Oil, Birthdays, Africa, and NYC: Just another week

How often do you get to meet the President of Conoco- Phillips to discuss oil in the gulf and the doctor that pioneered the newest HIV drug in the same day?

Well, that’s not an unbelievable or uncommon occurrence in my recent senate life.  On Thursday I went to an AIDS briefing with some of the top AIDS experts in the world and then rushed back to the office to sit in on a meeting with the President of Conoco Phillips and our Senator. 

On Tuesday, my Senator received a prestigious award from the Coast Guard for her dedication to funding Military families’ needs. The admiral, Admiral Robert Papp, has Alopecia and spoke at the DC convention in 2003, which should be noted that was the first year I lobbied and met my senator. The world just continues to get smaller. Admiral Papp told me that I should email him and he would love to get more involved with the convention. Once again, in case you don’t believe that everything happens for a reason, come be a fly on the wall in my life.

 I also attended another great reception, which had extensive free sushi. Sometimes, as interns we wonder what the lobbyists’ motives are beyond feeding interns… However, we are not complaining.

Our office has been great about helping us get to know all of the staff and we had a lunch with the legislative team and got to learn all of their life stories.  We have quite the range of people in our office with great life stories, from a marine to a girl in the army to 5 TFA alums and a Foreign Service officer.

On Friday, we had an intern outing after work to Jazz in the Garden, which is a sculpture garden that features a different music group every week. Then I went to dinner for my friend Claire’s birthday. Claire is a great person and leader and always gives wonderful advice. We met through theta and she goes to church with me and lives 2 blocks down the street. She goes to Princeton and is studying abroad in France this fall. I’ll miss her when I leave in 2 weeks! Then, we went to hang out at 3 of my fellow interns’ apartment. The 12 of us that work in Landrieu’s office are incredibly different, but we manage to get along, despite occasionally arguing over politics and what part of Louisiana is best.

On Saturday at 4 am I headed to NYC to meet up with my friend Colleen who is interning in Connecticut. We accomplished a lot in less than 36 hours. We went on the Staten Island Ferry, walked around a lot, went to Times Square, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Natural History, 9/11 Memorial, and all around Central Park. It was really fun and I also got to meet up with my friend Michael from TCU.

Now, I’m back on the megabus to DC somewhere in New Jersey. If I stay awake I’ll get to see parts of Penn, Delaware, and Maryland too. Can’t believe I’ll be heading back to LA and Texas in 13 days.  For now, I’m focusing on this week which will consist of a roundtable on human trafficking at the state department, lunch with African Ambassadors, research on the war in Congo, 3 of my friends coming to visit and much more!

In keeping with my new precedent of finding quotes, I searched long and hard (on pinterest of course) for a quote I felt described my life of lately.  Thought this one was appropriate because of all the dreams I’ve continued to pursue and the twists and turns they have given me but in the end they have been so worth it.