I flew in on Independence Air, which I highly encourage everyone to try. it's really cheap and really cool. The plane was small but the seats were really comfortable and the customer service was awesome and the snack food was real-life sized, not plane-sized, and yummy. When I got to the airport, I was met by Nelda, who is my host and my boss. The two of us drove to get Ashley (other intern #1) and Shanti (other intern #2) from the train station, which was about a half hour drive away. This could've been terribly awkward, as being in a car with people you don't know sometimes is, but Nelda is one of those people who just makes you instantly comfortable and it was great. Ashley and Shanti are also great. Ashley is from Virginia, and is the same age and has the same position as me. Shanti works with a separate organization but collaborates with us. She's a year older, about to be a sophomore at Tufts University, and very politically savvy. Both girls are really sweet and nice and intelligent, which is good because they're my officemates and Ashley is also my roommate (I'll get to that in a bit).

So anyway, Nelda and I went to pick them up, and the four of us went to lunch. Since yesterday was an extension of the holiday weekend, it served as an orientation day. Nelda said that every SEANet (State Education Agency K-12 Service-Learning Network) orientation under her watch must include food, a movie, and chart paper. We started with the food at Bertucci's, where I had a pretty decent pizza. Then Ashley, Shanti, and I were off on what Nelda had dubbed the Amazing Race. Basically, we had to take the metro to different locales and take pictures of ourselves there, then answer discussion questions that related the places with our work and will be helpful in the near future. For instance, we went by the Capitol and took pictures of ourselves on the steps, then talked about the work we're going to be doing with Congress. The whole afternoon was great because it gave us a little practice using the metro (a little more important for Ashley than for me, I think, because she's got no train system in Hampton, VA) and also time to get comfortale with each other. Shanti was a good guide, sicne she's worked in DC twice before, once as a congressional intern.

This is as good a place as any to talk about the weather. It's not that hot-- relative to Chicago-- but it's really, really, really humid. Seriously. When you go outside you feel this whoosh of oppressive, wet air pressing against you at all sides, wrapping around you. It's weird because I can deal with humidity, but I've never been this humid without it being really hot, so it feels bizarre to me when I realize that it's only around 75 degrees and I'm all sweaty. Ick.

Anyway, the last stop on our little hunt was our office building, and Nelda met us there and gave me a tour. The building is beautiful, with silvery elevators and black and grey marble. The suite with our offices in it is pretty big and I already got semi-lost once. Ashley, Shanti and I share an office together. How strange it is to sit dow at a big desk next to a big file cabinet it it's my computer, my Post-it notes, my big messy stack of paper (yes, it's already big and messy).

After the office tour we went home to Nelda's house, which contains Nelda, her mom Miss Mary, her father Earl, Karen (the cousin of a family friend; she's moving to DC and staying with the family while she looks for a place), Ashley, and me. It's absolutely gigantic and very pretty. I must admit I have lost a tiny bit of my bias against subdivisions because it's such a great place to stay. A fox and some deer frequently visit the backyard and I saw them yesterday-- cute, cute, cute. Ashley and I share a large bedroom with our own bathroom and plenty of space, which is essential because I can't have fights with her. It would make my life quite difficult, seeing as she is my roommate and my officemate.

Dinner was great. Miss Mary makes cake just about every week and Earl barbecued. Nelda went to the store and bought Boca burgers and soymilk and soy ice cream and soy pudding for me, and organic applesauce, which was so incredibly nice of her. I feel really taken care of. There's also a huge pantry full of tons of good food and everything is at Ashley's and my disposal to pack for lunch.

Sooo all that brings us to my first day of work. This is where it gets a little confusing, but I'll try to make it as clear as possible. I'm basically working under the umbrella of three organizations: the National Service-Learning Partnership (NSLP), the Youth Innovation Fund (YIF), and SEANet (the State Education Agency K-12 Service-Learning Network, remember?) although while I'm here in DC my work is principally for SEANet. All of these organizations work to promote, run, and advocate service-learning projects. Service learning is "a method by which students improve academic learning and develop personal skills through structured service projects that meet community needs. Service learning builds upon students’ service activities by providing them with opportunities to learn by preparing, leading and reflecting upon their service experiences." (So says the Corporation of National Service, anyway.)

So while I'm here, there are a few specific things I have to do. My first, general task is to help build a network among people (especially young people) involved in this work, who are often sort of competitive instead of communicative because they're all going for the same grant money from a few companies (Kellogg, State Farm, et cetera). The other issue is that everyone is trying to increase federal funding for service-learning to 55 million dollars in 2005 (55 in 05, as we call it), so there's of work that needs to go into that campaign, including:

--working with people in Congress to convince them to advocate for us as budget legislation comes up

--creating state profiles that describe the status of service-learning in each state, to use in information packets for congresspeople

--creating web-based "toolkits" to help young people take civic action (how to visit your members of Congress, how to write letters to the editor, stuff like that)

--engineering mass amounts of letters to newspapers, presidential candidates, and congresspeople from students nationwide and their parents, talking about the effects service-learning has had on their lives and communities

--planning SaYES, Seniors Asssisting Youth Engaged in Service, a project to tap into senior citizens as a volunteer base, since they have availability, knowledge, and connections to contribute as a group

Those are my immediate (next couple of weeks) things to do. When I go to New York I'll have other things to do that will be more related to conference planning. Today I worked on the state profile template.

That's pretty much everything... oh yeah, I was wondering one thing. I have a link to my email address above, but I was wondering if you all would like me to have a guestbook for quick response to my entries, or if you're apathetic and don't care to tell me anything about anything. If you could email me and let me know that would be lovely. Keep in mind that I hate an empty guestbook, so if you want me to put one up you have to promise to sign it.