Taking On The Capital

Jenna O'Connell. Gettysburg College Class of 2014. Environmental Studies and Public Policy double major. Spending a semester in our great nation's capital, Washington DC at American University. We'll see how it goes...

[jennatakesdc]

Please help us raise money to fund the education of students in pre-primary, primary, and secondary schools in six rural villages near Tamale, Ghana.

For more information, click on the link!

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An Actual Update? Yes, I think so.

So DC. It's been pretty cool lately. I am really enjoying everything I have gotten to do in this city so far. Through my seminar I've been able to meet lots of really interesting people who work for various NGO's and agencies. So far my favorite was either the African Wildlife Foundation or the National Wildlife Federation. See a trend here? I just enjoy hearing about the things people are doing to preserve biodiversity and endangered species both in the US and abroad. The National Wildlife Federation is actually the organization that comes out with the children's magazine Ranger Rick. I used to love that series!

My internship has been pretty standard. I'm chipping away at my EJ Screen project and I got to write a blog for communications last week. I hope they link me to it when they post it, then I'll link it here so everyone can read it. It was about being green with clothing consumption. I'm pretty proud of it. The EJ Screen stuff has been going well. I'm in the process of analyzing the data I have right now. Should be interesting from what I see so far! This is my last week of work before I go to Ghana next week, so I've been trying to get a lot done! Busy, busy, busy!

Speaking of which, Ghana! I'm going to Ghana on Wednesday! I'm super excited. I'll be there for just under three weeks. I get back on April 8th. I've never been to Africa, so this will be an incredible experience. We are going to see some speakers there, visit a National Park, and visit some small rural villages to implement service projects. My group has been raising money to help children go to school. They need money for uniforms, school supplies, transportation, and school fees. I'm going to link you to the donation site in my next post, so please check that out and donate! We've raised about $600 (most in person so it is not listed on the site) now, but we're looking for more so we can help as many kids as possible.

Well, that's all from me for now. Please check out the donation site and be on the look out for some posts about my time in Ghana. And for pictures!  See you soon!

[jennatakesdc]

I Might As Well Actually Update This...

So sorry about the lack of updates, I have been a little bit busy and a little bit lazy. Haha. But I wanted to update everybody who might actually read this blog on my most recent happenings. Yesterday was my first day at the EPA! :)

So I have to wake up at 6:30 to give myself an hour to get into my fancy work clothes and rub the dust from my eyes to get onto the Metro at 7:30. I take the Red line a bunch of stops, get off and get onto the Yellow line and take it a bunch of stops, get off and get on a bus to finally arrive at my office in Virginia by 8:30. Yup, it take about an hour to get to work. But they give me a transit subsidy, so it's not that bad. Some hardcore real life experience, right here.

Anyway, yesterday I arrived at 8:30, went through security and headed up to the 6th floor where my department lives. I am working for the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery which was created under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA. This department is under the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response or OSWER. From how it was explained to me, the EPA can be broken into three parts: water, air, and land. OSWER is the land component. Within RCRA, I am working for Permits and Communications.

The beginning of my day started with my supervisor showing me around and then introducing me to the program that I'll be working with a lot, called EJ Screen. It's like a specialized GIS program for the EPA used to identify communities with Environmental Justice concerns. I'll be working with it a lot with one of my projects. One of the reasons they liked me so much when they hired me was because of my GIS experience so I could more easily understand EJ Screen and do what they need me to do with it. Thanks Rud! (My GIS professor) And having played with the program for what seemed like hours, it is super easy to understand and really cool. I was GIS-geeking out though, it was pretty interesting the information they had within the program.

After I played with EJ Screen and had lunch with my supervisor Gail (She is super sweet by the way. She also loves cats!) we went to listen in to a conference call. Every month, the permits department has a conference call with all of the EPA districts across the country to fill them in on stuff and ask their opinions on things. It was very interesting to sit in on, it was also my first conference call. Everyone was very nice to me too. I can already tell  I'm going to learn a lot just being in the office with these people who know so much.

I was sent off to play with EJ Screen some more, but due to my mad GIS skillz, I already had the program sorted out. So I was kind of bored. They don't have a cube for me yet, and I was only just told the premise of my projects so far. So there wasn't much for me to do yet. But I'm sure I will be less bored next week and after. This is just the odd intro week. Thankfully I was saved from my boredom by the communications team who filled me in on the projects I will be doing with them. I'll be blogging a bit for them and helping them look over their websites for bad links and other assorted activities. So basically, once I get started I'm going to be super busy. I really cannot wait for it all to begin! Next week! As my projects move forward, I'll keep you filled in! Thanks for once again reading my rambles.

[jennatakesdc]

I will be updating this soon! I've just been pretty busy! (and a little lazy when it comes to this blog)

[jennatakesdc]

So tonight I'm going to an embassy event at the Slovenian embassy. It should be super awesome. :D

[jennatakesdc]

Oops. Meant to reblog that on my personal. Not reblog my post here again. XD

[jennatakesdc]

I was offered and I accepted an internship at the EPA!

It's with the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery. From what they told me I'll be doing a lot of cool projects. It will also be a great resume builder.

So excited! I'll give more details later! :D

[jennatakesdc]

Pictures from my Newseum Trip

[jennatakesdc]

The Newseum

On Friday I went to the Newseum with my seminar class. It was probably my favorite place I have seen so far in DC. It was really an amazing museum. It's right on Pennsylvania Avenue too. I think I read that it was the last thing built on Pennsylvania Avenue, taking up the last available space on the street. You could go to the top floor and see all of the building around, including the Capitol building. It was pretty amazing.

The Newseum itself was pretty powerful. One of the first exhibits I went to was the Pulitzer Prize photo exhibit. This was an amazing exhibit. They had images of all the past winners of the Pulitzer prize. For some of the images, they had blown up versions and the story as told by the photographer. These were amazing to look at and read about. Most of the images were taken during times of conflict, and where incredibly powerful. Something funny about the exhibit was all of the people taking pictures of the pictures. All of them can be seen online, so it was just an odd thing to me to see people taking those pictures.

Another exhibit that I enjoyed was the Berlin Wall and Cold War exhibit. They had a huge piece of the Berlin Wall right there in the museum. That was a really cool thing for me because my Dad really likes history and had always wanted a piece of the Berlin Wall. They did not let you touch the large piece of the wall, but they had a small piece that you could touch which was pretty cool. As with the entire museum, reading about the exhibit was fascinating as well.

I was really touched by the 9/11 exhibit that they had as well. I thought it was a fantastic and moving exhibit. They even had a box of tissues there just in case people got too emotional. I almost needed it. They had a large piece of the antennae that used to sit upon one of the two towers there. It was really incredible to see the piece of destroyed metal, knowing what it represented. They also had a huge wall with images of front pages of newspapers from that period of time. All of the headlines were very intense.

The exhibit that moved me the most though was the Journalist Memorial exhibit. It was a wall with all the names of the journalists who had died practicing their craft. They also had all the people from the past year on another wall where you could read their stories. It was really sad to look upon. You may think I'm sappy here, but I kept thinking of my boyfriend Josh and how he is a photo journalist and he wants to eventually go on a trip to war torn countries. I got rather emotional thinking of all of the things that could happen to him and people like him for the sake of the press.

I visited quite a few other exhibits, but those were the ones that I liked or moved me the most. It really is an incredible museum, I highly recommend it. I hope I can go back again before this semester is over. I'll be posting a few pictures from this excursion in a moment. Thanks for reading! :)

[jennatakesdc]

First Week of Classes

So this was the first week of classes here at the Washington Semester program. For those of you who don't know, I'll be doing an internship two days of the week and I'll have class the other three weekdays. Monday and Tuesday are my internship days, and Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I have class. On Wednesday nights I am taking an additional class as well.

Anyway, so far so good with the classes arrangement. I really like my professor for my International Environment and Development seminar, which is good since I'll be spending a lot of time with her. The people seem really nice in my class as well, and there are only fourteen of us so I'm sure I'll get to know them very well. I'm excited about this class because I'll be able to learn more about development, something I have only covered a little bit in other classes. I know plenty about environmental issues, but development I am not as familiar with.

My night class is Religion and Politics Worldwide. I think this class will be really relevant because of the current religious climate in the world, it will also be really interesting. The people in the class seemed cool too, a lot of people with a lot of big mouths. Just the way I like my classes! Discussion!

Throughout the week I have been going to interviews. It has been an interesting process. I've learned a lot about myself and the process. I actually think it has been a really good experience even though I don't have an internship yet and that is a bit stressful. Haha. But I'll get one soon. I hope so at least!

Sorry that this post has kind of been all over the place. I have been I guess. Haha. I will be posting about my class trip to the museum soon as well! That was super exciting. Also more pics. :D

[jennatakesdc]

From my adventures yesterday in DC. :)

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Traveling to DC. The car was full!

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Interview and the Amazing Race

So I'm not going to talk too much about my interview on Friday, because I don't want to jinx anything. But I will talk a little bit about it, specifically getting there. It was my first time on the DC Metro and my first time out on my own in DC. It was actually super easy and took me a lot faster than I thought it would. It is a little expensive compared to Boston though! A Metro stop is about two minutes from my dorm building, and it was a super quick walk from where I got off to the WWF. It's a beautiful building, by the way. The interview went pretty well I think, and I'm going to find out if they want me early this week. So fingers are crossed. In the mean time, I'll keep applying to other places. :)

So anyway, yesterday was pretty exciting. I've been trying to think of ways to put myself out there and make friends because I'm not exactly good at that. So I signed up for this event on campus called the Amazing Race. It ended up that we got put into groups of 8 or 9 and had to run around DC, using an all day metro pass, collecting items and photos for points. I had a lot of fun. My group was really nice and we were super efficient.

Some highlights of the day. Getting lost in the American History Museum. I wondered off and before I knew it I had lost my group. But they found me! Second, probably the best highlight of the day, I got stuck in the subway doors. They literally shut on me. It was ridiculous. They opened up right after I squeezed out, but it was still pretty scary. I could have been whisked away. Haha. But other than those mishaps, it was a lot of fun. We saw all sorts of things and learned how to transverse the city.

At the end of the day, they calculated the points and my group came in second place. As a prize we won admission into an embassy event for the Slovenian embassy! (First prize got admission into the Italian embassy for a black tie event, but our prize is still awesome.) That is in early February, so you'll hear more about that soon. I am very excited. So overall it was a good experience, I'm very glad I did it. Slowly but surely I'm putting myself out there!

Also, my roommate arrived last night. She flew all the way from New Zealand, so she was tired. We talked a bit and she seems really nice. I think we will get along great. Semester is looking up now! Can't wait to tell you guys more! <3

[jennatakesdc]

DC is an amazing city. Don't be afraid to have a night out on the town or even a day outing. Hope you enjoy your stay at AU!

Thanks! I've loved what I've seen so far! I'm actually going to be doing some exploring tomorrow hopefully. I cannot wait!

[jennatakesdc]

I have my first in person interview of my life today! Wish me luck!

[jennatakesdc]

The name of this blog may be changing, but it will probably remain what it is. Eventually I'll make a nice theme for the blog too, but right now I am tired. D:

[jennatakesdc]

Travel / Day One

So today was my first day in Washington DC alone. Scary stuff. Haha. Yesterday, Josh and I packed up the car full of all of my stuff and headed on over to the capital. We unpacked my stuff into my tiny dorm at American University. It was like playing Tetris trying to get a configuration for the furniture that worked. XD Also, the beds are really high off the ground. We managed to find something that works and unpacked. Grocery shopping was interesting, but that happened too. Then we went on a little tour of DC to see some of the buildings and monuments. It was getting dark so I didn't see everything too well, but it was still awesome. I can't wait to tour in the daylight.

Today was orientation day at AU's Washington Semester Program. We had a brief session this morning where they went over the standard stuff, and then this afternoon we met with our seminars. My seminar looks like it is going to be super awesome. The people seem cool, the professor seems fun, and the trip to Ghana sounds amazing. I may see an elephant in the wild, bucket list item! What we are going to learn will be interesting too. It will be an environmental course, which I am well versed in, but there will also be a lot on development, something I am less knowledgeable in. It will be an awesome experience.

So at the moment I'm just finishing my unpacking in my dorm. My roommate has not arrived yet, but I'm sure she will arrive soon. I have yet to make any friends, but I have talked to a lot of people so I'm sure I'll connect with people soon. Give it time, I'm just a little bit shy. Haha. I have an interview tomorrow with the WWF, I hope it goes well. I'm nervous. I'll guess we'll wait and see.

I'll post some pics of my dorm and the car ride sometime soon. Expect to see blog posts like this, pictures from my explorations, and little blurbs on this blog. I'm just using it to put down my thoughts on Washington and to inform my family and friends of my happenings. This semester is going to be incredible, I can't wait!