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.