Everything was worth it: these are the words that come to my mind when I think of the long hours spent compiling spreadsheets, scrutinizing travel documents, making supply orders, and ultimately working with an incredibly dedicated team to ensure the fluid execution of an event with over 1,000 participants.  Admittedly, there were days when my demeanor was less inspired and moments when I allowed the aura of the capitol to distract me from the value of the work that I was a part of.  This compounded with my natural introversion, resulting in a self-induced monotony, a symptom that allowed for days to pass quickly, the city to become a mere blur, and leisure hours to be spent inflecting in hopes of uncovering a solution.  As luck would have it, this was one of those conflicts that was solved with the simple virtue of patience, leading […]

Never underestimate the power that the nine-to-five work day can exert upon your daily routine; this is one of the many lessons that I have learned over the course of my first three weeks in Washington D.C., the place where politics meet reality.  It is a place where a small-town Midwesterner such as myself can easily fall victim to the overarching tones of rapidity and competitiveness.  It is a place where one can find that there exists a clash of understandings.  You see it everywhere; the Metro, the workplace, the restaurants, even the monuments.  From the outsiders’ perspective, there exists a great divide between how people engage with the world that we share. It starts as nuance, watching as some individuals rush down the left side of the escalator while others stand idly on the right, not daring to puncture the median threshold for fear of being rebuked by those […]