Today was the last day of my 4th week in Washington. I cannot believe that I only 10 more days of work left and I will be home! It has gone by so fast and I have missed so much back home, stuff I haven’t missed before like the Nativity Festival and my dogs! Washington is fantastic, but like they say, there is no place like home.
As I sit here and reflect on the last 4 weeks, I loved every experience, but this kind of thing is a onetime thing (college is different). Washington has been great, I have met so many great people and have seen so many people that I never thought I would meet in my life! The 24 Democratic Pages got to meet Nancy Pelosi last week. We all got a group photo then individual photos with her, it was great!
Everyday a member will stop by the page desk on the floor and talk to us, especially Sam Farr and Mike Honda from California. Both of them are awesome and give us advice everyday and have conversations with us all the time. Congressman Visclosky also stops by and says hi to me and when he sees me in the hallway, he will stop and talk with me. He has also introduced me to a few other members. We will be having lunch together next week.
The only down side to this whole adventure is the dorm life. They keep us entertained but I guess the last class wasn’t a very good one. Because of them, we have daily room inspection. That may not sound bad but every morning the room must be spotless, you can’t just make your bed and wipe down the bathroom counter. As a room we are up at 6:00 each morning to vacuum and shower, clean the shower, sinks and toilet, take out the garbage, make our beds and get ready. It is not a fun morning at all! The proctors are also pretty strict here, one little piece of paper on the floor could cause you to fail room inspection. I will admit though, I feel extremely safe here; we are guarded 24 hours a day by United States Capitol Police!
Tomorrow we will be going to Annapolis as a “family” (what the director calls us). It is going to be 105 and sunny all day!!! We get a tour of the Naval Academy (2 of the proctors and the director’s Alma Mater) and then have the whole day to ourselves. It should be miserable in the heat.
I cannot wait to get home, only 16 more days (14 if you aren’t counting the time I am not a page, because my grandpa is flying in and we are spending the weekend here). I will only have 17 days until school starts, which means only 17 days to get my summer reading and AP Chem done! This has been an experience and when I was asked if I would do it again, I said absolutely not! I have had my six weeks, and it would not be fair to take a spot from someone else. Plus I could not do 6 more weeks of this, let alone 4 months during the school year.