Sunday @ the Zoo and my internship

Sunday I went to the Smithsonian Zoo-another great free thing to go do. I think my favorite thing was the large Orangutan crossing... It was multiple towers with heavy duty ropes connecting them and going down into the Orangutan exhibit. They can come and go as they please and even cross right over a section of path (but a zoo intern warned people that they sometimes try to aim their excrement's at people so to stand back). They called the course the O-Train, haha

Close up of one of the Orangutangs

It's a very large course for them

These signs are near where their path crosses over the human path

The two waited for eachother... and hugged

PANDA-- the last panda I saw was in Beijing when I was 9

Sleeping Panda

so cute

She looked like she was enjoying sun bathing

I guess everyone was enjoying a lazy, sunny Sunday

Giant Octopus--I watched them feed it a shrimp

This Jellyfish was next to the Octopus in the Invertabrae Exibit

Timon- from the Lion King

Makes me think of Javelina in Sedona

he looks so awkward

The Elephants got a bath at 10:30

My Internship:

It’s Thursday, and I'm pretty tired and busy-but absolutely loving my time here in D.C. I'm not quite used to waking up so early every morning, but this newer office (not the pentagon) has free coffee. I got my cubicle Tuesday morning, which makes getting work done a lot easier, too. I thought Danielle (the other intern in our office) and I would have to share a cubicle, but they gave us our own. Everyone in both offices has gone out of their way to be a resource for Danielle and I. Everyone works really hard and long hours, but they know their doing good work and put in a lot of effort.

Today I got to meet the new Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (or DUSD--which is VERY high up) Tommy Thomas. He is very bright man, but also very friendly. When he heard I was an intern, he told me about his own experience interning as a young man. I felt honored to get to meet someone so high up in the government, and he took about twenty minutes out of his schedule to talk to me and two others.

The chain of command is:

      -President

            -Secretary of Defense

                  -Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness

- Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness

-Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy 

At work I spend a lot of time working on an upcoming Family Readiness Conference-I'm enjoying my work more and more as I learn about the programs in depth. I get to draft speeches and concept papers for upcoming programs. I like that I'm getting the chance to do work of value- not just administrative tasks.

The rest of life:

Yesterday I went with an intern to happy hour at a place called Mango Mikes (Danny, Adam and I went there before) and we ate a feast. On Wednesdays, they have assorted seafood plates on sale; we ate steamed clams and oysters, bacon wrapped scallops, fried calamari, coconut shrimp and seared tuna. I also had a  delicious margarita to drink, and got to keep the platic shaker as a souveneir :0) After that a bunch of us rented and watched Gran Torino. We all had a lot of fun laughing at some amazing quotes and appreciating what a man’s-man Clint Eastwood is. It was a very nice and relaxing evening.

When you are walking and riding the subway, errands seem to take a lot longer-I need to go pick up a skirt I dropped of at the dry cleaners to get a new zipper on. This weekend I have several fun plans. Saturday I'm going to a barbeque and probably more museums. Sunday I am volunteering for the LGBT rights festival. I'm only volunteering part of the time, then will probably stick around as a guest for the rest. The LGBT parade is Saturday evening, which I might check out as well. D.C.'s gay pride parade is supposed to be amazing.   

Father's Day weekend I am planning on going to see my Uncle John and Aunt Val in Pennsilvania. I always enjoy getting to see them, but with them living on the East Coast it doesn't happen as much as I would like.

I also got baseball tickets for Amy and I to the Nationals Vs. Cubs on July 11th. 

Danielle, my fellow Military Community and Family Policy (MC & FP) intern

Me in my FIRST cubicle. 

It's rather bare, since I didn't bring pictures with me... I've joked about hanging a bunch of Lisa Frank posters... but maybe I'll look for ASU memorabilia to hang