Off to Work I Go

I can't believe how busy I have gotten in the past couple of days. Living in the real world must stink for that reason. But I guess most people don't have both a real job and classes to take and homework to do.

On Sunday, Eli and I went to church with the daughter of some people from my church. We had to take the metro to the furthest place possible, but it was worth it for a homecooked meal. The church had women ministers which is different than I am used to and we had communion-but we went up in groups around a big table and had it served to us in that way. The couple kindly brought us back to our apartment in the afternoon. Of course the Super Bowl was Sunday night and most students gathered in our lounge here. I was mostly interested in watching the Office after the game was done.

Yesterday was the first day of my internship. I tried to take a "first day of Internship" picture but it didn't turn out that great. I am working at the Legal Aid Society of DC. This organization provides legal assistance to people who can't afford it. Their focus is in the areas of family law, housing law, and public benefits. So far, I have spent most of my time answering the phones in the "intake" department. This means callers tell me their situation and I try to discern whether or not they qualify to come in for an initial interview with the staff. If we don't cover their kind of case I have to try to refer them to another organization that might be able to help them. Answering the phone will take up most of my time. The other part of my duties involve going on "court run" which I was able to take part in this afternoon. Each day the lawyers as LAS have documents that need to be filed so I will go around the city bringing them to the right place. I was bombarded with information today about where to go and which papers go to which office. I am hoping I will remember it on Thursday when I have to do it again.

My internship will take up a lot of my time during the week. I will spend Monday and Wednesday mornings and all day on Tuesday and Thursdays at LAS. In another adventure in public transportation I accidentally got on the wrong bus on my way home. The driver gave me some misinformation...I eventually hopped of the bus about 6 blocks from where I live and had to safely get through a kind of sketchy part of town. I guess I learned my lesson about that!

I guess I should be getting back to my studies-we got a big assignment dropped on us yesterday as we began a new unit about public policy. We are studying healthcare and have to read an entire book by Tom Daschle tomorrow-although, it seems kind of unnecessary at this point after he withdrew his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services. I thought about making that argument to my professors...but I'm pretty sure it won't fly.