I was tasked with updating the staff information page today, which meant I had to upload a photo to a staff member’s information box and then create another box to hold another staff member’s information and future picture. It was pretty easy work, except that I forgot a few steps such as saving the picture to both the local and remote server. My superviser had to reshow me some basic steps, though considering it was only my second time to do so I think it went well. To view the Web site, it is http://www.phassociation.org/AboutPHA/Staff/index.asp.

I attended my first presidential lecture yesterday on the economy. It took place at the Department of the Interior and is the first of many in the presidential lecture series. Today, I met with Congressment John Boozman of Arkansas’ 3 district. I will have more of those later …

Up next: Watching Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress.

The National Archives was showing the document for only four days, Feb. 12-16, in honor of the Lincoln’s 200th birthday. While Lincoln is not my favorite president ( F Roosevelt is), it was still interesting to see the document. Here’s a picture of it.

We had to wait outside for around 45 minutes, where we talked to two students from Georgetown University, before we were able to get inside the museum. The security guard was unsure on whether to believe it was only a cough drop in my mouth-I had to show her, and once inside we had to wait another 45 minutes. However, I did get to look at the Magna Carta during my wait and search for the 9 eagles hidden inside the rotunda.

After the long afternoon, during which it briefly snowed twice, Caylah and I were finally able to make it back to the metro station to head home.

I tried Indian food today for lunch. My supervisor treated me and two other co-workers to lunch for one of the lady’s birthday. She is 28-years-old and it was a great lunch. Plus, I learned I like the food, especially the bread.

It was just another day at work today. I finished editing the special events booklet that another intern asked me to proof. I made so many edits that I am surprised she did not hit me, but it was a fun project. Tomorrow, I am to start training on how to put documents in PDF form for the Web and I will be getting more small Web assignments next week when one of the Web contractors is back in the office. I am slowly working on story assignments and today the president’s secretary asked me if I could help her edit the intern’s guide. I am just trying to keep busy and not look slouching so I was happy to agree.

The non-profit hosts a volunteer night every Wednesday and tomorrow I will be helping them out for the first time. It will be interesting, but unfortunately that means I will not be getting home until around 10:30 p.m. It is going to be a long day tomorrow. Starting this week or next I will also be starting my volunteer work for The Washington Center. I am hoping to work with the Greater DC program and volunteer with a group that entertains children while their mothers get counseling. It interested me the most.

In the news, I was interested to find that Bristol Palin held an interview recently to discuss her pregnancy. She said she is wanting to advocate against teen pregnancy, and I have to say, I admire her for it. It was interesting to see that she was willing to stand against her mother’s abstinence stance and say that it is just not realistic. I have to agree, especially since HealthDay News reported, on Jan. 7,  the first increase in the teen birth rate in 15 years.

The rate increased in 26 states in 2006, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and raised from 40.5 births to 41.9 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 from 2005 to 2006, based on 99-percent of all U.S. birth certificates.

Along with Bristol, Sarah Palin also made an appearance according to the CNN article to say that her daughter was a great at her new role, and that her grandson was lucky to have Bristol for a mom. While I am not the biggest fan of Palin, I give up thumbs up for her support.

Friday the 13th must be losing its horror points because today has been a wonderful day. I have uploaded my first updated Web page, http://www.phassociation.org/Site_map/, to the PHA Web site, and it was a surprisingly easy task to do. It was also a  pretty fun assignment. Dreamweaver 8 was not as hard to use as I thought it would be originally, though it did come in handy that I had all my notes available from when I went through Dreamweaver’s tutorial.

Working at PHA is actually growing on me-I love it. I left work today with several assignments waiting for me first thing on Tuesday and my supervisor has more to assign me as well. I love that. I am currently working on researching the background on some story ideas that my co-workers came up with.

I am also helping a fellow intern edit a guide book that we give out. I would not usually help edit the guide, but since I am a journalism major she figured I might catch more errors than she would. I think I am going just a little overboard with the editing, though I am trying to reign back a little bit. I have not finished the editing yet, but I will see next week what they think.

Tonight the roommates and I are ordering Chinese and hanging out at the apartment. So far, we have ordered the food and sang/dance to 80s and 90s songs. Fun, fun!

To anyone that actually reads this: Have a great Valentine’s Day!

Today was the best day I have had at work, at least so far. I received my first PHA assignment-updating the site map on the PHA Web site. It was fun, and exciting. It was also easier than I thought it would be-so that was a relief.

Basically, the assignment required me to make a copy of the Web page in Dreamweaver 8 and update the links to include new ones added. I also needed to delete links no longer needed, and change the layout to become more user friendly. It took me all day to finish, but that is including several meetings throughout the day and you have to take into count that this is my first Web page to ever work with. This is my first time to work with Dreamweaver as well.

The page is already finished and edited by my supervisor. So all I have to do is make some changes-which is very few might I add-and I will be done. Yay!

The day was also a success in our meetings as well. My supervisor and I gathered several story ideas from one of PHA’s various departments and the ideas are pretty great. It was like an early birthday present! I am already ready to start working on the stories-which are a mix of hard and easy to do stories. What are they about you might being wondering? Well, I will let you know when I have them finished. 🙂

My class, Press, Politics and Power, met for the second time Wednesday night. I can tell already that I am going to like it. We discussed Monday night’s The Kalb Report first, starting with advise given to the audience by the guests, such as Ali Velshi. Velshi said, “It’s smarter for a nation to save two years to buy a TV than buy a TV and pay for it for two years.”

The show’s guests gave us the example of how the three circles of New York City (money, media), Hollywood (entertainment) and Washington, D.C., (politics, power) are interlinking. The guests were knowledgable, all of new media, and had to mix entertainment (well, the broadcasters) into their talk of politics and power. They were also quick at retorts as well. Velshi answered one guy, who asked why the media did not warn the public that the economical problem was about to occur, with “If I was a weatherman saying it was going to be 10 degrees outside, it is up to you to put on your long-johns” and hat.

Moving forward with that topic, we discussed the media’s role in society- to inform the public, while the public’s job is to weigh it and decide what they think. It was an interesting class topic, I have to say.

One of our final topic of the class, beside’s Arthur Miller’s “The Arts of Politics and Performance,” was current events in D.C. My professor had to remind us of the phrase “inside the beltway.” It means basically, in the words of my professor, “We are in the Washington bubble now-everything tends to revolve around the issue of the day and everything else  just slips in.”

With this is mind, we had to analysis whether Obama was having a good or bad week. I, at first, said good, but I was thinking outside of the beltway. Looking in, I would have to say it was a bad week. It could be considered a good week if you think of the fact that the stimulus package was approved. But, as we went into further detail, one could easily to change their mind.

The plan was approved but it lost style points in that it was not bipartisan as Obama promised-the GOP was doing some impressive press conferences. Also the class reminded students to remember interconnectivity. Treasury secretary Tim Geithner gave a horrible news conference. Sure it was his first conference, which one girl said should give him some leeway in judgement. However, I want to know why?

Geithner is a politician. He knows how to do a press conference, he has before. Also, Geithner had a lot to overcome-I mean first impressions in his new position. His failure to pay taxes has not been forgotten, and he has to overcome that lack of forgetfullness and prove that he is up for the job. He failed.

The point of this is, if Geithner has a bad day, Obama has a bad day. Geithner definitely had a bad day.

I have to admit I am pretty disappointed the class is cancelled for next week. I am looking forward to our next lesson and discussion. Next on the agenda: “Political Persuasion-Defining Audience, Message and Timing.” We will be discussing Drew Westen’s “The Political Brain.”

We started off our day with a walk to Target. It was only 2-miles away and we were determined to get there. It was an interesting walk. Ever, Sheila and I talked the whole time while Caylah lagged behind. See below:

We also saw a dead deer along the way at a gas distrubution building-it was sad. It was behind a fence, and we almost did not see it. To take our mind off it, we discussed Ever’s English. She learned three new words yesterday: crutches, trip (as in to fall) and scale (to weigh yourself on). We finally got tired of walking when we decided to call Target.  While I was calling, I had Caylah ask a passing man if Target was closed and he screamed “no” at her. It was funny, only … we really were not going in the right direction. We walked two and a half miles in the opposite direction and ended up at Shady Grove-the next metro stop over. We ended up taking the metro to Twinbrooks-the station right before Rockville. It was a only one to two minute ride there-it was depressing. Here is a picture of us waiting for the train at Shady Grove.

Once at Twinbrook, it was a surprisely short and easy trip to Target. After the Target adventure, we ended up spending the rest of the day at home. I am not feeling so great-and apparently not looking so great since two of my roommates keep saying I looked “flushed.” The highlight of our day was when Ever came back from her date with Brendon. It was her second successful date with him after meeting him Friday night when we went out with some TWC guys. Caylah and I met him again last night when he met Ever and us at the movies to see “He’s Just Not That Into You.” It was a great movie, by the way.