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.

Language Barriers

Half of the term is gone now. Time has passed really fast and I have learned a lot of new things business-wise and personally.

Being in Washington D.C. through The Washington Center means having activities all the time. Monday programming (conferences and workshops), program assignments, assignments and exams from the course and of course the internship. This has helped me to be more organized with my time, because there are a lot of things to do every day and little time. And of course you have to add the home duties: laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, etc.

Yesterday we were invited to a studio at the Newseum to see a show called Close-Up on C-SPAN. There was a host and two guests: Clarance Page, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, and David Brooks from the New York Times. The topic was media coverage of the 2008 election. They were discussing whether the media is biased against or in favor of the presidential and vice presidential candidates. It was very interesting and light, not very complicated for me to understand. We were allowed to ask questions or say our point of view. I wanted to speak up, but I was kind of self-conscious because I didn’t want to be the only non-native English speaker. Besides, when I get nervous I forget my English, and I probably just would have made them stop recording a few times because I would have forgotten how to say a phrase in the middle of my comments. So I just sat and watched. I'd rather embarrass myself on a local channel another time rather than on a show that is broadcast nationally.

Here is the studio for Close-Up

Yesterday I met with some friends to go and watch the last presidential debate, and before the debates we were talking. A girl was talking about how difficult it was for a non-native English speaker to fit in with the English speakers. What she was saying is quite right. Sometimes even though you are with people that you would be very good friends with in your country, here you can’t really be yourself. This is because of language barriers. Sometimes you want to jump in a conversation but you don’t find the words, and you have two options: jump in and don’t know how to say something or just stay quiet. If you go for the “jump in” you will probably just look awkward, especially when you are trying to say a joke and nobody understands, those are the worst jaja. Or if you choose to stay quiet everybody thinks you are a quiet person, when in reality in your country everybody knows you because you never shut up. So it is very difficult to be really who you are in another language.

Tomorrow I start working in a new division of my agency, Voice of America. I will be working in the Latin America division, and though this won’t be helpful for improving my language skills, I will learn new things. I kind of look forward to starting there, and the people there are very cool. Mike, if you are reading this, I like the people in the Internet division a lot too jaja (Mike is my supervisor in the Internet division).

Now we are going down the hill, time is going fast and there are a lot of goals to achieve. I hope I will go back to Mexico with no regrets.

Here we are outside Georgetown University

Six Weeks Done...

In VOA I work in the Internet department, a Mexican friend works in the Latin American division, and on the day of elections they are going to be here in the office all day long getting news, doing articles and interviews. They invited me to join them for that day. I said yes, since I think it is going to be a different experience being around the National Mall asking people what they think about the candidates and seeing all the action from a news channel. Also this Monday my program (Mass Communication) had a scheduled visit to VOA so I took the tour, which I had taken before, through the studios and other parts of the building. It was interesting and a little awkward because I knew some of the people that were passing by and there I was wearing my earphones taking a tour of my own workplace.

That same day we had one of the Presidential Lecture Series, which are some conferences where all the particpants in TWC gather to listen to important people talking. This Monday Rep. James Clyburn talked to us. He is the majority whip of the House of Representatives… I still don’t know very well what that means. The conference was interesting even though I kept getting lost because some of the things I couldn’t understand very well because of his accent; it was a little different than the one I am used to. He talked about how important the internship was for us and at the end when he answered questions he started talking about war and things like that--also interesting.

I haven’t started my civic engagement project yet, but I joined this organization called Greater DC Cares. They have a lot of events of different kinds like helping the environmental , animals, homeless people and more. I was watching their calendar and I see a lot of cool things we can do. The problem here is the time; there is not much spare time, especially now when midterm examinations are coming and also some other projects of The Washington Center.

Last Sunday we went to a hockey game. I was very cool; the game was Washington Capitals vs. Boston Bruins. Washington lost, but it was a good game. In the brake of the game there were some kids of around 9 years old that were playing hockey. It was funny to watch because they all looked like ants following the puck and then it looked like bowling because when one fell they all started to fall too. The game was in the Verizon Center, which is where the Coldplay concert is going to take place in a few weeks, it is a very cool place and even from the cheapest seats you can see very well jaja.

During the week we got an email inviting us to a trip to Atlantic City this Saturday, there were only fifty some places so we had to RSVP fast. We went and paid and now we are going to Atlantic City on Saturday. I really don’t have any money to gamble but I still want to see the place. I just hope I don’t end up eating rice for the rest of the semester because I gambled.

Loredana, a friend from Venezuela, invited us to her place last week. She lives here with her cousin; she has a really good place there. You can see the Capitol and Washington Monument among other things from her rooftop. We hung out there by the pool for some time looking at the city.

Hot, flat and crowded

Coldplay is one of those groups that any song they have, I know it. We heard they were coming and after hesitating a little because of the price we bought the tickets (I had to sacrifice one week of food jaja). The concert is going to be on October 31^st so we’ll get costumes for the concert jaja. When we went to buy the tickets Jonathan, a friend from Alaska, didn’t read his iPhone map well and we went the wrong direction and ran into a Chinese festival. I don’t know exactly what it was but it was really cool; they had Chinese music, those dragons with people inside and also some musical and martial arts demonstrations. That is what I like a lot about this city; there are always things happening everywhere.

Everyone has a dream job--the job that he or she would like to do the most after graduating. Mine would be working for National Geographic Magazine (taking pictures for them and work in their marketing department). One of my roommates casually works for National Geographic Channel, I already told him to set me up a meeting just to see the offices, which would be really cool. I am going to have my business cards and resume ready just in case... I really like that magazine, great pictures, great articles about places, history and other subjects of general interest, and it promotes caring about the environment and stuff like that.

On Monday Kenny, a guy that works with me, and I went to the book launch “Hot, Flat and Crowded” byThomas Friedman. The book is about global warming and all that needs to be changed here in the US so everybody can follow their lead. I found that idea a little bit big headed but also kind of true. It would be very good if this country, having all the resources that they have, would make a big step in helping the environment. And as Friedman said there is no revolution without people hurt, in this case some businesses need to stop what they're doing or change it drastically.

Yesterday Lu Lu, a Chinese girl that works here in VOA along with me got tickets to a gallery where you can see the Senate discussing and voting. Yesterday they were voting for the bailout proposal, so all the senators had to be there. A friend got the idea that he could talk to his senator (from Iowa) and get tickets too. At the end, we got tickets and went to the Capitol. It was very, very cool, We got to see Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and John McCain, and a bunch of people I didn’t know but the people from the States were exited to see. We were sitting for 5 hours but it was worth it when we saw Obama talking and later everybody voting. I was sort of strange because it is literally a gallery where you see the office from the top, like some kind of fish tank where you are just sitting watching in silence what they do.

Today we went to the Pentagon, and it was a different experience. When you get off the Metro you can see all the security that they have. Military officers with rifles all around the place. You have to go through metal detectors and more to get inside. Once we were through security, they took us to a small tour in some hallways and they explained us briefly what they do there and how they are organized. You can’t really see much, but just to be there is really cool.

Here is Loredana, a girl from Venezuela and me giving a press conference in the Pentagon... Yeah, right.

Today is Thursday and it's the day of the Sarah Palin and Joe Biden debate. We are planning to go the Front Page (our happy hour Thursday bar) and then go see the debate somewhere else not as loud. It is going to be really cool; generally I am interested in politics, but here I am even more so.

It has been already half of the term. I really don’t want it to end, but I guess I have to start real work and finish my school someday jaja.

We Love Loitering

On Mondays we always go to lectures, workshops or other things organized by The Washington Center. This last Monday we had a panel where they gave us a brief introduction to the topic we chose for our civic engagement project. I chose immigration, of course. I think this is a very important issue that involves Mexico and the US and it is very important for us all to understand it well. Although I was already aware of most of the things they told us (statistics, laws and general information), I liked the panel.

A police officer, who is son of Mexican parents, came and talked a little about his efforts to make the whole department of police more sensitive about this subject, and one of the things he focuses on is helping them understand that Hispanic cultures are very different from the dominant US culture, and it is very difficult (and a slow process) for people to completely adapt to new rules and customs. One thing I found really funny and interesting is when he said that most of the times when the police see a bunch of people doing nothing and just standing somewhere talking, they think that this group is doing something bad… but no. That is just the way we are, we really like loitering jaja. In Mexico you will never see those “No Loitering” signs, because we always like to stay in big groups doing nothing for a while--just hanging out, talking or in silence, but together. Another very particular thing is that we are very family oriented. Did you see the movie Failure to Launch? That will be me in some years jaja; no, we are not that bad, but we are very close to our families and we like big family gatherings as well.

Changing subject...last Sunday some friends and I went to a baseball game, I’ve never been to a professional one before, so that was cool. As a Scottish guy that also went for his first time said, it’s strange that the game is not always the main focus, some people go to just eat, drink some beer and hear some noise, or at least that is the impression I got too. A Canadian friend just invited us to a hockey game in a few weeks, which is cool also because I’ve never been to one of those either. In Mexico soccer has the monopoly on sports fans, so it’s good to see some new stuff.

At Voice of America (my internship placement) things have been sort of quiet this week, and that gives me the chance to find out what other people do in the building. As I told you before, where I work is a big building with a lot of people from all over the world, and it is really interesting to know how they work and to explore in all the divisions--TV and radio sets and offices. There are a lot of interesting things happening in that place all the time.

VIVA MÉXICO

Last Tuesday, September 16th, was the Mexican Independence celebration (independence from Spain in 1810, in case you didn’t know, but of course you knew, everyone knows Mexican history). The Mexican Embassy threw a very good party with awesome Mexican food, Tequila of course (for those who were of age) and other Mexican drinks. We had a lot of fun, and it is a really good feeling to be in another country with a room full of mostly Mexicans singing songs and screaming Viva México.

Patriotism always strengthens when you are away from your country; you realize how amazing your country and its people are, and you wish everybody knew it and left behind all stereotypes. So, I tell you, we do not ride donkeys and do not wear sombreros jaja.

No matter how close we are geographically to one another, there are a good deal of differences between customs of México and the U.S. Most of them are in little things—like how to greet a person. In México when you meet a woman, you kiss her on the cheek and when you meet a guy, you give him a handshake (or hug him if is he is a good friend). When I arrived and started meeting people I was trying to kiss on the cheek the girls I met, just to be polite, but I stopped doing it because most of them found it strange.

On Thursday and Friday, Mike, our supervisor in Voice of America, took another intern and me to the Online News Association convention that was held here in D.C. We went to a few presentations, some of them very interesting and some of them too technical for me jaja. I am studying marketing, and some of these meetings talked a lot about programming and things like that, but the subjects were very interesting. The new trends in this field (online news) are quit interesting because they try to get to people through social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and so on.

At The Washington Center they tell us a lot about how important networking is and how it works here in D.C. At the beginning I didn’t believe things were really like they told us (every time you meet someone new you talk about your job and you exchange personal/business cards) but this convention proved me wrong. Everyone was doing exactly that during the breaks of the conferences, it was sort of funny to see people giving and receiving cards.

Ahh, and other cool thing, in this convention there were a lot of free gifts and free food, something you can never say no to when you are living by yourself and still studying.

Getting Started

Wassup people. This is the fist time that I'm doing a blog or anything like this and I don’t know how I'm supposed to start it every time; so I’ll just say hello like I am talking to someone… Hello. The first week you arrive at a new place everything is different, but after a little while you start getting the idea more or less of how things really are going to be.

This is the first time I'm living with people other than my family. Even though there are so many different things, the experience has been easier than I thought it would be. One of the main things I was worried about before coming was not getting along with my roommates--especially after reading all the warnings of The Washington Center saying that there were not many room changes and all problems should be solved between roommates. But everything has been quite good so far. The three guys are really cool people, and I don’t think we will have any major problems in these coming months. My roommates are from Iowa, Massachusetts and New Hampshire; from what I’ve seen so far it is a very different experience for them also, which is a good thing.

Washington D.C. is full of great things anyone can take advantage of. I didn’t know this was such an attractive place for tourists. There are a lot of people coming from the whole country to visit all the museums, the White House, the Pentagon and all that. Every week there are concerts (a lot of them are free), volunteering events, conferences and many other things you can do. You will never get bored in this city unless you want to.

I like every once in a while stay at home and do nothing the whole day--just eat and watch TV, but this is very difficult in D.C. because there are so many cool things you can be doing instead of that jaja. So I guess I will not have a lot of rest in the next few months.

This week I did some more internet projects at Voice of America. We get to do some interesting things. In the morning sometimes we go to a meeting where all the chiefs of each geographical division talk about the most important happenings in their region, so in half an hour I get to know the most important news worldwide before anybody else. Also for my class (Global Marketing Strategies) I have to read at least three newspapers every day, so this is the fist time in my life that I know so many things about the world’s current happenings.

Voice of America is a really big agency. To be honest, I didn’t know anything about them before interning here. When they told me about the opportunity to intern at VOA I hesitated a little, but then I started doing some research about them I got excited that they had chosen me.

I have done some traveling before, but when I started talking to the other interns I realized that they all have traveled a lot around the world and they know two or more languages; they like international people there. VOA is a very international building, if you want a translation of any language you go there and it is 90% probable that you will find one or more persons that can do the job for you.

Right now I am very happy with how things are going here...good people, excellent class, cool job, amazing city, fancy apartment… I couldn’t ask for more; well, I could, but it wouldn’t be realistic jaja.

Here are some pictures of the apartment, and our view from the 20th floor. Hasta pronto.

Week 1

Que onda gente, I am Everardo Alemán from San Luis Potosí in the center of México, and I am going to be writing to you during the next 15 weeks to describe my life here in DC as I participate in a Washington Center internship. I have been here only a week, but I have some cool things to tell you about already.

As a woman said in our orientation, “These fifteen weeks are full of first impressions,” but here I'll describe for you the first of all the first impressions.

The city…
I don’t know why I had the idea when I made my connecting flight from Dallas to DC that all the people in the plane were going to be wearing suits and ties and looking very formal, but when I saw normal people with normal clothes I kind of noticed that normal people lived here also, not only the people I was used to watch on TV and in movies filmed in DC jaja (that's haha in Spanish).

While my plane was landing, I got to see the Pentagon. It was kind of strange because I didn’t know it was here in DC, so it took me a few seconds after I saw the shape of the building before I realized I was looking at a site where international military decisions are made. After only a week in the U.S. capital, I already know that you can't disregard any building here--it might be the center of national nuclear policy or something like that (it actually happened to me--I found that building when I was buying some groceries). Definitely not something you see in every city.

The first weekend we went to Georgetown and somewhere else at night and there are lots of choices of different kinds of places and all prices. We also went to the National Zoo, I found it really cool (I posted a picture at the bottom) they have all kinds of animals there and it is quite big.

The housing…
My taxi got lost when we were around two blocks away from my apartment building, so I was wondering if every building I saw was going to be my new home for the next weeks. When we finally got to Grosvenor Tower I found it really cool, nothing like my residence in my last exchange which was a little white box with a half individual bed, a shower and no toilet, jaja, really, the toilet was outside my apartment. The apartment here is very nice...I’d say too nice for a student. We are supposed to suffer a little you'd think, but this is comfortable--we have all kinds of unnecessary amenities--even a small fake tree.

When you sign up for TWC housing there’s this little form you have to fill out in which you write down your preferences in your future roommates. I wrote that I wanted to be with other exchange students because it is generally easier to get along with people that are going more or less through the same process that you are--strange country, different language, new people and lifestyles. But fortunately the people from Housing and Student Life didn’t listen to me and put me with three guys from the States, and this first week has been really cool with them.

THE JOB…
The first day of work our supervisor told us a little about Voice of America. He explained to us that was a part of the government and was in charge of broadcasting news worldwide. He told us the areas we were going to be working in…Marketing, Latin America Division (me and another Mexican girl) and YouTube. They have big projects and are reporting news through the internet in an innovative way, which is amazing--and I am going to be a part of it. Yeahhhhh.

We did a lot of paperwork the first two days and they took all of our fingerprints, they almost took my toe prints jaja.

The other interns are really cool; there are four of us in the Internet Division--a Chinese girl, a Mexican girl, a guy from here in the States and me, plus another guy from South Korea in the IT Division and one girl also from here in TV. We all have really great things to do. I look forward to the next weeks and to all that we will be accomplishing.

I’ll be writing next week, but if you have any questions feel free to comment. Cya...

Oh and here are some pictures of the week.