DC

Still job hunting here, it is an exciting time to be here, there will be a lot of people leaving the hill to work on campaigns soon enough so hopefully there will be some job openings coming up soon.

Played some basketball today down in DC, my first club lax game is Tuesday up in Howard County, it should be fun.

Just finished a few books; Friedman's The World is Flat, Amaryta Sen's Identity and Violence and Thomas Hoschild's King Leopold's Ghost.

Friedman's work was brilliant a decisive argument for the defense of globalization and free trade whilst not ignoring the negative aspects of the most shaping force of our young century.

Sen's work is a book I started a while ago and picked up again to finish it, a very quick read it does a great job challenging the close-minded belief that we are in a clash of civilizations, as many have put it. He argues that we must continue to define people less narrowly, once we begin to define someone by their religious identity or other's we lose all of their other identities. For instance, someone can be an African-American woman, a democrat, a soldier, a mother, a daughter, and a christian. When we narrowly define someone by one of these traits we overlook all of the others, which may be more important to understanding who they are.

King Leopold's Ghost is a comprehensive indictment of the colonial practices of the Belgian king, and the book's namesake, in the Congo in the early 20th century. The book also carries the more broad message of anti colonialism. A very great historical read on the history of the development of the Congo as a colony but is the same old (though correct) anti-colonial thought echoed in every dissection of the practice.

I am about to start Freakonomics, which I hear is quite an intriguing read.

Updating

So I am actually going to try to keep this up to date, AGAIN

What is the What?

I recently finished this book, sent to me from my Uncle Bruce. It is the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the "Lost Boys" of the Sudanese civil war. It is a novel by David Eggers who took Deng's story and incorporated elements of other stories from the "Lost Boys." It is in no shape a fictional account of the heartbreaking events of Deng's life though. This is not the type of book I normally read in the sense that it isn't in documentary or textbook form. However the story sucks you in very quickly and I had a hard time putting it down until I finished the 475th page. A great example of micro history it effectively pulls in other world events throughout the story such as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the Al-Qaeda funded attacks on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. I would highly recommend it to anyone capable of reading.

Funny Newsworthy items

I read this article in "The Examiner" a Post publication on my commute to work on Wednesday under the title "Also His Carbon Footprint, Abysmal."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/ODD_GAS_HEIST?SITE=NCASH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

This one is hilarious.....Alabama State Senate......need I say more

What a Week!

This past week, my first at my internship has been a great experience. Everyone in Congressman McIntyre's office are so nice and uplifting to work with. Even with the crazy week that we had and the mountains of paperwork and stress compounded on top of it everyone is so jovial about their work and so easy to interact with.

I really got thrown into the mix pretty quickly for my first week. McIntyre has been working for the better part of a decade on a bill to grant the Lumbee Indians federal recognition and finally got a vote in the House this week which passed resoundingly 256-128. So much work went into the debate and vote assuring this past week and the months leading up to it. Needless to say the mood in the office was rather celebratory Thursday afterwards and in the Congressional softball league after work. Hangin out on the mall with some free beer and a great deal of the congressional office staff for the NC people was a pretty nice event, I got to meet some good people. Surprisingly these events are great for finding our job openings and offices and a good amount of the staffers actually found their jobs this way. All in all, quite a fun week! I'm looking forward to a fun weekend. I plan on taking the metro down to foggy bottom to check out GWU and the State Department, maybe Ill roll into some touristy museums while Im at it! Also, Ill be goin to Alexandria to visit my friend Mike Saturday night.

DC

Finally in DC! My neighborhood is real chill just north of Dupont Circle, a real nice area. I start my internship on Monday and I spent today getting acquainted with the area. Here's some pictures:

On the eve of my travels

I have quite a fun week coming up. I leave tomorrow to drive to Baltimore in Memorial Day weekend traffic. Ill be spending Friday Saturday and part of Sunday at Kristin's house then hopping on a train to CT to see Harold and Bruce and Johnny. Chillen in NYC with no agenda or stressers for a week will be nice until I leave on Friday to drive down to Baltimore to pick up my car and start my internship in DC. By the way I lost count of the number of people who have told me to be careful in DC and assured me of a mugging while I'm up there. I feel like I am leaving to go to the Congo or something. Ill be staying at the International Student House on 18th and R streets just north of DuPont Circle. I'm real excited about it and ready to try to network and meet some good contacts!

George Washington University

My current obsession as far as grad schools go is George Washington University's Elliot School of International Studies. It is DC, a perfect location for my desired field of International Relations, very expensive though. They do have some grants and such:
- http://www.gwu.edu/~fellows/
Also the school is closer to my GPA range and I think I may have a better chance of getting in there than say a Yale. I still really want to look hard at NYU and find one or two other schools to apply to In NYC, DC and the surrounding areas. The great thing about George Washington is their specific focus in what I really want to do as opposed to NYU where I would be getting an MA in Politics with a focus in International Affairs from The School or Arts and Sciences. I plan on visiting the two schools in my week in NYC and my month in DC.

Last week in 910

My only week in Wilmington for about a month has consisted of the beach and doing yardwork por mis padres. Last week I taught Kristin to surf and tried to knock off some of my own rustiness in the water. Friday I was Mom's date to the JDRF gala, pretty fun evening free drinks all night and got to watch the leaders of Wilmington's economy get drunk and act like idiots. Also heres some pictures of my junior year at school.

Slacking

So I have decided to try to actually do this whole blog thing........Ill try to keep it more updated....Goin to Baltimore on Friday till Sunday then NYC for a week....Then DC for a month for the internship!