Dress Code

As an LA transplant, I find it fascinating that people wear business attire all day, every day. You can go anywhere in a suit and not feel out of place. It makes dressing easy (none of this ambiguous “business casual” or “casual dressy” or worse, “urban chic,” which I think means, “black.”) Also, long black coats are not only acceptable, but encouraged, and it’s hard not to feel chic in a long black coat.

I got a good 15 minutes of exercise Thursday morning when my trusty D6 bus got a flat tire on O and 22nd street, which is at least 10 miles from K and 18th. Well, no, it’s about 10 blocks. But it feels like 10 miles when you’re wearing 3 inch heels and you’re late for work (but at least I had a good excuse.) I vowed to catch the earlier bus from now on.

One thing to be aware of when considering internships is the amount of coffee-making-Xeroxing-stuffing-envelopes you as the intern will be privileged to do. I love my job because it’s fascinating, but also because I don’t do any of that. I do actual substantive research, and I talk to actual important people, and I go to actual cool places (like the CNN News station next to the Capital.) It’s Networking Central. Plus, I get to read about what’s going on in my favorite places and I’m surrounded by people who are equally excited by it.

The Inauguration preparations are getting visibly more urgent. All kinds of activity goes on from 1500 to 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, and most of them involve blocking the street with unsightly machinery and making new pedestrian walkways with chained barriers. And I mention again: we get the whole day off work.

Graduate program applications are FINALLY done, paid for, stamped and sent in. Time to sit back, relax, wait for their April decision, and not worry (too much) about what happens after May 20. Thanks! Thanks! to all my professors, TAs, and bosses who wrote letters of recommendation for me and to friends and family who had to listen to me talk about these applications for the past two months. I appreciate it greatly.