Portfolio

Finally my portfolio is done. This last week, I finished it and gave it to my program advisor. The portfolio is the collection of all the assignments TWC gives you throughout the semester.

Some assignments are hard and boring sometimes, but at the end I liked the result. When I saw it ready I felt quite good and even proud. This portfolio includes a lot of reflections, analyses and reviews, samples of what you did in your internship, etc.

My advice for all the ones that are coming next semester: do not leave things for the last minute. Try to make your civic engagement on time, have all your assignments checked, do the readings you need for the class in case you have any, and try to do everything in advance because you never know if a trip, event or more work is coming and then you have no time to finish it all.

Also do all the sightseeing you need to do. Every weekend visit a museum, go to Old Town Alexandria, Georgetown, everything that needs to be seen and done in DC before leaving. You don’t want to be like me in that I have three days to do my Christmas shopping, make my travel arrangements, deep clean my apartment and visit a lot of places that I missed.

Two of my roommates are leaving tomorrow. It's kind of hard saying good-bye to all my friends, because they have been my family for these months, but it is good that now I have a few houses to crash at in different states of the US, of Mexico and in other countries like China and Korea. Now I just need the money to visit them, but that will be easy after I become president of Mexico in a few years.

Today is my last day at Voice of America. Mike, our supervisor, is going to take us for a good-bye lunch. It was a really good experience to work here. I got a close look of how the news works from inside. I got to see radio shows, television shows, how they edit video packages for the programs, interviews, how they analyze consumer trends, etc.

I learned a lot from Voice of America, and besides the practical things I learned, I know now how the formal work environment is in a big company, and I think now I am more prepared for a job after graduating.

Here are some pictures from a U.S. Capitol tour I took last Monday.

Green Card Request

Here is a video that Lu Lu made of the interns at VOA.

I have been here in Washington only a few months, but when I think of all the things that I have done it seems like more time. I really like his city, because even though it is big and it has a lot of people, it doesn’t feel very crowded or excessively busy. I wish I could get a job here at National Geographic and stay a couple of years after graduating, but the visa paperwork is a bit complicated, so the only thing left to do is marry a girl from the US and get a green card. So, please, if there is anyone interested I have some pictures of me in this blog and I know how to cook good Mexican food. I will leave my email and cell phone in the next post jaja.

Right now I am wrapping up my final project for my Global Markets class. We have to do a market entry study, meaning that we have to choose a product and a country that would be suitable for that product and conduct a study to see how successful it would be. It is a very interesting project. I chose a tourist service from Europe and I want to bring it to Mexico. It has been interesting so far but also a little complicated because I need a lot of data that supports my idea. It is a very realistic study, though, and it has helped me to have a better idea of all the necessary things to consider when exporting a product.

Here I am with some friends after my class

This past weekend was Thanksgiving. In Mexico we do not celebrate that holiday, so it was like some free days for me. Two friends and I went to New York; I am amazed by the city. I don’t know if I could make a life there but I could definitely work there for one semester or two. I am sure I would end up broke with so many places to go, shows and museums to see, and Fifth Avenue in my face jaja.

Times Square

In New York we went to the MoMa (Museum of Modern Art) which was really cool. I did not expect to see works by all those famous painters. We also went to a play called All My Sons with Katie Holmes in the cast. It was very cool to see her there, and after we finished that play, while we were walking, the guy from Harry Potter was leaving after his play and giving autographs. Even though I do not care much of that kind of celebrities it was a good experience.

All the flavors in Campbell’s soups from Andy Warhol

Every Sunday night one of the roommates cooks for all. We started that the third weekend and it turned out to be very good. Surprisingly we all cook very well. Here we are after eating Polish food. It was one of those times you wish your stomach was bigger so you could eat more.

The first lasts

Last President’s Lecture Series, last book I will start here, last time I will buy a cereal box. These days seem to be the beginning of the end of this experience. It sucks thinking I will not see the Capitol every day, that I will not see a squirrel every five yards, that I will not fight over the A/C with my roommates and many other things, but it is also exciting to think of my future plans and the doors that my new resume will open.

This I will not miss, this is a little hill we have to go through every time we go to the Metro. Everyone in Grosvernor Tower can tell you about “the hill."


We have to walk a few minutes to go to the Metro, but the cool thing is that the view is good, you get to see squirrels a lot and ducks at night.

On our way to the Metro

Another thing I will miss from here is the fact that you are always meeting new interesting people. The other night I was talking with some Mexican friends, and we started talking about Mexican politics. I have never been so happy to hear all those familiar names instead of all the people I hear of all the time here in the US, most of whom I know nothing about. In this talk I got to see a lot of different points of view of my friends; it was strange because we hadn’t discussed politics and I just assumed they had the same views as I did. It was cool to see how different we are.

One of The Washington Center program’s activities during the semester is the Public Policy Dialogues on Capitol Hill, which is to meet with member of Congress from your state or their staffs. The foreigners participate as well. I got to meet with Bill Parsons, legislative director to Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, because Chris Van Hollen was too busy. The girl from TWC who was organizing the dialogues told us to do some research about the representative and to prepare some questions. I actually thought it was going to be boring or difficult to understand for me, but it turned out to be quite interesting. We talked a lot about energy and where the US needs to invest in order to be a more energy independent country (not to import as much oil as they do now), like in new types of cars (hybrid, electric) and other sources of energy that do not compete with food like ethanol. At the end, Bill Parsons talked about how he got to his position and asked us who would like to work in the Hill. Two girls said they were interested, and he said he would give them a contact person. That’s what I like about TWC’s activities, they are always a chance to meet someone that can help you in your career.

And speaking of career, another thing we had to do for the Washington Center is an interview of someone that has a position that we would like to have in a company in the future. With the help of the internet and my roommate that is interning with National Geographic, I chose Kara Marston, who is in charge of a lot of the digital marketing that Nat Geo does. When she told me the responsibilities she had in her job, she described my perfect job. Everything that she does there is what I love about marketing, and the agency, National Geographic, is the place where I would like the most to work after graduating, so this interview was very interesting for me.

A Different Washington

Elections are finally over and now Washington is a little bit quieter. People in the streets and CVS pharmacies sell the newspaper of November 5th announcing Obama as a new president-elect, and you can find Obama propaganda still on stands for tourists looking for a souvenir.

Last Sunday I went to the National Museum of Natural History...uuuh it’s an amazing museum, it’s the second time I go and I could easily go for a third. If I were 10 years younger, I would have been like in Disneyland because there were all this dinosaur skeletons and I was obsessed with that some years ago. You can also see the Hope Diamond. There’s a legend about it; you should check it out.

TWC organized an International Festival where the students from other places presented their country. There was also free food, so I wasn’t going to miss it. In this event, we (the international students) were asked to do something to represent our country—either make food, give a speech or explanation or perform a talent like singing or dancing. Of course, I wasn’t going to dance or sing there in front of all the people. I didn’t want them to get a bad idea of Mexicans only because of me, so I only went to check it out. Everything turned out to be very cool, and at some points it was too crowded, which is good because I thought there was not going to be a lot of people. There were about 10 tables of different countries, México and Puerto Rico were the biggest tables and when they started to play there music, they (or we I should say) went crazy. We started singing and dancing there in the middle of the place. It was really cool.

Mexico, Venezuela and Puerto Rico

As a part of our Monday programming, the Mass Communications Program went to the Newseum. We had been there before to see a TV show taping, but this time we got to see the museum more calmly. It is a very cool place, and what I liked the most was that I saw the first Mexican newspaper, when we were still a Spanish colony. That same day I went with some friends to an Irish pub called Fado. They have “Trivia Mondays”, and the point is to answer some general knowledge questions. We had a lot of fun, although we didn’t do too well in our final score; it was kind of embarrassing actually, but we still had a really good time. We’ll definitely go back to beat everyone else after studying this week.

Everything in one week

Last week was really cool. The city was going crazy with the elections. A lot of months of campaigns, speeches, commercials, debates and other things finally ended, with an amazing result if you ask me.

In this new division I am working in (the Latin America division) I am in the middle of all the news action. At 3 pm there is a teaser of the news report that is on air at 5 pm Washington, DC time. So one hour before the teaser and the program everyone in the office is running, screaming, looking for things, doing last minute arrangements and other things like that. It can be stressful even though I don’t do anything related to the programs, but it is also cool to see the action.

The other day I went to see the show they make at 5, it is called “El Mundo al Día” (The World by the Day) and I discovered that some of the people that sit next to me in the office are reporters and go to places to get news and interview people. The coolest thing is that they are on air, so they are sort of famous in some places jaja. I didn’t know that. When I got back to the office the next day I told a girl “So, you are famous?” She just laughed.

The day of the elections we had to be covering everything very closely. In the morning a coworker and I had to go to the White House, National Mall and some areas around there to take pictures, ask people questions and see what was going on in the nation’s capital while everyone was voting. Later we got back to the office and I had to be updating news about the results every 5 minutes until 11 pm. We had to pay special attention to the news and to the Central News, which is the place where we get the news from. I still cannot tell very well where exactly this news originates.

This is how everything was outside the White House that day

Everyone was really happy

Today is Thursday—it feels like Friday, though. It has been a busy week, but very good. I got to live history. My friends from Mexico and from other countries keep asking me questions about the elections and about the environment here. All I can say is that I breathe politics here, and I am starting to sneeze them too because I am getting a cold jaja.

And of course there was Halloween. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money in my costume so when I found a batman costume with 70% off I didn’t hesitate to buy it. There was only one problem—it was for ages 12 to 14 jaja. I figured I could use some parts and use a mask of a Mexican wrestler (wich basically is the combination of a regular wrestler and a clown), but in the end it didn’t turn out well. The costume looked ridiculous and was uncomfortable, so after the Coldplay concert I put it in a plastic bag and threw it in the garbage. But then when I was on the Metro and looking for my camera, I suddenly remembered putting the camera in the plastic bag. So, yes, I threw my camera in the garbage.

This is at the Coldplay concert

Outside the Verizon Center

Georgetown was packed. Cool costumes everywhere, I even found a group of girls dressed as Tetris and some Pacman guys.

New Job

I used to rule the world

Seas would rise when I gave the word

-Coldplay

Yeahh I am going to see Coldplay today jaja.

This week I started working in the Latin American division in Voice of America (VOA). It is strange that in the middle of the term I am learning how to do completely different things again. My major is marketing, but here at The Washington Center I am in the Mass Communications Program, which includes a lot of media and journalism related assignments, visits and workshops. At some level I can relate communications to marketing, and it is always good to know about different fields, since in the end you may not end up working precisely in the area in which you specialized during college.

Almost everything is different in my new division. First, everyone is from Latin America, and well, we are not exactly quiet people, so the environment is very different. It is also very cool to hear all the different accents and words from all the countries and to sometimes not have any idea of what my colleagues are talking about.

The first thing I had to do when I arrived was upload news to the website. I get the news in Word documents, change one or two things and upload it. The second day they asked me to write an article, which was kind of difficult because I’ve never written an article before. I didn’t know how to start, but in the end some coworkers helped me and I wrote it. I’ve written a few more during the week.

They are also teaching me Final Cut, a software to edit video. It is very easy, and in a few minutes you can have a very professional video. I learned how to make a TV package--those are the video clips you see in the news, for example when they mix the reporter talking with images related to the story. They also had me do some narration for a video. It was kind of hard; I have a strong Mexican accent from the center of the country (they say we talk singing) and they kept telling me to hide it, but I couldn’t. So I don’t know if they are going to use my voice or ask someone else to do it more clearly jaja.

Last Thursday, a friend invited me to a small meeting with Dr. Ashraf Ghan, who served as Afghanistan's finance minister in 2002. It was very interesting, although some parts were a little difficult to understand for me, especially when they started talking about politics and border issues. I didn’t know much of Afghanistan’s history or policies, but I learned a lot; it was very interesting to listen to the point of view of a person who was very involved in the country’s politics.

We also went to the CBS studios last Monday, which was cool. We had a small meeting with Bob Schieffer and we talked a little about polls and the influence of the media on the elections.

Here are some pictures of Grosvenor Tower, where I live.

Lobby

View from my balcony

Foliage changing colors

One Thing Leads to Another

It's always like that--one opportunity leads you to the next one. The thing is always to keep looking. I tell you this because pretty much all I have done so far related to TWC and my life in general has been like that. One day I was talking with a friend about doing something different for the weekend and the three days later we were skydiving in the mountains.

I got here to DC because one day that I was checking my school e-mail back in Mexico I read about an opportunity to do internships in Washington DC, there were only a handful of openings available for all the campuses of my school, so I really did not think I would get it, but I just sent my resume and some other papers anyway, and well, here I am.

Same thing has happened in my work; I went to another division of my agency one day, started talking to someone that spoke Spanish also, and next thing I know, I am going to be working in that person's division a few days a week doing very interesting things.

You never know what the next person you talk to can do for you one day. I do not mean that you should be expecting to get something from everyone all the time, but your goal should be to meet a lot of people and be open to new possibilities all the time.

This last weekend, I finally started my civic engagement project. I intended to do something related to immigration because that is what I signed up for at the beginning of the term, but as I posted earlier, I joined the organization DC Cares which gives you a calendar of all the activities at which you can volunteer during the semester. I saw the chance to help kids with disabilities to play sports Saturday morning with an organization called KEEN DC Sports and I took it. To be honest, I thought it might be very challenging for me because sometimes I'm not very patient. When we got there they told us that we were going to get one kid and we would have to help him exercise. I got a kid that had a lot of energy, so I was running around the gym watching to make sure he didn’t fall the whole time. I was kind of scared at the beginning because if he hurt himself it would have been my fault, but in the end I figured out more or less how to calm him down a little bit and get him to shoot some hoops with a basketball.

Here is Lu Lu, she was also volunteering in KEEN as well, but helping the kids with music.

After I finished volunteering I went to the Natural History Museum. It was very cool, but the bad thing is that the kids had drained all the energy from us and we had to leave, so I’ll be going back soon when I'm not so tired.

Grosvenor Tower is sort of far from everything. We have the best apartments of all the residences from what I have seen, but we are between 40 minutes by Metro away from the heart of DC. This can be boring sometimes, but the good thing is that you have some forced time to read while going to work. At this point, I already read 2 books in English. This is the first time that I've finished a book in English, and I can say that the Metro helped a little jaja.

I'll leave you with some pictures of the day trip that TWC organized to Atlantic City.