Looking Back

Now that I'm done with my UCDC experience (and anxiously awaiting my research seminar and elective grades), I want to reflect on my experience as a whole.

The Internship
My internship was filled with ups and downs, but I miss the State Department already and can't wait to return. Although I'm thankful to be temporarily done with the challenge of dragging myself out of bed much too early in the morning to wait for the only-on-time-when-I'm-late buses in the cold, I miss everything else about my internship. I miss all the projects I got to work on and always knowing about current events without having to hunt through a newspaper. I miss my coworkers most of all - they welcomed me with open arms and were always willing to help when I had a question. I promised I'd stay in touch, but I'm worried that I'll soon get too caught up in the winter quarter routine of schoolwork, jobs, and extracurriculars and will forget to contact them!

The last day of my internship, my coworkers threw me a goodbye party and gave me a few things to remember my experience by. As much as everyone joked around with me, saying I wasn't allowed to leave DC until spring, my coworkers all wished me the best of luck with law school applications and even offered to write me a letter of recommendation. I hope I can get back to the State Department (and maybe even the same office!) as soon as possible - the people there are talented and caring, and it was an honor working with them.

The Classes
It is an absolute relief to be done with my research seminar and elective. I enjoyed the classes and both of my professors, but it's nice not to have papers and exams looming over me anymore (although I really wish that grades would be released faster). The last week of the UCDC program was a blur of sleepless nights as I finished putting together my research paper - it ended up being 20 pages with 12 pages of sources (yes, that's 32 pages total). Ouch. I can only hope I get an A in the class! My Washington Ethics elective was not quite as intense as the research seminar, but still required a great deal of work. I had a take-home final (due last Tuesday) that was two 6-page essays and took longer than I'd expected to complete. I also had an optional 10-page extra credit paper to write (worth up to 5% of my final grade). I'm extremely grateful for that paper after only getting a B+ on the midterm, but it did not make last week very enjoyable. With all the writing for my elective class last week, I realize that the 20 pages I wrote last week alone for Washington Ethics was the exact same as the amount I wrote for my research paper. At the very least, I can now say that 10-page papers seem like a breeze after all the writing I did this past quarter!

The City
It's strange to be back in Davis, which is such a small and safe town compared to DC. While I never felt unsafe in DC, even walking to the grocery store at night or heading home from evening plays, Davis is another world entirely and I would have never dreamed of walking home alone in Washington, DC at 3:00 in the morning (as I did in Davis last Friday after the midnight showing of The Hobbit). Despite potential safety concerns of living in a big city, I really do miss DC. The pace of life is so different and I loved being surrounded by intelligent, ambitious, and well-informed people. In Davis I find so many people, especially students, who live in a bubble and don't pay much attention to what goes on beyond American borders. I've found myself explaining what the Arab Spring is to people twice in the past week, which I would have never had to do in DC.

Although California certainly has nicer weather, I am hoping to come back to DC soon and certainly plan to apply to Georgetown and George Washington for law school. It would be amazing to spend three whole years living in the nation's capital, even if I'd try to hole up in my apartment and avoid the cold from November to March.

The Program
Overall, I'm immensely grateful that I participated in the UC Washington Program. I would have missed out on interacting with ambassadors or sitting in on a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Israeli defense if I hadn't gone. I would have missed Hurricane Sandy and not have toured Georgetown, George Washington, Penn, and UVA Law. I will always look back on my internship experience and time in DC with fond memories, and I'm counting down the days until I can return to Washington and (hopefully) the State Department.

 

Week 11: The Beginning of the End

It's the start of Week Eleven... only five days left of my internship, two days left of class, five days until my research paper is due, and six days until I head home. I'm glad to be flying home this Saturday, since I'll get to see my family and friends again (and I won't have to worry about snow, which is expected on Tuesday). However, I really don't want to leave my internship behind so part of me definitely wants to stay in DC a few weeks longer.

The past two weeks have been a blur of applications, work, and academics. Applications for the best positions and programs for next summer (State Department summer interns, Critical Language Scholarship Program, etc.) are due this month, so I've been focusing a lot of my effort on getting those applications in by the appropriate deadlines. Hopefully I'll have something great lined up for next summer - I might be working at an embassy overseas with the State Department, I might be studying Arabic in a fully-funded program in North Africa, or I might even be back in DC with a paid position. We'll see what happens!

Things have been extremely busy at my internship as well - was anyone watching/reading the news last week when the Israeli-Gazan rocket crisis was going on? - so I feel bad for leaving at such a busy and important time for the office (and my supervisor keeps jokingly telling me that I promised from the start that I would be staying until May). Still, I'm happy to have worked there for an entire eleven weeks and it's great to know that my work has been appreciated if they don't want me to leave!

I've had a lot due over the past two weeks in my classes, mostly within my International Policy research seminar. I had a couple of assignments (a memo on democracy promotion in Tunisia and a quick research assignment on the U.S. role in Egypt's revolution) due last Monday and a draft of my research paper is due tomorrow, although the draft is optional. I definitely want to do well on my paper so I'm going to turn in whatever I have ready by tomorrow afternoon, but I'm a bit jealous of some of my roommates who don't have to worry about turning in a draft and are just focusing by finishing their papers by Friday. After I turn in my research paper on Friday, I won't be able to relax just yet - I still have a take-home final exam in my Washington Ethics elective (two essays) and then an extra credit 8-page paper to write, which are both due within a week of returning home. I'm not going to even start them until next Sunday after I'm settled in back in California, but I know I'll be busy with work and preparing for my Arabic final so it would be nice to not have to worry about last-minute deadlines in my elective class.

I haven't gotten too much schoolwork done over the past few days, since I flew up to New Hampshire to spend Thanksgiving with family (and I just got home yesterday). While New Hampshire is nearly 10 degrees colder than DC, it was really nice to see my aunt, uncle, and cousins and I wish I could have stayed there longer. Spending time with family really made me realize how ready I am to be home in California, so as much as I want the next week to go by slowly so that I'll have more time to work on my research paper, I also want it to go by as quickly as this quarter has so that I can get home. Who knew that homesickness would finally set in for the end of the quarter?

Happy Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day, everyone! I'm enjoying my long weekend by baking cookies, working on my research paper, and watching Season 1 of Gossip Girl. Don't judge me!

The week and a half after Hurricane Sandy brought us frigid weather - the highs were in the 40s and occasionally the low 50s. But this weekend, it's been 65 and beautiful. I'm hoping that it will stay nice and not snow for the last few weeks that I'm here!

My internship has been going great, although I just finished up a couple of big projects so I'm searching for something new to do. I can't believe that I only have three weeks left. My colleagues keep asking me if I'm sure I have to leave at the end of the month. I do, because I already booked my flight and didn't extend my housing (plus I'm working as soon as I get back to Davis), but I really wish that I'd chosen to stay an extra week. The airfare would have been terrible, but it would have been worth it in order to intern just a little longer.

My classes are going pretty well too, although now that the end of the quarter is close it's getting a bit stressful. I had a midterm for my Washington Ethics class a week and a half ago, which I think went well. I heard a rumor that the instructor rarely gives out As, which caused me to panic a little so I've really stepped up my game in the class (including volunteering to lead our reading discussion last class). I'm sure everything will turn out okay in the end, and at the very least I should hopefully be able to pull an A- even if I somehow did poorly on the midterm. For my research seminar, our rough draft is due in about 10 days so I'm really buckling down and working on my paper. Originally I had been hoping to interview people at my internship and use them as sources in my paper, but now I'm realizing just how unrealistic that is so I'm focusing more on what's already online (blogs, articles, newspapers, etc.).

I've gotten a bit more siteseeing in since my last post. My boyfriend visited last weekend, so we toured the monuments - finally! - and saw both the Natural History Museum and the Air & Space Museum. We saw the monuments at night so it was probably 39 degrees, but still beautiful.

 

Hurricane Sandy

The East Coast is in the middle of Hurricane Sandy, referred to affectionately as "Frankenstorm." As a California girl, I'm perfectly comfortable with earthquakes but hurricanes are new to me. The wind is blowing like crazy, rain is pouring down, and I know things are scheduled to get worse within the next couple of hours. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there isn't a power outage!

(Photo Credit: telegraph.co.uk)

The federal government is shut down (so I didn't go to my internship today) but I still had class. Now that I'm done for the day, I'm curled up in bed with a sweater and thick socks, watching Netflix and hoping that the power stays on.

Other than Hurricane Sandy preparations, last week was great! The weather was (ironically) beautiful and my internship was busy but amazing. I got to attend the U.S.-Israel loan guarantee extension signing and met the Secretary of the Treasury!

(Photo Credit: Jerusalem Post)

Because things were so busy at work, I didn’t get much sleep during the week so over the weekend I slept 10-11 hours a day – yikes. I also went to see Argo on Saturday night, which was really powerful and is definitely on the list of my favorite movies for the year. I also spent a lot of time studying at Starbucks - my Washington Ethics midterm is this Thursday and I still have a lot of reading to catch up on.

It's strange to believe that it's Week Seven already - only four and a half more weeks until I'm back in Davis!

Hello, New York

I'm attempting to do homework, upload photos, and watch tonight's foreign policy presidential debate at the same time... Multi-tasking! Mainly I just wanted to quickly blog about my weekend in New York.

I took a bus from Chinatown early on Saturday morning and got in around 12pm to meet up with my friend Sarah who lives in Boston. We skipped luggage in favor of carrying one bag each, which we realized was probably a mistake by about 2:00 when the bags just got heavier. We had to go shopping just to get another bag to put our stuff in! Overall though, we had a lot of fun on Saturday - spent the afternoon in Times Square, stood in line for Broadway tickets, and visited a 4-story Forever 21. After dropping off our stuff at a friend's apartment (shout out to our amazing hosts, Caryn and Andrew!), we grabbed dinner and headed out to see Chicago. I've always been a huge fan of musicals - you can thank high school theatre for that - and I've wanted to see Chicago for a long time. It was absolutely incredible and I still can't believe we got to see it!

We visited Central Park on Sunday and headed down Fifth Ave before parting ways and taking our respective buses home. I'd planned on visiting NYU Law before going home to DC, but unfortunately I made the mistake of booking my return ticket on Sunday morning and all the later bus trips were sold out. On the plus side, I was home in time to finish up my research proposal and catch up on all the emails that had accumulated over the weekend.

I'm now back to my normal internship/class routine, and I have to say that New York makes me appreciate DC even more. DC is so clean and spacious in comparison! Nothing against NYC, but it's a bit crowded, to say the least. Sadly, this will be my last weekend trip for a while - I'm not doing anymore UCDC Center trips and I won't be going out on my own now that academics have gotten more hectic. Hopefully I'll still find time to see the city, though! It's been five weeks and I still haven't visited the monuments...

Weeks 4 and 5: More Sightseeing!

Things are definitely getting busy around here! I'm starting to have assignments due in my research seminar and I have a midterm coming up soon for my Washington Ethics elective. My internship has been pretty crazy as well - lots of research, reports, and correspondence I've been working on over the past week and a half.

This past weekend was a lot of fun - I spent Saturday in Philadelphia and Sunday touring the White House gardens. Philadelphia was amazing and I can't wait to go back - I loved the seamless mixture of historical and modern. Our group took a historical tour of the city and then split off to explore on our own. I ran over to the University of Pennsylvania to check out the law school before going back to see the sights, and I have to say that Penn Law was the highlight of my day. It's an absolutely gorgeous school and I've been gushing about it ever since!

Elfreth's Alley

The home of Betsy Ross

Penn Law courtyard

Christ Church

National Constitution Center



The White House gardens on Sunday were just as impressive. I woke up late and was worried I'd miss my tour time, so I practically sprinted to the White House Visitor Center. (I later found out that they accepted any tour ticket that was for a previous timeslot, so I could have slept later and eaten breakfast!) After standing in line for 20 minutes, I was able to get in and see the gardens. Beautiful!

 

Mandatory White House photo

 

 

 

 

Other side of the White House



Malia and Sasha's playground

White House Kitchen Garden



On the Mall while heading out

While heading back from the garden tours, I stopped at Starbucks and spent about an hour catching up on required reading over a Salted Caramel Mocha (obsessed with those right now!) - which was good, since with all of my sightseeing over the weekend I was way behind on homework! I've been catching up little-by-little over the past few days, just in time for the rush of assignments. Now that we're nearly halfway done with the quarter, research proposals are due and it's time to start taking classes more seriously - not that I wasn't taking them seriously to begin with, though!

...Unfortunately, this weekend won't be a good time for me to start working on my research paper, since I'm actually heading to New York! This will be my first time there and I'm super excited. (Expect plenty of pictures, of course.) When I actually do start working on my research paper, I'll let you know. The paper was always one of my hesitations about the UCDC Program, since I don't really enjoy writing 20-page papers and I don't know too many people who do! However, I'll be writing about the Arab Spring which is fascinating to me, so hopefully that will get me through it. Fingers crossed for a smooth writing process - and for smooth democratic transitions in the Middle East! (Ha. I wish.)

Columbus Day and Week Three

Happy Columbus Day, everyone! I survived week three and am enjoying a cupcake from Crumbs on my "day off" (no internship today, but I still had class).

I visited Charlottesville, VA the day after my last post. I got to tour Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's estate) and the University of Virginia. Although it was cloudy and cold, Virginia was still beautiful and I loved Monticello.

The University of Virginia was beautiful as well - I toured Jefferson's "academical village" and the Rotunda. I attempted to find the law school during our lunch break, but didn't have any luck. Also, fun fact: some of the university's high profile students get to live right on the lawn in Jefferson's original buildings, in the footsteps of Woodrow Wilson and Edgar Allan Poe!

Week three of my internship was a mix between being insanely busy/working on multiple projects at once and doubt/boredom. There's an expectation that once an intern gets settled in, he/she will find a long-term project to work on. An exemplary intern's project will be self-motivated and something that he/she noticed about the organization that needs to be done or could be improved. At the very least, a good intern needs a long-term project that contributes something substantial to the organization. I've worked on a lot of projects so far - and they were all important and needed to be done - but I haven't found anything long-term to do yet. My longest project so far has a duration of 1-2 weeks. I'm really pressuring myself to seek out more to do so that I can make a larger contribution in the office, but it's hard to do when I'm surrounded by such impressive people and in an organization as large as the Department of State. I feel like my presence in the office is helpful but not crucial, so that's something I definitely want to fix over the next couple of weeks.

After a crazy day of work on Friday (with absolutely no downtime), I was definitely ready for the weekend! I toured the Capitol on Saturday and visited the Library of Congress. I've seen both of those buildings before on a previous trip to DC, but they still impressed me as much as they did four years ago.

The Capitol:

Library of Congress:

Sunday the temperature dropped to 50 degrees (which wasn't fun considering it was sunny and 80 degrees on Thursday), but instead of staying inside and avoiding the cold, rainy weather I decided to go shopping! I attempted to take the Metro to Wheaton, MD to visit their mall, but there was construction on the Metrorail tracks so the 35-minute trip up to Wheaton turned into a 90-minute trip. Ouch. At least I got to take advantage of the Columbus Day sales! I am hoping to go shopping again in the future (although hopefully it won't be an all-day adventure) - there are a lot of stores in DC itself, although Connecticut Avenue and Georgetown are a bit more expensive (as is Pentagon City) so for affordability I would still recommend trying Wheaton.

 

As the weather gets colder, I'm really starting to miss California autumns. Luckily the beautiful colors make it worth it! I'm hoping to walk around the monuments sometime soon to see all the fall colors - hopefully it will be warmer than 50 degrees though.