“Let Me Check My Schedule…”

I seem to have gotten extremely busy over the last little while and I’m not even really sure how it happened. Suddenly today I found myself saying “let me check my schedule…” and actually meaning it. I’m definitely not complaining because there is just so much cool stuff going on here I just can’t seem to find enough time to catch it all.

As for my internship, things are going great. Another intern started last week – Joe from Alaska – and having an extra “in the process of learning Spanish” homie in the office is definitely a plus. I’ve really been enjoying the work too. The past couple of days I haven’t had any assignments except answering email and phone questions. They’ve been pretty random, and I’ve definitely been learning a lot from researching answers…and running up to my supervisor’s office every hour to ask advice.

In addition to my internship, I’m in the process of starting up the Civic Engagement section of my program. TWC requires you to get involved through volunteering somehow in DC, and I’ve decided to do mine with the HI Hostel. Basically a few more volunteers and I will be planning some events for the guests at the hostel, running them, and making sure everyone is digging DC. I’m pretty pumped to get started, and am joining the hostel’s free tour of Georgetown this Thursday night as my orientation – convenient considering I haven’t been to Georgetown yet and will probably enjoy it more than the hostel guests. I also got in touch with the Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to see if I can help them out at all. The guy I have been in contact with is extremely nice, and is now sending me a weekly schedule of his meetings. He told me I can sit in on any if I ever want to meet anyone, or hear about an organization in particular, which I think is a pretty sweet deal. They also have regular mixers for their members, so I’m headed to one tomorrow night to help out and do some mingling.

Last week I went to one more forum about American policy towards to drug war and violence in Mexico. It has been my favorite talk so far and was a panel of really awesome speakers. Again, it was at CATO, which is definitely a very liberal institute as the first guy got up and right away went into how the only solution was complete legalization of drugs. All the speakers were great, but this guy in particular was so intense and passionate and knew so much about Mexico I couldn’t even take it. I even went up to him afterwards and got his card so hopefully I can follow up with him. We can even discuss the day that Canada legalized Marijuana (yes, it actually happened, kind of).

As for the weekend, I made it to the travel show in an effort to solicit myself for a job, but alas, I chickened out. It was a really cool setup with booths from pretty much all the major destinations in the world, and then everything in between. In my defense, there was a TON of people, most of them very stereotypical, obnoxious, very loud almost yelling-ish, socks with sandals type tourists, and I pretty much found myself just wanting to get out of there after a while. I grabbed a lot of propaganda and got a list of exhibitors so my plan B is now in motion, and that is to blanket their email addresses with resumes. We’ll see what happens.

A few of us met up on Sunday in an effort to make the hike to Georgetown, but it ended up being ridiculously cold, so instead we hit up the Natural History Museum. Of course, this included another 3D Imax movie, which I still swear are the coolest thing to hit the planet. I’m not saying the rest of the museum isn’t awesome, but nothing really beats wearing sweet red glasses and having dinosaurs pop out of the screen.

Last night a group of us went to a Sam Roberts show at the Rock n’ Roll hotel. If you haven’t heard of Sam Roberts, don’t be ashamed….he’s big in Canada (and by big I mean “big”), but not so much here. I actually saw him the week before I left Calgary for $50 in a big auditorium. Last night it was $12 in a pretty small venue and we were pretty much arm’s length away from him. I thought it was quite stellar. There’s another Canadian act coming to town on Friday. K’Naan is playing at the Millennium Stage in the Kennedy Centre Friday night at 6pm, and its, guess what, FREE!!! A theme I do love. I guess the Millennium stage has free shows every single day at 6pm; this will be my first time there but I’m sure more will come.

Also on Friday all the TWC students from the Western Hemisphere (except the USA) are meeting with the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. I’m really excited to hear their take on all the current Latin American issues like Chavez, the Merida Initiative and Cuba. All of the US students are having meetings with their congressmen scheduled, but obviously we internationals don’t have any here, so this is basically our version and I’m expecting it to be really good.

On a side note, my brother and one of my good friends are arriving on Saturday for a week long visit. I’m soooooo excited to see them and am sure there will be some crazy antics going down while they are around.

Paz amigos.