Week 7

I previously mentioned that I was attending my roommate's "Peace Studies: A Solution to Violence" class. Well, as a fake member of that class, I was able to take the day off work last Wednesday to accompany the other students on a field trip. We first listened to Joseph Brown, who was exonerated from Death Row, speak about his experience. At one point he came within thirteen hours of being executed. During his speech, Colman McCarthy (the Peace Studies professor) passed around a collection for Mr. Brown, to help him out with his rent. It is sad that a man who served over a decade of his life for a crime he did not commit is still experiencing hardships. For all the wrongs that have been done to him, Joseph Brown was amazingly positive. I get mad if I get blamed for a mistake at work for which I'm not responsible...I can't imagine trying to be calm in a situation like his.

After he spoke, we stayed to listen to a former drug addict give a motivational speech to a group of homeless men. It is amazing the lives that people can lead. It is hard to understand how people function with the obstacles and addictions they have. It was good to hear the man's story because it is easy for me to see things only from my perspective, forgetting about all the different versions of life that are possible.

We rounded out the day with two more speakers, coauthors of a book on the United States' asylum process. One of the authors is a Georgetown Law professor, and the other is a Jeff, originally from Kenya, who was denied asylum in the United States. The Kenyan man is another excellent example of a version of life that is extremely unlike my own. After leading a protest, Jeff was imprisoned and tortured by his government. Upon his release, he managed to escape the country by coming to the United States on a basketball scholarship. Although he had never played basketball, a junior college was willing to take a chance on him simply because he is around 7 feet tall. His story was very interesting because I previously knew nothing about the amnesty process or the involvement of lawyers in the process.

So, as you can see, I had a very stimulating field trip experience. I wish I could go on a field trip every day. A field trip intern, I would be.

Yesterday my crazy old principal John invited me to accompany him, a few other people from mCapitol and a client to the GOP Presidential Trust Dinner. I liked getting to see John interact with a client. A lot of lobbying is built simply on relationships, and that seems to be what John does best. The dinner was fabulous and I got to hear Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Fred Thompson speak. I wanted to go harass them all to take pictures with me, but I didn't think that would be the cool kid thing to do. But in retrospect, I think it would be worth being the annoying kid if it would have gotten me a picture with the future President.

Sometimes it's better to lay your pride aside and just go all out obnoxious.The event was held in the National Building Museum, where the offices of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial also happen to be. I got to go up and see all the plans for the memorial and it was super cool. The amount of planning that goes into such a large project is staggering. Here is one of the models of the memorial... the original is going to be over 30 feet tall.

We have had two Washington Center speakers this week, first of which was Bill Greener, who is the founder of a communications and political consulting firm. He showed us some political commercials that his firm made, which were entertaining. Political commercials are certainly their own breed. We also woke up early yesterday morning to journey to the Capitol for the privilege of hearing Representative Honda speak. While Bill Greener was animated and boisterous, Representative Honda was much quieter and subdued.

All the speakers seem to reiterate the message that passion, hard work and integrity are the integral components necessary in order to achieve career success, although they all have their unique way of delivering the message. It's good to have that message continually emphasized, but the aspect I enjoy most in listening to the speakers is learning about the different career paths they have taken that have led to their current position. Many people have had extremely varied careers, jumping around a lot before they settled down in one area, or before they even decided to enter politics. So maybe there is hope for my undecided soul yet. Here are a couple pictures of my roommate Michelle and me messing around, just for my own personal entertainment.