Monday, June 27, 2016
By:
The Wave.
Welcome to week three and pardon the horrible joke. However, it’s actually extremely appropriate for this week because one of the highlights was the annual Congressional Baseball Game! The one night a year Republican and Democratic big hitters come up to bat, take a swing at the opponents, and try to recover from fouls all for the entertainment of the American people…. Okay so maybe it’s not so different from day-to-day politics as it sounds! BUT the game is wildly entertaining to watch as the two teams fill up the Nationals stadium for a charity event of the classic American game. The tension was incredibly high as the Democrats came into Thursday with a one game lead over the Republicans after winning the past seven years in a row. By the time we got there around the second inning, the game was already in full swing and both sides were chanting loudly with the Republicans already up 2-0 and a nail-biting game still to come.
But that’s jumping ahead of the story. The real story of the evening begins with a tale of the best of DC (food) and the worst of DC (the Metro). The Metro was being especially terrible due to a chair that was thrown across one of the tracks and caused some of our interns to be over an hour late. As soon as everybody was together, we headed out to dinner. I tried Sweetgreen for the first time which is a local salad restaurant started by a Georgetown student and fell in love. After dinner we obviously had to get ice cream too so I got to go to Jubilee for the second time in two weeks. But nothing could have prepared me for the tragedy ahead. Maybe three minutes into eating my delicious double scoop cone (Passionfruit Guava and Cookies & Cookie Dough if you must know), both scoops slid off my cone and onto the sidewalk. After staring in horror for a moment I quickly took action. I take pride in my ability to stay calm in unexpected emergency situations (ask me about the time the hall I was the RA for flooded at 11 PM during my sophomore year) and those reflexes did not disappoint me in that moment. I promptly asked somebody for a spoon, scooped up the parts of the ice cream that were not touching the ground, and placed them right back on my cone completely unashamed. Pictures were taken, snapchats went viral but I have no regrets.
Eventually we made it to the game. In classic physics intern style we had to stop at a NASA booth before taking our seat. The NASA group had a giant inflatable moon rover and rocket so we took a few photos as seen here. We settled down into our seat and watched the games begin. Last year, Obama himself showed up to the game but we didn’t quite get that lucky this year. Still a great time though! Final score: 8-7 in favor of the Republicans, breaking their 7 year losing streak.
Other than the baseball game this week stayed extremely busy! I took lots of notes on briefings, organized some charts of Medicaid stories, and read through a draft of a bill on Medicare Part D. As always, I got a crash course in a variety of different topics and even had time to attend some meetings on topics like natural defense, fuel standards, and satellite and cable TV billing. My final hour at work on Friday was a definite highlight as well! We were short a few people at work so I was asked to work the front desk all day, redirecting calls, typing up notes and restocking the M&M jar. Friday we were out of session so things stayed pretty slow so the last hour one of the staffers took me to go see the House floor! I'd passed through the Capitol building a few times this week as I went to various meetings but had yet to do anything resembling a tour. We ended up sitting right in chairs right in front of where John Lewis had sat during the Democratic sit in that Wednesday and Thursday and it was amazing being in the area where that had occurred. It's the little things like that of being in DC that make me step back and reflect on about how amazing it is being in this city of American politics and the opportunities that lay here. After a busy work week, the weekend was a nice time to relax and I took the time to visit the zoo, attend a documentary at a film festival, and walk around Chinatown.
Until next week!
-Tabitha
Tabitha Colter