Rewind

I thought I should post up some pictures of what I've done the past couple of weeks.

These are in chronological order.



This was at CPAC. I thought I would never be able to go to something like this, despite my own political views, but it was a great experience. I got to see Glenn Beck from afar, almost brushed shoulders with Newt Gingrich and was suprised at all the young people in attendace.





This is my friends and I outside the National Archives. We saw the original Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Constitution. This was a pretty exciting day. After, we had lunch at Olley Trolley and later went to the National Museum of Natural History.



This was inside the Washington Monument. It was great to be able to go inside and see the view from that high.



This is me at the zoo. I like triceratops, they are my favorite kind of dinosaur. We didn't really have a good time here because most of the animals were put inside their homes. It was a cold day and the zoo visiting hours were almost up. We are going to try and go again before the semester is over.



California girls in D.C. Amy (l) is from Biola University, Alaina (middle) is from Azusa Pacific University and I represent California Baptist University. We are all Cali girls and found a great friendship between us!



A reporter from The Washington Post gave us a tour of his newsroom. It's pretty big, but with few reporters inside.



This is the WJC Spring 2010 group at the Newseum, in the studio where "This Week" is filmed. I was so excited to be here because I love the show, even though George Stephanopoulous won't be on anymore.



A tour of the Capitol was one of the things that I had wanted to do for the longest time and here we are inside the Rotunda. We even got to go inside the House gallery. This was before the historic health care vote got passed on Sunday. We went on Saturday. There were people protesting, Tea Partiers and even immigration rally marchers!



And finally one of me at the Cherry Blossom Festival. We went the day it started, Saturday March 27 and we were greeted by hundreds (if not thousands) of tourists. This isn't going to be fun trying to get on the Metro with all these new people. We walked from the National Mall back the apartment, but stopped at La Loma for dinner.

This has been a quick summary of how I've spent my time here in D.C.

Only a few more weeks left of living here and I'm going try to do some more things!

Where have I been?

I am finally getting back to blogging.

I haven't been keeping up with this because I've been busy trying to keep up with my life over here in D.C.

In 4 weeks, I'll be headed back to California, my home.

But D.C.'s been good to me. Here's the links to my article's that I've had published at The Washington Times.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/29/student-loan-takeover-slips-through-with-health-ca/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/23/ousted-rotc-may-go-back-to-school/

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/17/arizona-activists-cited-leaving-water-illegals/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/04/gay-couples-line-up-to-make-it-legal/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/03/catholic-charities-limits-same-sex-couple-benefits/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/26/criticism-of-refocused-nasa-bipartisan/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/19/mother-teresa-stamp-criticized-praised/

I've had 7 clips and 2 of those have been on the front page!

God has been good to me. I'm thankful for the good experiences I've had. But now I'm thinking my time to go (I fly home May 1) is coming at the right time. I still have a few weeks left but I'm missing home more.

The Cherry Blossom Festival began on Saturday.

Here's a picture:

Snowmageddon

The government closed at noon and the citizens rushed to buy food and shovels in preparation for the historic snowfall dubbed Snowmageddon.

The panic started Thursday afternoon as weather reports showed a massive snow storm heading to Washington, D.C. I was on sitting in a shuttle (that takes me from my internship location to Union Station) when the driver called his wife and told her they needed to go to Lowe's and buy some shovels because the one they have is breaking.

As I walked to my apartment, I saw people frantically walking to grocery stores to stock up on food. I saw people anxious to get home and beat the snow.

I just walked back with no real idea on how messy this thing was going to be.

Friday rolled around and that's when the real deal happened.

Tiny white pieces where falling on the ground. It was not sticky enough, or so I heard a peer of mine say (because I actually have no knowledge of snow, nevertheless when the "right kind" falls down).

As the day continued, so did the snow.

It started piling up the sidewalks, the cars, the buildings, the greenery and me. When class was out my roommates and I decided to join another group that was heading out to watch Dear John.

I have no snow boots or even rain boots, so I just wore my knee high boots. This was a bad idea. The snow was already about half a foot high and we were walking down to Union Station to hop on the Metro and get to the theater.

Unfortunately because of my wrong footwear, I slipped once and fell down on one knee. No I wasn't proposing to anyone, my shoes just didn't have much traction. Then as we approached the station, I fell right down on my butt. It didn't hurt but that's only because I have a lot of cushion. hahaha.

That wasn't the only bad thing either. My glasses kept catching snow flakes so they were wet and foggy and I couldn't really see anything. So I had to take them off and clean them.

So we got to the theater and I was walking the slowest I could to prevent another fall.

**We saw the movie. It was ok. Not the best. But Channing Tatum is handsome.**

After the movie, the ground was worse. There was a ton of snow everywhere and it kept falling. My glasses continued to get fogged up and I couldn't see. So I just took them off and held on to them. I walked slow so that I wouldn't fall again and then miraculously we returned to the apartment.

As we approached the building we were stopped by a barrier. A tree was leaning down because so much snow had caused it to bend down.

We had to get off the sidewalk and get on the street to entire our building. Once we got in, we felt covered in snow and were ready to change.

Saturday morning was when the chaos began. It fell heavily from the morning until the afternoon. The guys in the programs got up and started shoveling along with the RD James.

My roommates and I watched through the window and we saw just how many inches had fallen as the snow almost reached the knees of the guys outside. This must have been like two feet already.

So we stayed inside most of the day except for an hour of walking outside and playing in the snow. I made my first ever snow angel, I ate some snow and I threw several snow balls. It was a good day filled with new experiences. We didn't lose power, thank God, and we were safe.

Here are some pictures.

View from the front door of the Dellenback Center.

Winter Wonderland

Saturday morning I woke up to snow. The row houses that I could see from my window were lightly trimmed with snow. The ground, that was previously made of bricks, asphalt and cement were now blanketed in white powder.

This was a beautiful scene, especially since I had never seen it fall before. This is also my first time ever living in a city covered in snow.

But my roommates and other friends were going to Georgetown, so we had to bundle up and walk to Union Station so we can catch the Circulator bus to take us directly to our location.

These pics are from our walk to the station:






Waiting at Union Station:



Inside shopping center at Georgetown:






But my second impression of the snow isn't too good. It's pretty and and it sparkles. But then it gets so difficult to walk and I get scared of slipping and falling right on my face.

So hopefully the snow melts before Tuesday comes around and we have to walk to our internship sites.

Library of Congress

This past week I visited the Library of Congress. I was able to get my researcher's card, an ID that gives me special permissions.

I went to a couple of exhibits. The first one was called Creating the United States. This showcased some of the founding documents, well at least some copies of the original documents.

The second was Thomas Jefferson's library. Several hundred books were enclosed in glass cases, from a variety of topics ranging from architecture to language.

And lastly the third exhibit I visited was called Herblock, after the famous editorial cartoonist Herbert Block. I enjoyed his work, especially the one that he did on censorship and Ronald Reagan.

Take a look at some pics:

I met Abe

Last Sunday, Leah and I decided we didn't want to sit around in our apartments. We didn't want to let a potentially great experience pass us by. So we decided to hop on the Metro and pay a visit to President Abraham Lincoln.

This was probably the only monument that I was excited to see. A few days ago I had visited other monuments but they didn't really suit my fancy. But America's 16th president did!

Here's some pics:

Walking to the memorial.





There he is:

Georgetown Cupcake

I apologize for not updating as often as I should.

But here's the deal: I've been busy with interviews for my internship and I think I many have one now. I won't say anything until I'm certain, but for now let's say it's a really great newspaper.

Changing topics...My friends and I were on an adventure to find some delicious cupcakes. We were headed to Georgetown Cupcake.



This was a really hip and modern cupcake joint with a logo and interior design. Plus, the place is always packed. And indeed when we arrived the line was super long.



This is what I ended up buying:



It's a red velvet cupcake with a little candy heart on top. It was the most delicious red velvet sweet I've had and the frosting was really good too.



What's really cool about this place is that they one free cupcake per person each day! The person, however, needs to know which one it is...and you do that by becoming a fan of Georgetown Cupcake on Facebook to get a peek of their secret menu.

Anytime you're in D.C., take a trip to this cupcakery.

Sunday-Tuesday Wrap Up

Oh, the places I've been...so far.

I thank God for granting me this opportunity, there are many places I've been that I don't think I would ever imagine going. And then there are those other places that I have yet to go visit.

Sunday:

I walked to church in the pouring rain! I was with a big group of girls, from both the ASP and WJC program. We had our umbrellas, coats and boats. I was missing my gloves and I needed them so much because it was so cold. This was the first time I felt the major change of weather, from Calif. to D.C.

The church we went to was called the National Community Church. The church was several sites and the one we went to was located under a coffee joint. The pastor and his message was recorded and projected onto a screen, which was new to me. But it was a good experience overall.

After the service I did not want to go out. It was cold and rainy. But my group had to finish our scavenger hunt. So we had to go to the Senate Building and look for Dianne Feinstein's office door building. But since it was a weekend, the office was cold.

Monday: We had our first official class. We discussed memo's from the New York Times and their techniques to better their readership and their profession. After that, we played a game that dealt with culture. It was to prepare us for our service projects.

And after, we wen't on a monument tour. We went to go see the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial, but we also passed by the Washington Memorial.


Here's some pics:











And then today we left to do some volunteering. I went to Cornerstone Christian elementary school-middle school (pre k - 8th). I didn't have any interaction with sutdents, which I really wanted. I just installed Microsoft office on some computers and inputed books into a website.

See you later everyone...

love.

Today's Adventures

Today I woke up early to make a trip to Target and get some things I needed especially since I couldn't bring a lot from California. So to get there my friend Amy and I walked to the Eastern Market Metro station and then switched to a different line to get to Target.

This Target is on two floors and even has an escaltor for the carts. I had never seen this before and it was crazy cool! I bought about 70 dollars worth of stuff at Target. I even bought a 2 liter Coke bottle and it was so hard to carry back home. This was bad because I had a plastic bag. And Washington, D.C. is now charging 5 cents per plastic bag. I tried buying canvas/reusable bag but Target didn't have any more.

So after that my WJC group and I had to finish our scavenger hunt. We had to go to three more places. The first we went to was the Pope John Paul II cultural center. It took us a long time to get here even though we cut through The Catholic University of America.

One of the exhibits was a big collection of nativity sets. Here are some I thought were cool:



This one is from Mexico:



This one is from Poland:



Here's one that just looked really pretty:



And the grand finale is one from the Vatican:



After this place we headed over to the Gravelly Point Park. This is where airplanes fly by really close to people. It's because the Reagan airport is a few yards away. I don't have any pictures of this because it was really dark and I was super tired. But it was cool to see a plane so close. :)

This is a picture of the Capitol at night. It's really inspiring to be here:

I'm here now!

Ok so I have now been in D.C. for about 7 hours. It is really different here and not that cold, right now. I've met 2 of my roommates (and their parents) and they seem really nice.

I had lunch at Tunicliff's Tavern with Terry Mattingly, the director of the program and some of the WJC participants. I sat next to Alaina P. and she comes from Azusa. Interestingly there are about five Californians in this program. Cool! Other people like me who flew from coast to coast.

I was having internet problems but the IT guy helped me out. :) So I will hopefully be blogging as much as I can. I was getting pretty desperate that I didn't have internet connection! nooo!!

Then Alaina, her roommate Malia, and I went on an adventure. We tried to go to Target, but ended up at Union Station instead. (Well you're supposed to go to Union Station to hop on the Metro to get to Target). We had to come back early to make it on time for orientation so we postponed our trip. We just didn't want to be late. Right now, I am waiting for the orientation to start. Here are some pictures of the day so far:


This is Union Station. It is so big and beautiful!

Snow!!!

Under the arches at Union Station.

Cool staircase inside Union Station.

And one last one:


Historic architecture and great use of color!

Alright folks, that's all for now.

love.