Month: July 2006

  • pretty much the worst part of this internship has been the wheaton homework. i really haven't met too many undergrad interns who are taking their internships for credit. i was hoping to write my ten page assessment paper today...didn't exactly happen. i can't concentrate on it.


    exciting news of the week: my family is coming for a visit! it's pretty spur of the moment, and i'm very excited. i am trying to sort my work schedule out. the funny thing is that, were i a full-time, salaried employee, i think i would have more days off than i do as an intern.


    i went to the national portrait gallery this week with claire, another state intern who works in TIP. we spent HOURS on just the "presidential" side, which also included fifty-one paintings from a national competition. we got a kick out of some of those, especially one particular work made out of lite-brites...claire, i'll never forget that trip as long as i live. =]

  • i can't believe it, but i just finished my last internship journals for my internship credit. these last five were soooo hard to write. but now they're finished, and i have to do the awful task of looking at my syllabus and figuring out when my paper is due. ugh.


    in other news...i think i've decided (if such a thing can be decided) that working at State is not the thing for me. maybe nothing in DC is the thing for me. the city is so fun, and i love seeing the sights...but working here? i'm not sure. granted, i have a longer commute than most people, and dressing up every day is fun and all, but i don't know if i could do this for even a year. i'm thinking -- i don't know what i'm thinking. i don't want to barf my thoughts for the future all over xanga. but i am thinking, and i'm getting a little excited, actually. graduating is definitely frightening, but it'll also force me to live outside of studying and classes. i can't wait to attend graduate school one day, but one day in a couple of years.


    and yes, fine, the journals have helped formulate some of these thoughts, even though they've been by far the worst part of this internship. i wish i just had time on the weekends to see DC instead of doing homework, but they have also forced me to think through some things. shhh, don't tell the polsci/ir department.

  • it's so easy to push the past away, and to forget everything in light of the future. some of you who know me better will laugh at the irony of me being lost in the future. aren't i the girl who constantly fights with dwelling in the past? i think DC, or maybe internships in general, have ways of pushing us into the future. i mean, this entire summer, everything talks about MY internship, MY connections, MY plans, MY graduation...it's easy to get sucked up into that. part of me feels it's a necessary evil. i have to make decisions at some point; i must start thinking of the future. and in DC, it's kind of easy to get excited about the future. the city is young, mobile, moving up and out and doing amazing things. there are so many people to meet and hands to shake and names to learn. and then there are slow days like today, where i spend time procrastinating from homework by visiting the old bfa site...did that actually happen? was i ever really a student at bfa? it seems worlds away. i thought i'd never, ever get over the pain of leaving there for the first time. grad was the absolute hardest 48-hours of my life. and when i go back, i am still reminded of the pain...but it's not the same. it almost scares me that i can become so swallowed in a place like this, because this place is so self-serving. it feels like a disease that's eating away at so many young adults. do they realize how unhappy they are? the cases of alcoholism are innumerable in this city.


    i spend my days reading about religious freedom violations. one of my intern friends spends her days reading about human trafficking. Dear Lord, what have we become? i long for the world to be completely redeemed. all of creation is groaning...

  • life is busy, but so good. don't really have time to update right now, mostly because i'm aiming to go to bed earlier than 11pm. i love most things about my internship, and am thankful that even those things i don't like aren't awful, unbearable sorts of things. i am discovering that DC is the only city i've ever been in that i think i could call home. i am also discovering that i don't think it could be home for any extended amount of time. but it is a sweet city, and would be exciting for a little while.


    people keep reminding me that fall semester begins in only six weeks. i must admit that this doesn't thrill me...i like the independence of being here, working, then coming home to personal time (except for these flipping journals), and i don't want to go back to college, where there is no delineation between school time and fun time because we could always be studying more.


    i do need to go to bed. this is the first thursday since i've been here that i've missed Bible study at Fairfax, but this morning was too hectic to pack. i had the most vivid dream, in which i had already gotten mostly ready for work, so when my alarm actually woke me up, i was so sure that i was actually already dressed and ready to go that i kept hitting the snooze button. does this medical condition have an official name??