On Thursday, August 10, 2006 I went to the White House. After work I walked over to the Eisenhower Executive Building to meet a friend of mine named Clay. I walked up to the guard and he asked for my ID. I gave him my student ID, he frowned and said "government issued identification please..." That's when I pulled out my wallet and replied "Sir, I'm 16 and without a Driver's license but I do have my Social Security Card, Credit Card, Student ID, Neiman Marcus Dependent Card, and a box of m&m's from my last visit to the White House." He looked up at me, picked up the phone and said "I'll tell him you're on your way up. Have a nice day, Ms. Vroom" ...that was probably the coolest I had felt all day. I walked inside and took the ancient elevator up to the second floor. Clay was meeting with an ambassador. It turned out his secretary was from Houston and knew a friend of mine. Small world. After visiting with Clay he asked where I was working. I told him, thinking everyone who worked for the president MUST know what the NTI has been working so hard on. He turned to his secretary and said "Emily, you know the NTI?" "Uh...no sir," she replied. I told him it stood for the Nuclear Threat Initiative...expecting a better response. "Holy Cow! That sounds intense. What the hell do you do over there??" I thought to myself how many envelopes I must have labeled that day...and told him that I helped with some VERY important jobs that were completely top secret. "Alright, well wanna head over to the West Wing?"

So, he took me outside first and showed me the rose garden (where he makes some of his speeches), south lawn (where the helicopter lands), swimming pool (hardly uses it), tennis courts (NEVER uses it), and track (for when the President used to run...he bikes now...with Lance Armstrong). Then we went into the Oval Office and he told me that every president gets to re-decorate the office however he (or she) wants to. So for a while I couldn't help thinking how I wanted to re-decorate it. Where would my band posters go, I thought. And my snowglobe collection? Then he pointed to a big painting and bust of Abraham Lincoln. He told me that the president realized his biggest and most important job was to unify the country. And who else to inspire him than the greatest uniter of all, Abraham Lincoln. I wanted to give him some advice when he said that. I mean, maybe take the pictures of Abe down for a week or so and see what happens when the president STOPS trying to "unify" the country...who knows...world peace? Anyway, it was interesting to hear about. We went into the conference room (recently redecorated), by the situation room (don't even THINK about going in there without permission), and spoke with several interesting employees. He told me there were three White House photographers that took pictures for the president and could get into any meeting without having to ask. Every two weeks, the pictures in the White House change. They're all over. Every single hallway. I told him I had just gotten into photography and that maybe one day...who knows...He replied with, "Yes...maybe. Let's keep going." Man, I guess not everybody is so lucky as to be one of THE White House photographers. Hmmm. All in all, it was an extremely interesting tour. I was able to go back to his office and talk about colleges (kinda nice coming from a guy who was probably smartest in his class at Yale and MIT...sheesh) and after he gave me more advice than I knew what to do with, he sent me back on my way.

Friday morning I came into the office to find the bioterrorism corner all in a shambles. "IT'S ALMOST TEN O'CLOCK!!" Kate screamed. "JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE TICKETS GO ON SALE IN 4 MINUTES!!" Then I listened to two scientists discuss a plan to get out of the NTI Board Dinner so they could go to the Justin Timberlake concert at the 9:30 Club. "We all sit in the same area," one said. "we could all catch the same disease!!" Oh man, when 10 o'clock came along they were all trying to get through to get tickets. At 10:02 Kate was freaking out cause she couldn't get through on the website and was afraid they'd sell out. "I don't want to sound rude by saying anything like 'it's just Justin Timberlake' but..." I said through the wall that separated us. "Oh I know! But...HOLY MOTHER OF GOD IT IS SOLD OUT!" she screamed at 10:06. Ah, chaos. Within the next 15 minutes, half the office was searching for tickets on eBay (the cheapest was $400 for two) It was the saddest thing I had ever seen in my life. I couldn't help but laugh when I thought about the note I'd be sending to the Senator after my internship "Thank you for everything, Senator. Oh, and if you by any chance run across two tickets for Justin Timberlake I know Kate would really appreciate it. Great, thanks" Oh my. After everything settled down I said my goodbyes and left jars of candy and mints in the coffee room for Monday. Au Revoir, NTI.

gah. i'm home. i'm busy. i'll post tomorrow.

Mundae: The usual staff meeting. Usual time. 9 am. I sat on the outside this time (next to PB...teehee). Charlie went around and asked everybody for their agenda...as usual. When he got to my boss she pointed out that this was going to be my last week interning there and made all the stuff I had been working on seem extremely important. I guess it seemed that way because they didn't have to slave over all of it. Then just as I was about to thank everybody the Senator starts up and says something like "Yep, Grace, I've gotten nuthin' but great reports. Thanks for everything, it's been a real treat" So after hearing compliments like that, I believe I gabbed on for quite some time about what a pleasure it had been and what an experience it was. Whew, those meetings always end up making me cheery and giggly...which I don't believe they're supposed to. For the rest of the morning I figured out that the only way to survive in that office is by not listening to anyone's conversations. Since its such a small office, every word of every phone call/hallway conversation can easily be heard. So, if I don't care that Stephanie's applying to preschools regardless of the fact that her baby hasn't been born yet...I don't listen. If I don't want to hear how Tempe got pink eye AND strept throat on her flight back from Italy...then I don't listen...every one of the six times she told someone today. These kinds of conversations drove me to the coffee room several times, which then led to one of my favorite parts about interning at NTI. After spending about 6.2 minutes preparing the perfect Japanese green tea, I come out of the coffee room to find about ten Ambassadors arguing in different accents about whether or not the "creamy topping" on the coffee would add too many calories. The stuff that goes on around this place is insane. I was later put in charge of organizing a reunion for Senator Nunn's former staff. So I wrote to people who live on streets like Army Navy Avenue and Security Lane and then I called people who work in places like the Pentagon and referred to the reunion as "getting the old gang back together!" and know Senator Nunn as "The Samster" or "Samalicious". Insane, I tell you.

2sday: My favorite day. Conference call day. Grace feels important day. The TV spots and interviews are being shot in NY this weekend (look out for them soon I guess...) which took up most of the discussion time. Not much else I can report, though. I have to keep something to myself or else I won't feel as important and the point of Tuesday would be ruined. After the call, though, Carrie, Cathy, and I talked about other "business stuff". So, of course, we made Carrie tell us what else she's going to be doing in NY while she's there for the shoot. She told us her godfather works with the photographers for the New York Times so she's going to lunch with him and a bunch of NY Times photographers. I believe that's when the 16 year old in me blurted out "OH MY GOD, that would be like my dream!!!" To which she replied "Well, If you're ever in New York, I'd be happy to give you his number so you can get together." Then the 16 year old in me fainted, got up, brushed herself off, smiled and said "That would be great!" The rest of the day was filled with mind-numbing work. At one point during the day I actually asked Mariah if she was a Mariah Carey fan. Her amazingly intelligent answer of "yeah" made me admit how cool I thought it was on my first day to be working with someone named Mariah. That made us giggle for about 10 minutes...which made me 10 minutes behind my assignment to collate about 1208423905 pieces of paper. Damn work. Then a lady actually got mad at me for making two hundred copies of something. "Too many trees and too much time...that's all it's wasting!" she said. I wanted to tell her that she could say that to the professor at Harvard University who would be without any material for his course based on nuclear threats without these papers. Then I reminded myself that I was just an intern and much better dressed than she was....which ended up being more satisfying than saying anything to her. Oh well.

Week's almost over. Kinda wish I could stay. I feel like I'm just getting settled. Isn't that how it always goes?

Friday: Since its the summer and people who work get no summer vacation-work ends at 1 on Friday. Yahoo! My grandfather took me out to lunch at his restaurant, the Caucus Room. We walked in and after being guided past rooms filled with dark suited lobbyists, we sat down and a man immediately came up to our table. "Welcome. I'm not your server today but I would just like to express how happy I am to see you two here on this lovely afternoon," he said with quite a smile. "Just wanted to let you know that your presence has been acknowledged." Wow, I thought. What had my grandfather slipped him? He went on with more compliments, even though this was the first time we had ever met him before. "Well, thank you so much, what's your name?" I asked. "Pleasure," he said. "...its got its ups and downs" Then, our waiter came over and introduced himself as Dallas Henderson. I told him I was from Dallas and his eyes lit up as he told me his family was basically the reason Dallas is a city today. "My last name's Henderson. Henderson County? Ring a bell? Yep. That's me" This, of course, led to many stories about the Henderson family as well as short converstions about Texas weather, the Cowboys (ew), and the Mavs (yum) It was a loooong lunch but made for quite an interesting and humorous afternoon

Saturday: Photo day. James day. Great day.

Sunday: I went over to a friend of my mom's house for lunch and fresh air during the afternoon. I probably hadn't seen her since I was in her wedding (I believe I was all of 6 or 7) so it was GREAT to see her again. After catching up on family things, I was able to talk to her 7 year old daughter and 10 year old son over lunch. After hearing some great stories from everybody and sharing my opinions on things such as colleges, theater, art, politics, media, etc. her 7 year old turned to me and said "man, you're complicated." Ah, yes, the perfect compliment. I took pride in that but could only muster a "guess so" before we all erupted in laughter.

Monday: Staff meeting. A ton of people were out of the office on Monday so I actually managed to get a spot at the conference table again (scoreboard!) Brooke was in charge of the meeting and she went around the table asking if anybody had news. Since there was barely any, I quickly became bored with the situation. Then, out of nowhere, the Senator says "Well I just want to know if Grace is keeping everybody in line up there." Wha? Who? My name? Keeping in line? Were they crooked? "Oh, I'm working on it, Senator!" is what came out of my mouth. Laughter. Phewph. Easy Crowd. Man, that kept me on my toes for the rest of the day.

Later on, I met Joey and Robert for lunch. After a week of awkward elevator rides, meeting new faces, and learning my way around Pennsylvania Ave...it was nice to have two wonderful people reminding me so much of home. It was like having lunch with two Bunkys (thats a compliment, I swear!!) St. Marks and Fantasy Football. The two things they know so much about and are so much fun to hear about. It relieved my homesickness for at least an hour. Later that night was the Fiona Apple show at Wolftrap (a great place to see all kinds of shows!) I was shocked to see so many people there. I mean, when she opened for Coldplay in Dallas...everybody complained and didn't like her performance. I was SO happy to see that people in DC appreciated her a little more. She had everybody wowed.

Tuesday: Got a new project to work on. WOOHOO!!

Today: I got my first project almost finished. Thank goodness. I've found that just by finding the audio tape of some CNN Interview with Charles Curtis or the DVD of Ted Turner on David Letterman can make me more excited than if you had put a whole cheesecake in front of me. Seriously, I have dance parties whenever I'm finished organizing all the BETACAM from 2001. it's GREAT!

Oh dear. Just thinking about organizing Senator Nunn's BETACAM makes me sleepy. G'night.