The Weekend is here, finally

Today was pretty busy for a Friday. While I worked on summarizing the testimony, the phone rang, people came for meetings and the mail came four or five times. While I was able to get my testimony summary done by the end of the day, all the little things I do really add up to the time taken away from doing the original, usually bigger, tasks. While that part of the day was normal, we were able to attend an orientation class from the Congressional Research Service. This is, to me, a really interesting organization after all. Yet, there were still at least three kids in the nap club by the end of the 45 minute session. What I was able to get out of it was useful: starting Tuesday we will be able to use all the functions of CRS. That is, CRS has no public motivation at all, it's only research is for Congress and their staff. They do a large amount of research, from 1 page papers to 300 page reports. They have a staff of over 700 people, who are experts in basically every field there is. While I was thinking, this would be great to have for college, she came right out and said it. Because you are staff, you are able to do research. They don't care who its for, why, or what its about, they just want the details so you can get the best answer. Most of the time when you need CRS you can call the hotline, because you will be looking for a fact or a quote. They also have the reports, as I mentioned earlier, which can take up to six months to compile. There are two resource rooms for CRS, one in both a House Office Building and a Senate Office Building, as well as the whole Library of Congress. This is of course the largest library in the world, and something I need to do some exploring in. Back to the resource rooms, the instructor said that we, as college kids, can stockpile all we want. I hope to, over the next six months, pull out the drawer on agriculture, and empty it. We really have a lot of access with this new license, but we still have limitations. We cannot check out any of the resources, and we cannot demand deadlines, but our staff (and the members) can do both. So now research becomes even more fun, other people can get quick answers for you, and you can take all the credit. Hopefully, by the end of this I have enough to get A's on the rest of my papers through college.

Speaking of college brings me to this weekend: I plan to study, as much as humanly possible (MacroEconomics, it's not boring, but it's not fun), and go explore the rest of the time. Have a good weekend everyone!

Not a Teenager Anymore

From 9:00 to 10:30, nothing, nothing to do, no mail to sort, and no projects to start. From 10:30 on, we were moving. It started off with a meeting to plan a meeting, then we got ready for the meeting, which was complex because there was so much going on around the meeting that wasn’t part of the meeting at all. Luckily, that meeting was Gabe’s job, because I didn’t understand it, nor did I want to. I had bigger fish in the sea, I was to sit in on the Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Agriculture hearing, which the Agriculture had joint referral on, and take notes like a mad man. Unfortunately the laptops computers were not being issued at this time, so this meant back to good old pen and paper, something I rarely use, and my penmanship shows it. But two hours later, the hearing should have been done, and I was keeping up, but getting exhausted. We were saved by the bell when we heard buzzers ringing and pagers going off announcing a 15 minute vote, followed by ten 2 minute votes. This projected 45 minutes of voting turned into two hours. Needless to say, I did not make it back and would be surprised if the Members did either. So when I got back, I did the jobs I should have been doing during the hearing, and started typing everything I had written. When it was about 7:00, I finished that and began summarizing the submitted testimony. Now by this point, neither Gabe nor I had time for lunch, and I didn’t have time for breakfast, which I will get into in a minute. So when asked if we wanted to move furniture tonight or tomorrow morning, we decided to finish it up tonight and lump all the business into one day. I made it home by 7:55 PM, my latest night yet. But I’m sure it’s not the latest I’ll ever be.

This morning and last night were a different story. As I said yesterday, I fell asleep after I got home, and woke up at midnight. I now remember before I went to be the first time, getting a little shock when I picked up my phone, and one of the buttons not working. Well I found out this morning it wasn’t just a button, it was my ringer. I now cannot receive any calls, and the convenient alarms I use were MIA as well. So, I finally fell back asleep at about 4:00 AM, even though I tried for hours before that, and woke up again to see 9:05 on my alarm clock. Not the best sight to see when you should be to work by 9:00 AM. But, I made good progress with getting ready (and my hair froze straight up on my run to the office) and got to work by 9:40. Luckily my phone can still call out, so they knew I was going to be late. I guess this is what being 20 is all about. Now that I’m no longer a teenager I have to face the battle of just getting out of bed in the morning. I got a lot of great stuff for my birthday, but to be honest, a new phone wasn’t on my list.

Tomorrow Gabe and I will be taking an orientation class so we can have access to the Congressional Research Service’s (CRS) information, which will hopefully speed up a lot of projects. The CRS class would sound like a great way to get out of work, but this is: 1. A class, and 2. A class put on by people who research. 3. Research for Congress! …it might be a long day.

Best Birthday Ever!

While it lasted about 8 minutes, my meeting with Secretary Johanns was a good one. He was very down to earth, nonchalant, and seemed to care about us during the little time he had to meet. We were brought in, shook his hand and introduced ourselves, and asked where we were from. Then we each (three of us; Garrett (minority intern), Gabe and me) had an individual picture with him, and a group photo as well. He told us about how he loved Washington, D.C., and he said, "I love it here, you know, I don't even know why they pay us." He wished us well and we walked back up to the House Office Buildings. The pictures were taken by a professional photography, so they should arrive some time this week or next.

I woke up to a couple inches of snow on the ground, which had melted/been plowed on the city streets already, so traffic was normal, even though many schools were closed. I started entering quotes for Peterson, Senator Harkin, Senator Chambliss, and Secretary Johanns into a database, and continued as much as I could during a busy day at the office of random mail drop-offs and interesting phone calls. I came home to find a couple cards, about 100 Facebook and email messages, and a nice present from JC Penney's (James Cash Penney, founder of the store, was an Alpha Gamma Rho by the way). Then I got the best present ever... a nap! So it was another good day, which I have noticed happens quite often out here. Work takes a lot out of me just because the day is so long, but when I can come home to a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich, I know I'm living the good life. "Just livin' the dream." I remembered that I took some pictures with my camera this weekend, so hopefully I can put them up tomorrow.

$50 haircuts

CNN was today's big feature, finding out which astronaut was going where. Other than that, it was the normal sorting and answering phone calls, with an 15-minute audit meeting of the Packers and Stockyards program in the middle. I hope I have little work because Thursday is going to be a mess. I am going to have to wait in line for 2 hours to get into the Food Safety hearing of the Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on Agriculture. Then I will need to take notes on every question asked and answer given. After I have that completed, I will take the books and books of submitted testimony, and read them. This will probably take days, and then I will need to understand what I read enough to write a summary of each one.

That wraps up today... except for my long walk home, I am looking for low-bidders on haircuts. I walked about 15 extra blocks, only one place was open, and their offer was $50. That's a little more than Great Clips New Ulm.

Tomorrow is a great day for all of America, my birthday of course, and also, I get to meet Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns, ask him questions, get asked questions, and get a picture taken. It will probably be one of the highlights of my life for a while. Finally, to contrary belief, I have not seen any part of the $12 billion cash lost in Iraq, we're still looking.

Transcription Accomplished.

It gets quite cold out here. It has been for a week now, but the wind just doesn't die down. Luckily today I found a new route to and from work underground, it saves me a total of three blocks from the cold! This morning was the usual phone answering for the staff meeting, sorting mail, and doing some research on the internet. This afternoon, I sat myself in a room and finished the last 40 minutes of the Farm Bureau speech. I can say now that I am done I know a lot more about the policy the Farm Bill may hold ahead, and (because it was requested) I will provide a link if that transcription is ever put online. At the end of the day I was given the task to attend my first ever hearing, this one for the Subcommittee on Agriculture for the Appropriations committee. Apparently to get in the room I will need to stand in line for two hours, then write down as much as I can. It is a hearing about Food Safety, so we have joint jurisdiction.

After work I was invited to a Texas A & M reception, two co-workers, including the other intern, are Aggies, so it was a good way to eat supper and meet some people, which I didn't do much of as I was focused on Sprite and Egg Rolls.