full paycheck I still had to put in 36 hours just in four day week while being forced to take a half day on Friday, so on Monday I went back to work after our lecture and worked till 8pm and then Tuesday I worked 12 hours till 8pm again. Luckily the head of my office, Rob Brenner, also works late hours and we wound up being the only two in the office, so when I left at night I would pop in and we would chat for a bit. Hopefully my diligence to get everything done in a short week did not go un noticed. My main projects this week were to write a cabinet level briefing for a Chinese delegation about Waxman-Markey and what its importance is in the international sphere. My second project was to create a list of priority technologies that are created within waxman-markey and the energy bill which is still being marked up, and then justify how I prioritized those based on their importance to permitting. My final project was to read this new study about the impacts of global climate change in the United States and write a summary of the major points. Other then that I did some normal intern work, printing and binding reports, getting stuff mailed out to our contractor, and went to all my meetings about new regulations that I have been following. It was a busy week but I got everything done, put in my 36 hours, and still left at four yesterday, though the administrator released us at 3. It was actually like being in middle school the Friday before April vacation, everyone was so excited to leave and everyone was talking about where they were going. My boss, Anna, is on vacation for the next two weeks and is going to some remote island in the Bahamas....I'm jealous. So that has been work.

I basically have given up on the Washington Center. The program is a great concept, but as someone who got my own internship without their help I feel they are pretty pointless, granted the credits I am getting is what makes it worth it. Everyone that works for the Washington Center is either rude, unhelpful, or doesn’t know the answer to any of your questions. My program advisor is nice but just doesn’t know anything about my internship. She was supposed to do an interview this week but that never happened and now my boss is gone...o well. We has an interesting lecture this week, it was a panel of retired congressmen talking about different issues from health care, education, and Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. I enjoyed it but I could not believe how rude some of the other interns were, by some I mean the 25 sitting behind me that did not stop talking during the entire presentation, and by talking I mean loud and full conversations. The cherry on top of it all was at the end when the moderator said that they were out of time for anymore questions, they all started clapping. I was completely embarrassed for them. I always wonder how people like that succeed. I mean I will discreetly pull out my cell phone and text now and then but these people were just absurd, I really could not even fathom ever being so rude and disrespectful.

Social life is good. Making more friends, some interns, and some people who are working down here. I’m becoming pretty good friends with a girl in my class, Jenny, we’ve gone out a few times and usually have a lot of laughs. I guess I am a relatively social person...who knew, I find that I go out quite a bit whether for dinner or drinks quite a bit...which burning cash is like whoa, o well it makes for a fun summer. For the 4th I got invited to a roof top party by my friend Jimmy so I will probably go to that...hopefully will be fun.

So I think that is about it. I will be home next weekend for a few days since my sister is coming home. Hopeful the rain will disappear so I can get out on the motorcycle for a bit. I hope everyone has a great 4th of July, I do wish I was hanging at the lake instead but o well. By the way I titled this blog entry with the lyrics of one of my favorite not too sharp songs off our new album, mostly because I miss the NTS guys Harrison in particular but everyone else as well....except Scott!