Below is the link for my DC pictures. You should be able to access them through Facebook even if you don’t have an account:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030322&id=1045740012&l=a12d7a501e

Campus Progress Conference

A couple of weeks ago  I took the day off work on a Wednesday and took the Metro with my roommate Ariel to a hotel/conference place in DC. The Campus Progress conference had over 1400 college students, many who were in DC for the summer as interns but also quite a few who had flown in just for the occasion. I must say, being the cynical person I am I wasn’t expecting that great of a show, but it was pretty spectactular. Campus Progress is the college part of the Center for American Progress, which is a huge progressive organization, so they were able to pull in a ton of big names to come speak to us. The headliner was Bill Clinton, who I had already seen at the CA Dem. Convention. I had forgotten, however, what an engaging and funny speaker he was. Also speaking: Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of Heath Kathleen Sebelius, Van Jones (White House advisor on green jobs), and the Daily Show’s John Oliver (interviewed on stage by a Berkeley person for some reason) who is HILARIOUS in real life and also seemed really nice. He talked about the possibility of being deported in 3 days because of some visa issues, and how he watches way too much cable news, which he hates. He also repeatedly refused to call the Daily Show “journalism” even though people during the Q and A session kept trying to force him to. Love that man.

Beyond just the speakers were the two work sessions we went to. You basically chose from 4 or 5 options during two different time periods in which you went and listened to a panel and discussed issues such as Global Warming, Labor Rights, Hip Hop, Social Networking, Journalism, Health Care, Human Rights, etc. I chose one about global warming (interesting but nothing really new learned) and a second on global security, which featured  bunch of really interesting speakers including Matthew Yglesias from The Atlantic (www.atlantic.com) and a… real live Republican! He even defended the Iraq War and everything, and said that history would look fondly on George W. Bush. It was cute. (I also should add that I was very pleasantly surprised that the audience questions during this time avoided directly attacking everything he said in order to make a political point, which I had feared. He was basically the only conservative at the conference so it was pretty cool of him to come.)

So the conference was pretty great, being with a lot of young progressive-types, many of them showing off by wearing business clothes (not me, it was my day off). Plus, at the end there was a reception that had really good food and ice cream sundaes (with fresh strawberry topping!!!)! I will probably never forget that.

Met Assistant Administrator/Softball

These events are entirely out of any sort of chronological order, mostly because I wrote them down in the order I remembered them. Anyway, the Office of Pesticides, Pollution, and Toxic Substances (in which I work) has been waiting forever to get a new Assistant Administrator, the person who reports directly to the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson. This is a political appointment that requires Congressional confirmation. Not having an AA meant that the person who normally would be my branch boss became the division director, the normal division director became acting AA, and so on. Anyway, the guy (his name is Steve Owen.. or Owens…) finally got confirmed and the next day was walking around the halls of the EPA.  He happened to me and Mike (my supervisor) as well as the acting AA, and I happened to mention to him that I went to Berkeley. “Oh, you have tree sitters there,” he said (turns out he was a Tennesee fan and had been to the football game at Berkeley). Right. Then I complained about how no one ever says anything about Berkeley being a “fine academic institution” anymore, all anyone cares about is tree sitters. I realized about half-way through this that I should probably turn down the mockery in my voice about a half-notch, lest he be insulted. But Mike later told this story at the softball game as “the longest conversation yet any of us has had with the new AA. You made a good impression, Kate.” If you say so.

Chilean Embassy

Fui a la embajada de Chile! Finally. After a long time of trying to convince myself to do so, I went into the Chilean embassy, which is honestly located about block away from my apartment (although normal open hours are generally when I am at work). The thing was that I really wanted to go in there and speak Spanish, but I am a terrible coward. So I went in there, saw that the girl at the desk was my age and therefore immediately went into English mode. I don’t know why that mattered but it did. I really didn’t have anything specific to say… I asked something dumb about it being cold in the south at winter (yes, duh), but they kindly gave me a map of the country (which is very cool because unlike boring American rectangular maps, this one, like the country, is very tall and skinny, and now hangs in my kitchen) and a tourist pamphlet thing full of pictures of mountains and city-scapes and turtles and whatnot with words like “SPECTACULAR” on them. I cut out the cool ones and hung them on my wall, along with my other posters. Between the arts-and-craft stars that I put on the living room wall, the dried roses in an old Brita water filter vase on the coffee table, and various maps and landscapes scattered throughout the apartment, I am literally the only one who has put any effort into decorating. I probably prefer it this way.

That was really actually a very short story that I managed to make a small novel. My apologies, I have a tendency to do that. Ramble, I mean. So.

Need to Visit Museums

Despite being here over a month my museum visiting has been very lax, mostly because I want to avoid dealing with all the “tourists” who come and plague this fine city of which I am a native resident. I have gone to the Newseum twice (despite the almost $20 entrance fee, it is AWESOME and TOTALLY WORTH IT, and I STILL DIDN’T FINISH seeing everything even the second time I went). I also went to  the Air and Space Museum when my friend Megan (from New Zealand and I-House) came to visit as part of her insane cross-country “see America, even the flyover parts” trip. It was very crowded. But since I only have 3 weeks left here I have decided to start exploring them after work, since during the summer they are open until 7:30. Today I started with the American history museum, and made it until about 6:30 (and one half of one floor) before I got hungry and tired and headed home. So it will be a gradual process, but I have a lot to see, including the National Archives, the Museum of Natural History, and various other museums and monuments around the city. I also want to go up the Washington Monument, although that may involve waking up early and standing in line. So we’ll see.

Work- Awards Ceremony, etc

My final work note for this post is the work awards ceremony that was held on Tuesday. In addition to offering free food on a day in which I didn’t have time to pack a lunch, it was also a cool opportunity to see all the people in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, most of whom I have called or emailed at one time (but never seen), out of their cubicles. I also got to hear about some of the acheivements of various Office programs, including the International Mercury Program and the lead programs. Also, the previously mentioned new AA spoke, and he is very funny. But perhaps the best part was “The EPA Warblers,” a group of employees who wrote lyrics about OPPT to the tune of various hit songs from years in which I did not yet exist. It was pretty hilarious, particularly when a guy with a guitar came out and we were expected to since along to what I gathered after much brain-wracking was “The Age of Aquarius, ” sung as “the Age of the EPA”. Anyway, at the end we got bags that say “2009 OPPT Awards Ceremony” on them, which I will accept as payment for my summer’s labor, in addition to the USB stick they gave me earlier.

That’s it! I will try to think of more to tell later. I only just recently got used to this place and  have to leave soon, so hopefully there will be many more stories to come.

Editor’s Note: So the reason it takes me so long to write a post is that each piece is something like a work of art to me, and I am like Picasso (EDIT: Uncultured alert! It was Van Gough) who’s own paintings make him want to cut off his own ears. I mean, I know that’s not how it worked, but my point is that I like (but actually hate; perhaps the word I want is “require”) long, well-written things, and those take hour(s) and also require a lot of work. So for now I will just post some hastily-written nonsense updating you on my past few weeks and you’ll just have to deal. This is how this blogging thing works, I think.

Fourth of July

I spent my Independence Day at the Iwo Jima Memorial, located in I had two options for my Fourth of July: the Mall of not the Mall. The Mall was surely the popular choice, particularly since it a long weekend and therefore would be attracting tourists from all around the area who wanted to spend the day in DC. Most of my coworkers told me they avoided the Mall on the Fourth because it was so crowded. So despite the incredible temptation of seeing Aretha Franklin (amongst less important others including Rod Stewart) who were performing at the Capitol, I  headed to Virginia, to sit on a hill with what had to have been about ten thousand other patriots, to watch the fireworks. Our view was such that the fireworks sat just above the distant Washington Monument, which lined up slightly with the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. So it was pretty cool. The fireworks were great. No musical coregraphing a la KFOG Kaboom, but still pretty spectacular. Once I can find my camera cord I will post some pictures. We also got a great spot because I Paula (one of my apartmentmates) and her cousin and her friend got there at noon. When I showed up at 4:30ish, there were maybe fifty people there.

The best part of this whole story is that we walked home from Virginia. Oh yeah. Take that, California. Granted, we were literally 2 Metro stops over from my regular station, but really. It was pretty cool.

Next time: Campus Progress Conference! Work Update! Etc.

P.S. I just bought a flight home- I will be returning to OAK noonish on Aug. 11th via US Airways.

EDIT: BIG EXCITING UPDATES COMING TOMORROW.

Not really, but I have Byron’s guitar until then and I need to make sure my fingers are sufficiently torn up in the short amount of time I still have with it. But there will be updates, hopefully!

Today I spent the first half of the day calling members of the Environmental Justice Workgroup. I asked them for documents that might be useful for the group and requested that they call me back. Around lunch time, I realized I had given all of them- 25 or so people- the wrong call back number. So then I had something to do for the second half of the day.

But my life isn’t all work! Just 40 hours a week of it, plus all the time I spend napping (read: watching Entourage on my computer) afterwards since my job requires me to get up at 7:30 (read: ish) five days a week and is totally exhausting (since I sit in desk chair all day, but sometimes have to walk down the hall to a meeting, in high heels).

But when I do get out, I have been doing some exploring. Here is a list:

Adam’s Morgan

Apologies for the long wait until this post, I have had guests for the last few weeks, including my friend Sarah from IHouse, who has since returned to the only place on earth where they actually eat Vegimite not as a dare, and my parents and brother, who are currently living my mother’s childhood dream of seeing “Stormy” and “Dreamy” or whatever, the horses from children’s novels, in Chinquatigue.

But my life isn’t all work! Just 40 hours a week of it, plus all the time I spend napping (read: watching Entourage on my computer) afterwards since my job requires me to get up at 7:30 (read: ish) five days a week and is totally exhausting (since I sit in desk chair all day, but sometimes have to walk down the hall to a meeting, in high heels).

But when I do get out, I have been doing some exploring. Here is a list.

Adams Morgan

Adams Morgan is the nightlife area of DC, full of restaurants and bars. It is about a 30-45min trek away from the UC Center. I enjoyed walking through there, during daylight hours.

Embassy Row

A few spots on Embassy Row: Go on DPE, name the flags.

Embassy Row for me is like a Star Trek convention for people who really, really like Star Trek. Do you follow this analogy? What I am trying to say is that, being that I study international relations, walking down Embassy Row is very exciting. It’s pretty interesting to see just the size of the embassies- Iraq is tiny in comparison to Greece, for example. France is huge, as is Canada, and Great Britain (though I haven’t seen it). Sometimes I will walk past an embassy of a country of which I barely recognize the existence- Mauritius, for example. I am still trying to gather up the courage to walk in to the Chilean embassy and ask them for travel information, but I will be angry at myself if I don’t do it in Spanish, and I’m too afraid to do so, so I remain woefully uninformed.

Other Places and Things: PHOTO DUMP

Arlington Cemetery

Sarah and Rachel: Not fans of the IMF

The Pentagon and Pentagon Memorial (symbolic somehow)

Jazz in the Sculpture Garden: featuring every person under 30 in the DC metro area, Fridays at 5:30

Some sort of exciting White House event: proles keep back 300 yards

Tourist-watching: one of the best things about "living" in DC. These particular specimens are scoping out the White House from behind a high-security fence.

Aaron makes an Aaron face.

My place of work- or at least one small part of it. The EPA complex is HUGE, taking up all four sides of one block, and that doesn't include offices in Virginia and North Carolina or the regional offices.

Georgetown: RICH.

So I’ve been doing a lot of walking. To Georgetown, et cetera. My motivation for exploration has been partially helped by the fact that I have had visitors who want to go see things, but I have very much enjoyed myself thus far. On commute home (I take the Metro to work in the morning because it allows me 20 more minutes of sleep), I pass the White House, the Executive Offices, the Department of Commerce, the IRS, the American History Museum, the Washington Monument, the National Geographic headquarters, and, depending on my route, various other unions, non-profits, or governmental offices. Myimmediate  neighbors include Human Rights Campaign and the Australian and Philippino embassies. I’ve had my commute redirected by Secret Service agents in front of the White House. I’ve been stopped from crossing the street to allow a motorcade into the White House parking lot.  Thus my experience so far has been rather surreal.  These are things that I pass every day; that’s a lot of power in such a compact town.

I’ve been putting off writing this post because 1) I wanted to wait until I got my really cool special government employee security badge 2) procrastination/laziness, duh. Unfortunately, the former has yet to happen (I have been promised that it will tomorrow, although I was also promised that it would today), so I will force myself to overcome the latter and update you with what has been happening.

I spend a good portion of my first day walking around the office with Mike, my supervisor, and meeting basically everyone in the Division. In order to explain what that means I have to explain the breakdown of the EPA, so here it goes:

EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)

–>breaks into Offices (such as Air, Water, and Pollution, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances (OPPTS), where I work)

–>OPPTS breaks into three sub-offices, which include the Pesticides Office and the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), where I work

–>OPPT divides into divisions, most of which are science-y and involve testing new chemicals, or running programs such as the asbestos or lead programs, which work to reduce these and other commonly-used toxic materials. My division, the Environmental Assistance Division (EAD), does a lot of the budgetary work for OPPT as a whole, plus communicates with Congress and the President, works with other countries to acheive common goals, etc.

–>EAD then divides into branches, which include Human Resources, Immediate, etc, and the Planning and Assessment Branch (PAB), of which, to my understanding, Mike is the deputy director. We do a lot of the previously managed budgetary stuff, including looking at contracts given out by the science-y divisions, seeing what money has been spent/needs to be spent, etc.

So much of what I’ve been doing in the three days thus far has been looking at the very, very complicated databases that contain all of the information about the budgets for all of the divisions and looking for money that needs to be spent by a certain deadline, discrepancies in money promised to a project versus money spent on a project, etc. It’s actually really interesting because you get to see a lot of “How Government Works”. Mike pointed out that this is how government is kept accountable to taxpayers: we are that accountability by making sure that no one is wasting money or not getting things done. Plus, we (and I can say “we” because I’m an official “employee” (but actually an official voluntary intern)) are an integral part of this whole testing chemicals and making sure they are safe for consumer use. So it’s pretty cool thus far.

Other things I am doing include taking part in a couple of “work groups” which I am pretty excited about. These are just special tasks forces of people across the EPA aiming to do things outside of their specific line of work. I’m lucky in that Mike is the OPPT representative to the environmental justice workgroup, and has let me sit in on their meetings. Their mission is to create a formal way of examining the impact of a policy on environmental justice. (Environmental justice-”EJ” as they call it- is the term for “inequitable environmental burdens borne by groups such as racial minorities, women, residents of economically disadvantaged areas, or residents of developing nations” (thanks to Wikipedia). For example, a poor community right next to a heavily-polluting factory is an example of an issue of environmental justice. Lack of access to water can also be an issue of EJ.) Anyway, the existence of environmental injustice can obviously be a reason for a policy to be implemented- banning the use of certain pesticides that harm farm workers, for example- but as of now the EPA does not have any sort of formal process for examining what that policy means for EJ. So that is what they are doing- creating a list of questions to be asked, things to be considered, etc. And I hopefully will be able to contribute a bit to it, or at least sit in and learn more about it.

I also hopefully will be working with one other group, called “Emerging Leaders” that my coworker Bryan got me involved in. Their basic idea, from what I can gather from the one meeting I went to, is making the Environmental Protection Agency–the building, the people, etc–more environmentally friendly. This could mean putting in a compost pile in the cafeteria, working on a better recycling program, etc. It sounds pretty cool although I must admit I haven’t done much with them yet. Note that both this group and the EJ workgroup meet rather infrequently- only like once or twice a week, if that often.

Other than those three things I have been hard at work learning the systems, and, almost as challengingly, the acronyms. Everything at the EPA has an acronym, from OPPTS to CARE (the anti-lead program, I believe) to CCR (Chemical Control…something) to PBW (something to do with labor). Many of the meetings I go to speak entirely in this code, so I am slowly learning to decipher them.

Everyone at the office has been ridiculously nice to me so far, and all have been very patient in answering all of my nagging questions. I have only worked three days thus far (Wed., Thurs., Tues.) due to the fact that while I was not an official employee (before my paperwork went through, long story) I became some sort of insurance liability and was told to not come to work (very nicely, of course). However, I am all official and receiving my awesome VIP credentials tomorrow, so I am getting really excited to be a part of some of these projects and to feel like I am a small cog in the huge, important EPA machine. I’m already wondering if I can maybe do some work from home or stay an extra week so I can squeeze in more projects.

In other EPA-related but not work-related news, if that makes sense, tomorrow I am going to the OPPT picnic! Hopefully it won’t rain, because it is outside, as most picnics tend to be (except the ones I throw, sometimes). It has been raining a lot recently, including today, despite the fact that it was 86 degrees according to weather.com. The picnic will be a good chance for me to try to remember a few more of the 50 or so people that I met on the first day and whose names I have long since forgotten. I also am joining the EPA softball league, on Mike, Bryan, etc’s team “The Louisiville Sludgers,” the name of which has something to do with some of the employees coming from a solid waste division, or something. I joined on the promise that softball was more about socializing and less about actual softball, so I should be okay, as long as I don’t have to hit or catch anything.

I guess that about wraps up my work post. Oh yeah, Chaka Khan. I guess every Tuesday or something there is a musical performance in the plaza right outside where I work, right next to the Ronald Reagan Building (hah). Anyway, she was the performer on the first day I was there. I stayed just long enough to realize I had no idea who she was and the crowds were too big for me to stay to find out. Oh! Fun related story! Because of the concert the lines were super long at nearby food courts, so Mike took me to the Natural History Museum across the street and into the top secret government employees-only cafe, which you just have to know about to get into because you go through a secret door at the back, but eating in which made me feel very in-the-know. It was very cool and apparently the food is better and cheaper.

It is on this eloquent note that I thus end the longest blog post ever. Next time: embassies, walking, more walking, and the Senate!

Note that this post does not count as the promised exciting work stories blog post, which I will write tomorrow. Maybe.  

Observation #1: DC weather makes no sense. How can it be hot when it is raining? This is not the tropics. How can it be hot at night?! The sun is down, where does the heat come from? How can rain just come out of nowhere? Like, one minute it will be broiling and the next pouring. And finally, they have thunder and lightning storms here without rain. Like, on a daily basis, according to my extensive research in the three days that I’ve been here. It is entirely nonsensical.

Observation #2: For some bizarre and barbaric reason, the DC public bathrooms I have been so lucky to use have had only one communal toilet seat cover dispenser, usually by the paper towel dispenser. Other than the weather, this is going to be the single biggest thing I will have to get used to. Because, what, do they just not use them here?

Observation #3:  I should probably stop casually referring to coworkers of both genders as “men.” As in, “hey man, that PAB spreadsheet of the CGG  WP&B deliverables is way rad.” I think perhaps subconciously I am trying to bring a little stereotypical Californian to the DC professional scene, except that I’m pretty sure I’m actually the only person who talks that way, anywhere.

After some problems with my flight reservations (by which I mean that I realized a few days before I was set to leave that I didn’t have flight reservations, because I apparently never confirmed them, or JetBlue screwed up, one or the other), I took the red-eye to DC and arrived at 6am on Tuesday. My day thereafter looked like this:

-Take bus ($10) to Metro

-Take Metro ($3) to Farragut West Metro station

-Walk one hundred miles (6-8 blocks) to UC Center, dragging huge suitcase and huge backpacking backpack, get looked upon pitifully by kindly older woman who pointed me in the right direction of the UC Center.

-Take long, long nap

After that I just went exploring, getting lost enough that I was apparently heading the exact opposite direction of where I thought I was going for a while. But it was something of a “learning experience” in the sense that I learned that I should never walk around DC, ever again, because it is insanely hot here. Kidding! I have to walk places because it is free. But it is really hot here, in the sense that it is actually probably mid-eighties but the humidity makes it such that it is something like walking around in the steam from boiling water. Or, like in a sauna.  Also, my walking around experience helped me grasp the layout of streets here, which is to say that numbered streets run perpendicular to the UC Center and lettered streets run parallel to the UC center, and streets named after states and famous people exist entirely to confuse you. Also, there are two 17th Streets, that run parallel to each other. (And no, they are not one-way.)

I plan on uploading pictures of my roommates and apartment when I get a chance, by which I mean when my mom sends me the camera cord from home (hi mom! work on that please!). Also, I will try to take secret pictures of the EPA offices. Where, by the way, I started today! Because I arrived yesterday, and this blog post is one day late. Next post will have more updates on that subject, so read that I guess. Also, check back on this post for the pictures.

In the meantime, the EPA office that I am working in is located here, which is right near the Smithsonian Natural History and American History museums, in the “Federal Triangle” area.  The UC Center is located here.

In the next blog post:

Chaka Khan performs, I get a security badge(?!), I get to eat in the top secret VIP government employees-only Smithsonian cafe, and I do some EPA stuff. Stay tuned?