Hey Montreat!
I have been in Washington, DC now for 5 days! It has been really crazy, but I am having a great time. They wasted no time in getting us acclimated to the city. We had a five hour scavenger hunt on Sunday after church! We had to find different places in the city and talk to certain groups of people on the way. My group had to find Dupont Circle. On the way we stopped by a stationery store and talked to the owner. He was very nice and even showed us his Obama bobble head doll! It says "Yes We Can" when you tap the head! We also spent about 45 minutes talking to two policeman outside of the White House. They were hilarious! They talked about how they love their job and take it very seriously. One cop said " On 9/11 this building (White House) was the only building the terrorists targeted that did not get hit and we intend on keeping it that way."
On Monday, we attended our first class which was a lot of introduction stuff. I am excited to start reading some of the books we have! We split up into our Seminar groups and met individually with our Seminar Advisor. We had a great discussion on the two books we had to read over the summer. One was a book called Fabric of Faithfulness, which was written by a professor who used to work with the ASP (American Studies Program). He wrote about bringing our faith into our jobs, which can be very difficult to do. We also read God's Long Summer, which was about Civil Rights and affected me greatly, because I will be interning in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the Civil Rights Office. It gave the testimonies of three individuals: one was a black women and her struggle to register to vote, the other was from the perspective of Sam Bowers who was a White Knight in the Ku Klux Klan, and the last was from a Baptist Minister's point of view. So, we have already gotten into alot of interesting conversations.
Today was the first day we had to be in our suits, because we had to go to interviews. Our Seminar Advisor took us to talk to Aaron Mercer who is the Coalition Director for Senator Brownback from Kansas. It was nice to hear our advisor’s story, because he had been through the ASP program himself. He talked about what Senator Brownback has been working on and some the legislation he has been a part of. He helped push through the legislation to stop human trafficking and he also worked on the legistlation to allow the FCC (Federal Communication Comission) to raise their fines after the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident. As a Communication Major this really appealed to me.
Now, it’s not all work though. Last night a few of the other students decided that we should have a party on the roof! (You can see the White House dome from the roof). We dressed up in semi-formal attire and just hung out and had some nice food. They even bought a cake and made punch! It was alot of fun. I am sharing an apartment with 5 other girls: Rachel is from Florida, Divine is from South Africa, Tiffany is from California, Anna just spent the summer in Africa working with orphans, and my roomate Danielle is from Long Island, New York. They are very nice and we are having so much fun hanging out! Well, that is my week so far, I will send another update next week!
From Washington DC, Ashley Craig
