I really wish I knew what week it was but I'm too busy to notice...

So sorry I've been MIA for the past few weeks, it has literally been so busy and exhausting with class, work and the extra programming we have! Not to mention that sleeping and eating takes a lot of my energy so there's that.... Anyway, the past few weeks have been business as usual at work, although after tomorrow I am not sure if I will say that but only time will tell. Programming and classes have been going good, I had my first big paper due for my class due last week so fingers crossed that my writing skills hold up here like they mostly did on campus. I have already started thinking about our next big paper (which is due next week), so forewarning if I go missing again at least now you have a reason as to where I am. I received my first care package last week from my sweet mother complete with a Texas flag for me to hang up in my room so that just in case there was any doubt as to where I was from, this would clear it up. Also, for some other fun news I ventrured to a flea shop two weekends ago with my roommate and spent some money getting some pretty things for my girls back home, as well as for myself:) Being the daring person that I am, I also tried a new food place last week called Five Guys and let me tell you, I missed having a good burger and fry. It was similar to the food style of Mooyah if anyone has ever been there but it was amazing, greasy food that was just what we all needed after a long day of work. Other than that I've got nothing too exciting to report, although give me another week or so and I may....;) Anyway, hope this was enough to let my parents know that I am not just holed up in my room all of the time, especially since the kitchen is outside of my room so I have to leave my bed eventually;);)

Until next time y'all. Whenever that will be...

"Yes, another Saturday in the city: Saturday 14, 2013"

Well after an unfortunate wake-up call early this morning I proceeded to go and have a pretty great experience meeting some WW2 veterans. We got to meet these great men as they entered the WW2 memorial and cheer and welcome them to their memorial. It was such a great and moving experience and the WW2 veterans we so appreciative. Anyway, after that we walked on and explored the Vietnam memorial, the Lincoln memorial and the Korean War veteran memorial before heading back home. I loved getting to see some of the other parts of history that are here in DC. For dinner we made another trip to Union Station where we had some good food for dinner: Chipotle:) Today was a pretty successful day and I believe the pictures I add will show that! The only thing that sucks about the weekends here is that the metro always has track work being done so the metro is always slow but at least we finally made it home to rest our feet after a long day of walking. Tomorrow will be dedicated to school work, laundry, and organization as all good Sundays should be.

Until next time y'all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"This week in review: Monday September 9- Friday September 13, 2013"

Well hello there again to all of my loyal followers! I am sure by now you have all sent out various amber alerts and police scouting parties to go and look for me but call them back because I am alive! This week definitely got away from me, one of the hassles of a working girl's life, but anyway I would say this week had some of the best and the worst times. For starters, on Monday I was getting ready in the dark for work and I rammed my baby toe into a bed post, proceeded to go into the closet, get lightheaded, fall over, get the chills and then get VERY nauseous. Thankfully it passed and I was able to go to work but I am pretty sure since my toe still hurts and is red and purple it is broken, but what are ya gonna do? I suppose this is another one of the hazards of living in DC! Anyway work this week went well, I had some projects that I got to help on, some meetings I got to attend. Fun fact: I went to a meeting in Greenbelt (no idea where that is) , but anyway it was at the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA office, so shout out to my daddy who works for South Texas HIDTA in San Antonio, I knew he would appreciate me being there. So I also made two very exciting sets of plans for the future this week however the details of the plans are currently on a need to know basis, therefore y'all will probably get the details of my fun adventures after the fact in these two instances;) This week's early morning's required a lot of diet coke and a pumpkin spice latte this morning, but I did it. I am really learning a lot and liking every experience I have at DEA so I can't wait to see what the rest of the semester has in store.

I definitely feel very loved since I got sweet cards from both of my grandmothers and they made me feel not so homesick. Also, my friends are the best and know how much a "just thinking of you" and a "miss you and wish you were here" text mean to me so major shout out to them for making me smile at least once a day this week. I turned in my first paper for my Thursday night class, so we will see how that goes but the readings (although a little long) are very interesting and I am excited to take away even more knowledge from this class. So now after cleaning my bathroom, washing the dishes from dinner and cleaning the kitchen and living room I am going to relax tonight as I am exhausted, stressed and still sad that my Horned Frogs lost last night:(

I did forget to mention though that my suitemates were amazing and got me a dinosaur donut (its a giant amazing donut) and I got French toast pie this week with some of the other people at DEA on the way home from a meeting, so I have had a very yummy week in terms of food.

Anyway, until next time y'all. Whenever that is:)

"Sunday funday: September 8, 2013"

Well today was a very relaxing Sunday indeed. I woke up and headed to the gym for a light workout and then went to the back patio with my suitemates for a lunch provided by our RA of sorts here. We were able to eat some delicious Potbelly sandwiches and meet the rest of the people that live on our floor. Then one of my suitemates decided today wouldn't be complete without some fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Afterwards I went downstairs to print off all of the articles I need to read for my class for the rest of the semester at .10 cents a print (but don't worry they take credit cards) and then finished getting myself organized while watching some Harry Potter. After a delicious  homemade dinner of nachos, I will do my reading for the week and hopefully have an early evening as I have an early week this week with my days starting at 7am. Tomorrow is my first day of programming for Politics and Public Policy, so ill leave the office around noon time and have a good two hours of programming back here at the RAF until I am done for the day. Hopefully, this week (although an early one) will be a good one at work, at class, at programming and with my new friends. Hopefully I will get some more sights seen this coming weekend and get to know some new areas of DC.

Until next time y'all.

"Another weekend in DC: Friday September 7 and Saturday September 8, 2013"

So sorry about the delay on the blog postings, but I have a good reason,  I promise. So last night all of the roommates and I had a girls night in, I'm talking a great dinner together, a night of chick flicks (obviously Mean Girls was one of them) basically, a good time with new friends.  Then this morning (another late one, since real people work has been starting so early), we woke up and relaxed all day and then went to have some yummy Chinese food at the lovely....Union Station metro stop which surprisingly has a whole mall thing inside. Luckily enough I was able to watch the second half of the TCU game today seeing as it took me almost the whole length of the game to find out where it was being broadcast on TV....ugh, these northern stations don't appreciate college football like us southerners do. Anyway, since the game was on I decided to wait until next weekend to go hang out with my Veteran friends (especially since the metro lines I needed were not working, typical DC lol).

So last night was hard and I'm still kinda bummed about it, not being able to be there to celebrate big/lil reveal with all of my sisters...I knew seeing the pictures from last night was going to be hard but geez that was rough. I am usually at every event, in every picture (well okay that's a stretch) but missing out on those moments, with those girls really sucks. Those girls, well they remind me who I am and make me laugh until I cry, they have been there for the past two years almost all of the time, so it's just hard being here missing them and missing EVERYTHING there!! I feel so disconnected to my life and friends back in Texas and I am always worried about being forgotten about up here in the north aka my Texas friends and I often forget there is life outside of our amazing state. Don't get me wrong, being here, getting to be an adult at my awesome internship, having my first apartment, meeting some really great girls who have already become great friends and who I get the pleasure of living with is amazing. Seeing history and culture every single day make me remember why it is that I want to do what I want to do. 

Speaking of which, Friday was a very interesting work day, I got to finalize my first short project that I worked on earlier in the week so I got my first piece of DEA official work accomplished. I have only been there a week and I already know SO much more about drugs and what the DEA actually does than I ever have before. Being a DEA kid, you think you know everything about what your Dad does, I mean my Dad was like THE SPECIAL AGENT to me, and I always knew he was one of the greats fighting the War against Drugs but I never knew how much time and knowledge surrounded investigations, intelligence gathering and the processing of the agency. So Dad, now I do really appreciate some of the late nights that you had to be a part of when I was a kid, I know it was for a good cause:)

Anyway in other news, this week starts my programming, my meetings, my first class assignments due, another week of firsts (it's never ending) and also I have to be in at 7am this week...those of you who know me know that will be quite the struggle but with the help of some more diet coke, I will survive, hopefully. So the good things are that I have gotten to talk on the phone to my always wise roomz from back home, skyped with one of my closest friends (also a sister), one of the most accommodating girls I know (also a sister) and my little a little bit, so I have had some good contact with my girlies back home this week.

Tomorrow I have a brunch with my floor and I will probably knock out some reading that I have due for my class on Thursday, oh the life of a TWC intern, so glamorous.

Again I apologize to all of you for the delay in posting these blogs (again sorry Daddy, but I gave you a nice little shout out so that should make up for it), like I said I am new to the whole blogger life.

Until next time y'all, whenever that may be.

"First Day of Class: September 5, 2013"

I knew this whole blogging thing was going to get complex at some point, so while I would love to tell y'all about my day today, I am just about ready to pass out so instead I am going to do a double blog post tomorrow for Thursday and Friday! Hope you aren't too disappointed although again, I'm sure it's just my parents reading and they can just call and yell at me if they are annoyed.

Anyway, to be continued...tomorrow.....

"Work Day 2: September 4, 2013"

Sorry to all of you out there who have been waiting for me to post on my blog (although i's fairly certain most of the views are from my family aka hi mom and dad but that's fine). Anyway, the day just seemed to get away from me a little bit. The good news is this morning I arrived at the right DEA building by way of the TWC shuttle (which is about as unreliable as the weather back home in Texas but in all fairness it is hard to accommodate like 400 students schedules) to Union Station and then arrived in good old Chinatown for some 8:30am to 5:00pm work. The full day working life definitely is different from having 1-4 hours of class a day in college. I do enjoy being able to dress nicely (even though having to get up early every morning is not my favorite thing in the world) and do real people work. Doing real people work is intimidating, thinking that you are not just doing some random assignment and that people actually need to use your work is scary crazy.  So today I was able to jump right in an work on some research regarding PCP and also see how the evidence room operates a little bit at DEA. I have to say these are experiences I am so grateful to be able to have because they definitely don't have any hard core evidence rooms at TCU, unless you count the library which an evidence room of what time of year it is (middle of the semester you will find an empty library, finals week you won't even find a chair to sit in at that library).

I am definitely getting my bearings a little bit more and learning my way around at least the areas that I have already been to once. I have my once a week class tomorrow night from 6:30om-9:30pm, so needless to say my vacation from class is over somewhat and I will be hitting the books again starting tomorrow night. I am excited to see what the class has in store as it is about Criminal Justice and Policy Wars and focuses on two of my favorite Policy Wars: the War on Terror and the War on Drugs (only PoliSci nerds will openly admit that they actually have favorite policy wars, at least this one will since my senior thesis is about National Security threat perceptions and being a DEA kid my whole life and now a DEA intern, the War on Drugs holds a certain fascination in my heart). Hopefully, I will be able to gain some interesting new insights and meet some more TWC students all at the same time. The other good news is I got the civic engagement I wanted: Veterans!!! I have a special place in my heart for this Civic Engagement since I have several veterans in my family and respect the service that these men and women give to their country. I actually think I have my first opportunity at direct service this Saturday, so hopefully I can make it to the WWII memorial and get to hang out with people who have shown their love for their country in the biggest way possible.

I am starting to get more and more emails regarding appointments and meetings that I have for the semester for my programming, so hopefully I can get some time this weekend to get everything updated so I can have all of my ducks in a row before embarking on next week. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself, this week isn't even through yet. My sorority formal is happening soon, my friends back home are buying dresses and finding dates to hang out with for a night of fun and I'm sad to say I won't be there, also I finished the cupcakes I was sent today so that's kind of just a double bummer. And I just realized I am missing one of a sororities most coveted traditions on Friday, Big and Little Diamond Sister Reveal. Hopefully, the good times I have here will distract me from the events I am missing at home with my friends, it doesn't make me miss them or being there any less but it'll take my mind of the main force of it.

Here's to getting through the rest of this first week of work.

Until next time y'all.