Month: April 2017

There was lots of commotion at the Capitol today because of the informal holiday that takes place on April 20th each year. Some activists for marijuana legalization were giving away free drugs to staffers over 21, and the Capitol police were not happy. Much commotion ensued and I know that at least seven arrests were made.

Anyway, a lot of cool things happened today. I got to go on the House floor, which was crazy. You can rarely access it, but today it happened to be open to staffers (perhaps to distract from the impromptu marijuana dispensary that was set up outside..?). I also stopped by the National Portrait Gallery.

News broke this morning that Exxon is applying to get a waiver to circumvent sanctions against Russia. I fielded dozens of concerned calls today about a conflict of interest that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (the former CEO of Exxon) might have when processing the waiver. I had to explain to lots of upset Americans that the application actually goes through the Department of Treasury, not the State Department. A lot of people completely thought I was making that up, so that was fun.

Anyway, tomorrow should be a pretty normal day but you never know what’ll happen. The office is getting quite busy as we’re preparing to go back in session next week.

Today’s weather is very hot and dry, it makes me so uncomfortable. We went out for lunch this noon and we had some Chinese food together. Tonight all of us are going to Billy’s house. Billy’s wife are going make dinner for us. It is like a big family dinner.

Today our sales give me some order information about Land Rover: New Discovery V6 3.0. One of them are HSE Luxary type and three of them are First Edition. Two of the First Edition SUV are Farallon Black and the other one is Silicon silver. Another group of SE and HSE New Discoverys are in two colors, Fuji White or Santorini Black.

Yesterday close to quitting time, Nico and I were talking about food. Then we started this skype conversation–Momosan Three…

We took off at 1130 sharp and got there before the lunch traffic hit. It was momosan three and then we had Cassandra joined. All the girls got there and we asked for a table of four. Stewart was a little behind us but we needed to get the table. It’s precious.

We said we had four of us. Obviously the waitress noticed one’s missing, she asked if everyone’s here. Nico lifted her hand and started pointing randomly, and told the waitress with all seriousness that the last one of us was just parking his car around the corner. (Right. We all walked 3 mins here. ) Right away we were seated.

If you tell the restaurant that someone’s on their way, they’ll say no, everyone has to be here. But if you say he/she is just parking the car, they let you in. And that’s when you call that parking person to get in the shower now.

Momosan Ramen & Sake

I added a pork belly bao. Highly recommend.

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…