Responsibility!

Thursday we woke up bright and early to go to another orientation session with all 400 of the Washington Center interns. We had to dress up in "business" clothes. I tried my best, and I already have blisters on my feet to prove it. I think I'm going to have to be one of those people who brings shoes to wear at work and wears sneakers for the commute... tragic in the fashion department I'm sure. So at orientation we heard a lot of great motivational speakers. One interesting quote from the TWC president that I liked was something along the lines of, "if you are given a lot, you have a lot to give back." Like, if you are given the priviledge to get a college education, and specifically to be interning at TWC this semester, you have the ability to do a lot of good and give a lot back. One thing that became clear was that we are going to gain an extensive amount of knowledge this semester and it is our responsibility to make good use of the information we learn. I hope I can do that with my portfolio, or my independent study, which are the two major academic pieces that are required for this program. We also have to do a civic engagement project which is basically a community service component, and I want to make sure I do something really meaningful. I guess a semester of studying white privilege has gone to my head a little, but I sometimes feel a little guilty that the process of going to college was such an easy and expected process for me. It made me feel a little better to realize that with good fortune comes responsibility to share what I learn and to try to make a difference from the opportunities and resources I have.

"Don't feel guilty, feel responsible" -Colman McCarthy

For the superbowl we went to one of the other apartments upstairs, it was really nice to meet some other interns! I did my typical asking everyone their phone numbers, so hopefully they will all remember me. I didn't watch much of the game, obvi. Except wasn't it so AMERICAN to honor the plane crew as heroes at the beginning? I thought so. Since Obama I feel like we are living in a completely different country where people are actually proud of fellow Americans and our country in general. Although, all of you skeptics who didn't get caught up in that Obama hope juice should be interested in the media already being over praising him. People in Washington read 5 newspapers a day to try and see all angles of every situation. It is so intense, too bad I'm a slow reader.