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.

Here’s some photos from my new apartment. It is a pretty cute and spacy apartment, even though we only have two rooms for four people. You know it is sad when TWC has to give a “friend” speech. I have to admit though they made the speech funny with talking about checking in with your roommates if you are not coming home and saying the RA’s did not want to call interns while they were doing their “walk of shame.” Anyways, here’s the photos:

There was a fight at McDonald’s today, and it was all because of me. Well, you see what happened was … I decided to stop at McDonald’s and grab a bite to eat before class. What I did not count on was the weird guy talking to himself in the corner. He was sitting on my left and, when he started talking to me, I made the mistake of answering the questions especially the one asking what I studied. He obviously did not like journalists and started to get upset with me. I ignored him and eventually this woman, who previously had been sleeping in a booth on my right, came to my defense. Let’s just say it was a fight waiting to happen and I made my escape as they yelled at each other about where each other and their mamas could go. It was an eventful 10 minutes and I am still upset about it. It was so stupid but one thing is for sure – I am never going to that McDonald’s again! I ended up being late for my first day of class and luckily the professor did ont call me out for it. The class seems like it is going to be okay. We are starting the course out with a field trip to the National Press Club to see The Kalb Report. I am kindof excited about the trip. It should be interesting. The only thing I do not like is that the professor announced that she does expect each student to participate vocally in role playing and answering/debating. I am not looking forward to this part of the course-I was shaking today when all I had to say was my name, internship, university and major. It was a simple announcement, but I was freaking out. However, the course should help me reach one of my personal goals this semester-to be able to announce my opinions more freely and be able to defend them. This morning, I went to more department meetings at work, and met with the association’s president. This was all great, but the best part of work was meeting with my superviser and finding out what all she (and therefore me) would be in charge of. I was not able to start working officially on any projects yet, but I am supposedly going to be able to start on my first project-writing a blurb for a web story-tomorrow. I cannot wait! I am ready to begin working! It is interesting to note that at work, everyone is very independent. The departments work with each other but each has a specific duty that they do not really ask for help with. I am mentioning this because they are all so busy. I mean they are all juggling so much and working so hard, yet they are able to accomplish it all with smiles and laughter throughout the day. Speaking of smiles, Ever and I bonded after I got home from work and class. We aired our separate grips and complaints from the day, such as me disenabling our Internet service this morning when I was half-asleep. It was fun talking about work, major events and boys. Our little complain session made me feel better and reaffirmed that we are going to work out as roommates!

I began my first day of work 24 minutes early. It was snowing outside and I was one of the first people to arrive at Pulmonary Hypertension Association. It was a one-and-one-half hour commute by metro and I was afraid to be late. It was still better to be early than late and it was a telling experience of my co-workers: They are nice, friendly and extremely helpful. PHA, which is in offices on the fourth and fifth floor, has about 30 co-workers. My boss and a few others, whiches includes the PHA president, happen to be on the fifth floor. Since no one was in that office when I arrived, a co-worker on the fourth floor kindly took me under her wing and showed me around, talked to me and basically made me feel welcome. Once everyone was in the office, it was an interesting day. Each department is made up of two to three people who are taking time out of their schedule to introduce themselves to the interns. While everyone has their own projects, it is neat how they all interwine together and the association does have a strong desire to involve their community of people involved in PHA. All my co-workers have a strongly defined character: Compassionate, opinionated and very kind-hearted. My boss and two co-workers took us interns and a new co-worker out to lunch as well. I was slightly worried when I realized that we were talking so much that two-and-a-half hours had passed. We only have one-hour breaks and it was my first day, but then again, I was with my boss. I guess, for the circumstances, it was forgivable since she was right there with me. They seem to be a tight-knit group and it will be interesting getting to know each of them. I was slowly introduced into my new role at PHA as the web publications and content management intern. I have figured out some of my duties, which will include writing, editing and learning some basic IT services work. I have not discovered the exact duties I will be doing but I will learn more tomorrow.

I will also be attending my first night of class tomorrow. I am in Press, Power and Politics. The class will be talking about why people leak information to the media, the role of press conferences, communications strategies and self-promotion. The class should complement my previous studies, which have mainly focused on gathering the news and reporting for feature and news stories. In my college experience, I have attended press conferences and received leaked information, but my classes have never really focused so much on getting it and understanding it as much as the correct style to report on it. The class should help me understand the reality of why press conferences and other class topics are taking place when I cover them for a newspaper. The class will also help me become more knowledgeable within my field, and that is basically my number one goal: To strive to become successful at my chosen career.