Senior Projects

Today was a bit of a blur because I did so much! The days go by so quickly, which I guess means I’m enjoying them.

This morning I got to go to a lecture at the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank) about Brexit and the Scottish referendum, given by an advisor to Parliament who is in the States this week. It was super interesting–he made a point that I hadn’t thought about (well, a LOT of points I hadn’t thought about but this one was particularly interesting). He said that this is the first time in history that a nation has gotten to completely overhaul and reexamine their trade agreements without suffering the loss of a war. He saw it as a great opportunity for Britain.

I walked back to the Longworth House Office Building after the lecture and grabbed myself lunch. Then, I went to go pick up my official ID.

After that, I helped give a tour to three constituents and answered a ton of phone calls. A lot of them were calling to thank Mr. Meadows for how he had voted, but a few were people just yelling at me. Not super sure why they think yelling at me will undo a vote that’s already happened, but I guess that everyone isn’t logical.

Then, Eliza gave me a scheduling project. I went into his confidential schedule (very hush hush, very exciting), and made a spreadsheets to track which counties in his district he had visited so far this year. This way, Eliza can clearly see if he’s spending too much time in Asheville and needs to do a couple of events in Hendersonville.

By the time I’d finished that, it was time for me to get home for the day.

 

Also, two different people stopped me in the Metro station and asked me for directions. I was super excited that they thought I lived in D.C.!

 

 

 

 

 

Almost 3 weeks since I’ve been working here. It’s already 2:30 but I have not eat lunch yet. They are busy with working. I don’t have that much work today but I do not want to go lunch alone. Today we are still working on those Land Rover: Range Rovers SUV. Two customers called us said the car they got had control and turn signal problems. We are planing to get these cars return back and get fixed.

Although it’s only half way through the day but so far I will say it’s one of those days when they run out of things for me to do. The more serious ones, not the errands kind. In the morning we started cleaning out the room for microwave and coffee because one of the bosses decided to move his office. So I helped moving stuff out and rearranging.

I usually take a lunch break between 45 mins to 1 hour. Everyday I find something new to try and that’s like my favorite thing to do anyway. I’m glad I can actually use my skill of finding good spot to grab bites for necessary reason.

Today I went to an Indian buffet. Their goat bhuna was my favorite. One of the desserts tasted like play dough. (Darbar Fine Indian Cuisine)

Melissa and I have been working with Mrs. Hardcastle for two days now. Most of our time has been focused on the business portion, particularly starting a personal business, and we have done a little work with making products. We are going through part of a course that Mrs. Hardcastle took to help her with starting up and then running her business. As we go through the process, we are doing it as if we are starting our own company with our own product(s). It’s super interesting to learn about all of the thought and work that goes into starting your own business. We’ve listened to a few interviews with some of the other people who have gone through this same program and who have a wide range of successful companies now. We have some work to do at home in relation to starting our companies.

Today we also watched a video on lye safety and then made a mud mask, without lye. We are supposed to try it out tonight, and I’ve currently got it on. Tomorrow we will work with lye and make some soap!

Today begins the saga of Natasha’s Daily Postings on the Blog Because She Is Out of Town and Dr. Hurwitz Asked Her to Post Every Day. I’m currently in D.C., interning in the office of Representative Mark Meadows from North Carolina’s 11th district. Here’s a time-stamped list of what I got to do today:

8:00: Left the house to go into the city (intentionally early so that I would have ample time to get myself something fun for breakfast). I walked to the Prince George’s Plaza station and took it to Capitol South station.

8:30: Got myself breakfast at Pret A Manger

9:00: Showed up at the Longworth House Office Building. There are three office buildings for the House of Representatives, and this is where Mark Meadows works. The House is not in session this week, so he’s back in North Carolina.

9:15: I got introduced to the staff and kinda got a rundown of how things work. Each office has about 14-18 full-time staffers, with titles ranging from Press Secretary to Chief of Staff to the Executive Assistant/Scheduler. They showed me around and explained what kinds of things I’d be doing, like answering phones (“do NOT offer your opinion on any policies to any reporter ever”), to hosting constituents when they visit (“You can offer them coffee or water, but not our Coke. The Coke is sacred–only give the, the Coke if they’ve found out we have it and ask for it specifically.”).

9:30: We all chatted for a super long time. All the staffers are 24-30ish years old and super motivated to change the world. I find that very refreshing in a world of adults who like to tear away at idealism.

10:30: A family from the district came by for a tour of the Capitol, so Jesse (my fellow intern) gave it to them. I came along because I’m supposed to be able to give them next week (I can all but guarantee that I will not be able to do that).

12:30: I went out to lunch at Pret A Manger with Eliza (the Executive Assistant/Scheduler who got me the internship) and Josh (the Press Secretary). We ate outside and had really good sandwiches. Seriously, amazing.

2:00: There was another constituent tour group, this time with eleven people. They were extremely southern–one woman asked me where the bathroom was and I didn’t understand her, so they all made fun of me for not knowing where the bathroom was for the next two hours. And then I couldn’t even totally understand the ridiculing, which was what got me into the mess in the first place, so basically the whole thing was a train wreck.

3:45: Jesse and I got back to the office and didn’t really have anything to do since the House isn’t in session, so he gave me an unofficial tour of the Capitol and showed me all the cool places my badge lets me into. They gave me totally unrestricted access to the Capitol (I was wondering all day if people realized that I was just a seventeen-year-old with no credentials whatsoever except for a scuba license), so Jesse showed me Paul Ryan’s office, how to get to the very top of the dome, the crypt in the basement, and the private metro system that goes between the Senate and House buildings and the Capitol.

5:00ish: We got back to the office and Eliza and I discussed tomorrow. I’m going to a lecture on Brexit at the Heritage Foundation in the morning and I’ll be back in the office in the afternoon. And I get to pick up my permanent ID! I’ll put up a picture of it tomorrow–it’s very official-looking.

When I left I just myself to the nearest bookstore and read for a bit because I wanted to avoid the crowd and extra cost of the metro at rush hour. I got back to Maryland around 6:30 and had some really good stir fry for dinner! Stay tuned for tomorrow, and we’ll see if I can think of a new type of list by then.

Today instead of seat in office I went out to a tax service company in Fullerton road in Rowland Heights with Billy. He talked to lady accountant Wang about some tax issues of our company. We spend the whole afternoon there. Also today is a nice day I got a Starbucks on the way back.

Soap making with Mrs. Hardcastle officially started today.

Few things I learned To-day

1. For selling your products: Always count the time for the time you spend. Do not only count your spending on materials. 
2. Brand VS commodity small business must need to have a brand to emotional control consumers. (something like that but probably not control &^&)
3. making soap = dangerous touch with chemicals
4. Keep track with everything like time you used to each grams of ingredients you used
5. college life perhaps could might be study+social+a small business selling

 

one of the work sheets I filled while I’m with her.

This is a cool thing I saw in her lab/crafting room. which way do you think you go to cut the soap?

I thought you simply push down your soap to use your gravity to cut it and somehow the bottom would open,but…

 

I just get off work today and I’m on the way home. The traffic in here is crazy both high way and local are busy. All the car goes very slow. The good thing is my apartment is not very far from our company. Monday is always hard to spend that I come back from a relax weekend.
We got some new Land Rover: Range Rovers V6 3.0/SE/HSE orders, some of the are already been shipped to buyers and some of them are coming soon. My job is to take note and mark which one was been completed and check with some of our coustomers.

 

Ocean ornament design

I did a compare and contrast with the Chinese Geel-a-peel with the American one. They are same on using on jewelry making but one is more jelly like and the other is more solid. Also this 2 don’t stick together.

A design for it compare with the old design for the lost of 2 plants. added water fountain, green walls and the house.

In my last post I mentioned that I had an exciting Friday coming up that I would be able to dedicate a blog entry to. I did have an exciting Friday, however, because the partnership is part government agency certain things are confidential. On Friday I sat in on my first think tank for a project I will be helping with. Prior to the meeting I was asked to sign an NDA(Non-Disclosure Agreement) meaning I am not allowed by law to discuss the meeting in any detail. I can share some of what I’ve learned so far and I really like the whole list approach (@Natasha) so I’ll give it a shot.

1. It’s really important to never leave a meeting without fully understanding what it is you’re being asked to do. I’ve seen the frustration in my boss’s face when people come back to get clarity on something they discussed in the meeting. So now when I leave meetings I write down what my task is and I run it back to the person. This was really helpful for one of my projects because I didn’t start on it immediately following the meeting in fact I wont start on it until Monday and I would’ve forgotten had I not written it down, and the point person is really busy and I wouldn’t be able to ask again.

2. When it comes to explaining something to a superior it is super important to be clear and concise. This is not to conserve time. The reason is that the more you talk and explain, their confidence in your understanding goes down. Einstein said “If you cannot explain it simply, you don’t understand it well” . This I unfortunately learned the hard way, but that is the beauty of this project.

3. Local politics are super exciting. This could just be a result of my proximity to local leader like Mike McMillan and Steve Stenger, but I really do enjoy observing how the partnership engages with local leaders. As of right now the partnership is preparing to work with the new St. Louis mayor Lyda Krewson.

4. I didn’t know how severe the racial disparity was in the business sector in St. Louis and how many factors there are that affect this issue. One of the factors being financial stability and what is called poverty of access. In order for an entrepreneur to be successful she has to be able to think ahead, weeks, months, years ahead. For many minorities this is simply not a viable way of thinking simply because the short term is far more pressing.  This concept is at the core of microeconomics, how singular actors, in this case minorities, allocate scarce resources, in this case money (To be clear money is considered scarce regardless if the actor rich or poor because there is a limited supply).There are other factors that contribute to the racial disparity, of course, education being a big one. It just seems like some of the issues require an understanding of what it takes to be an entrepreneur and understanding the issues people of marginalized groups face. I am truly fascinated by the work being done on that issue and I’m really looking to learn more about  this.

 

I was also thinking maybe instead of presenting this broad overview of my project,what if I presented on one smaller piece of research I worked on and explained my findings. Let me know what you guys think of this idea in the comments. My reason for wanting to do it this way is that I think it will get boring talking about my experience at one place the whole time.