Good to be back

Wheeeeew it's been a while! I was MIA all last week because i was in DC (w00t!!) for the national OCA convention. Quite the adventure I must say.

From the longest journey by plane i have ever taken (well.. it was long because i've never been overseas so i guess not REALLY long... but long enough) and then some visits with family =] and then off to the salt mines as my mother always says. Wed was day 1 in the dungeon, my own personal pet name for the office. schedule schedule schedule.. if i totaled the hours i spent working on that devilish excel sheet, i think it would exceed 24 hours, no joke. we also (awkwardly) met the other interns... *pause as a giant starfish zooms out of the pacific ocean, across the continental united states, to grab on to my face* there were 18 of them, and it was super intimidating because they had all been buddy buddy for nearly 10 weeks. outcast city!!!! hahaha oh well. it was funny, at one of the really early meetings, katherine (one of the other LA interns, karin was the 2nd) and i sat down first.. and as everybody filed in, they literally left an aisle around us... we were an isolated island!!! =(

but anyways, Thurs was day 2... got to experience the college program that Rachel put on. she was an intern with APIA vote, and they led a good workshop about how to mobilize your own orgs on campuses as well as the importance of voting and etc etc. i learned that away ballots are not always counted... which is utter bull-shit. and something i had no idea about. RANDOM!? Friday was about the same... more workshops.. there was a really good one about women in the API community (i saw priscilla from the DC napawf which was cool.. and the prof from UVA was a very very good panelist, so that was cool)... -- on a side note, the arctic ice separating katherine and i from the other interns is slowly thawing... starting to have some good times and laughs -- we also went to the smithsonian for a reception (it was the new native american museum) that was pretty fun. it's one of the only museums i've never been to in DC before... a bus tour of the monuments... sat was more of the same, and at nite we had a gala dinner... that was fun, arthur dong (the same one from hann li's blog!) was an honoree, and he had the most adorable little son. jhoon rhee was another honoree who is a grandmaster in tae kwon do.. he was hilarious. his acceptance speech consisted of this random joke... that didn't really make sense/pertain to the award.. and it just seemed like something a grandpa would say, and then afterwards you would just reply "oh grandpa...." hahaha

all in all, despite the disparities between what i thought it would be like, and what it actually was, i was pleased with the experience. i did get to meet the interns and strike up friendships (THANK GOODNESS. i honest to god doubted my socializing ability (THE VERY ESSENCE OF MY I-STATUS!!!) that first day. i talked to craig about it for over an hour and was very distressed). i was surprised that it seemed kind of disorganized/not all staffers were on the same page, but it turned out well in the end. i loved a lot of people on the national staff, they were funny and sweet and all pretty easy to get along with. there were a few characters that i could have done without (either fake socialite beauty queens or crabby bull frogs) but on the whole it was great.

sorry this post wasn't as witty as normal, basically just a brain dump of the convention experience. on the way home, kath and i sat together and all we talked about from dulles to chicago was the conference, what we liked, didn't like, who we liked, didn't like... so cathartic. to top it off, i had monday off (tho i worked on the LEAP project for a lot of it) and then got to play with the interns at nite!!! i was so happy, i hadn't seen them all week, and seeing all the close-knit DC interns made me miss my own lia posse even more. ^_^v


PS. today was awesome because to reward ourselves for a well-done convention, clara and i went to go get manicures an pedicures. FABULOUSSSSSSS XD hahaha it was fun. the end!