Public Citizen

I've been quite the busy bee for the past couple of days, so my apologies for the lack of blog posts!  Upshire Girl and I were talking about it, and we've come to the conclusion that we're getting old.  Why?  I went to bed yesterday at 11PM.  Willingly.  And I'm only 22, dammit!  What will it come to when I'm 25?  30?!


So what exactly has been taking up most of my days, you ask?  Why, my internship, of course :)  Let's recap on what has happened in the past couple of days...


Wednesday
Oh my gaaaahd, first day of the internship!  I woke up to the house in full motion, bright and early at 8AM.  While my housemates hustled and bustled around getting ready for the big day, I lounged around the apartment and decided to make some toast.  No, I was not being a slacker (I know some of you were thinking that :P).  Instead of starting the workday at the usual 9AM like most places, my internship started 10AM.  In fact, my boss specifically told me I shouldn't come in at 9AM because he wouldn't be there and that some time between 10AM-11AM would be best.  Talk about super chill :)


So after watching about half an hour of watching Food Network, I made my turkey sandwich lunch and ironed all of my professional gear, deciding on a black dress shirt and a pair of grey slacks (not that I had much of a choice, considering the rest of my life is stuffed in a box that's on it's way across the country).  Good neutral gear for my first day of work.  Now, in California, I could walk around with that outfit on for hella days and be perfectly comfortable.  That's actually my favorite business attire outfit--I almost always wear it to the VN CARES clinic.  My 10-minute walk to Public Citizen though reminded me that "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."  And by Kansas, I mean California.  By the time I got to the office, I was sweating profusely.  Luckily, it wasn't as bad as the Jeans post, but only because I had only walked for about 10 minutes.  Surely, if it had been any longer, I would've been a goner >_<  


Of course, being directionally challenged, I got a little lost walking to work.  I swear, this time, I couldn't help it.  All the brick buildings look exactly the same after a while!  Luckily, I had typed out the directions on my phone (not sure why I didn't want to follow them in the first place...) and made my way into the Public Citizen building.  The receptionist cheerily greeted me and had me wait for someone to come down and get me since I was the new intern.  Keanan (who's about 6'2" but 3 years younger than me -_-;), the other undergrad intern, came down to grab me and gave me a quick tour of the building.  Our home was on the 4th floor, affectionately nicknamed "The Penthouse" because the interns thought it would be more fun than calling it "the fourth floor."  There was even a slip of paper decorated with a fancily drawn P to label our door from the stairway leading into the building.  Burcu, the legal counsel, gave me a quick welcome speech, sat me down at a desk, and gave me a bunch of readings to do so I could catch up on what's currently going on with the Global Access to Medicines program.  Once she gave me a Public Citizen mug, it somehow felt more like a proper welcome.  Perhaps it was that inclusion of a gift...

It may be a plain looking desk, but it's MY desk :)

Just in case I haven't spoken to you yet about my internship, let me go over exactly what I'm doing here for the next two months in Washington D.C.  I will be working with Public Citizen, a non-profit NGO, that advocates for citizens' rights.  PC has various branches, and the program I'm interning for is the Global Access to Medicines program.  We work to bring down the cost of pharmaceutical drugs by introducing generic competition in order make live-saving medications more affordable globally.  Our current project is focused on negotiations that will bring down the prices of 2nd-line HIV medications in the Global Kaletra campaign.  My specific duties include providing support to the program director through translations for discussions with Vietnam.  VN CARES, you have trained me well :)


As I was sitting in my new chair at my new desk reading new things, Keanan and two legal interns, James and Mi-Kyeong, told me to grab a notebook and my wallet because we were all heading over to Capitol Hill to sit in on a briefing.  Say what?  First day and we're already going to Capitol Hill?!  Do they really just... let people into these buildings?  Just like that?  Apparently yes, since I was going.  A little nerve-wracking to be going to something seemingly so important and exclusive, but talk about incredibly awesome!  Just the other day, Upshire Girl and I walked past the Dirksen Senate Building and now I was actually going to go inside of it.  Because I have work to do.  Say whaaaat.


Once we signed in and entered the hearing room, a table full of food greeted us.  Fancy black boxes held delicate sandwiches with chips and plates of fresh cookies lined the long black table.  I definitely hit the intern jackpot that day.  Feeling particularly fancy, I picked up a box with the brie, tomato, and watercress sandwich.  Gordon Ramsay would've been proud of my impeccable taste ;)  I would've had a pic of the box for you but I got hungry, so here's half of my sandwich...

Nom nom, delicious!  

Anywho, the briefing was held by amfAR on new advances on HIV cure research and technology.  As much HATE to admit it, taking cell biology during spring quarter was invaluable to understanding all the new technology they spoke about.  How else would I know what the CCR5 receptor did?  LOL.  Despite the fact that the briefing was 4 hours long (yes, 4.), all the information was enthralling.  The science nerd within was happy :)

After the amfAR briefing, I went back to reading and ended my day at 5PM because I thought I had class at 6PM.  I came back only to find out classes don't start until next week.  Joy.  On the plus side, I had extra time to myself to read and do whatever.  Talk about a good first day :)


Thursday


Today was an off-day.  I came into the office, read a lot, typed up a bunch of things, but really, I did not do much.  However!  I did go to a catered intern lunch.


Every week, Public Citizen hosts an intern lunch where all the interns in the building get to meet one program director from a different project.  This week, we met someone from Litigation.  I apologize, but I cannot remember the woman's name for the life of me.  I should, I really should, but I blame the memory loss (or dozing off, whatever you want to call it) on the 5 hours of sleep I got the night before because I was reading The Hunger Games.  (It was worth it.)  I do remember though that the tasty veggie (it had eggplant! :D) sandwich I had was from Cosi.  Great toasty bread and lovely filling.  Go figure, I remember the food, but not the important things like the people I'm meeting.  -_-;  Anywho, after the lunch, I struggled to stay awake (only possible because I kept nibbling on random food) until 5PM when Peter, our program director, came upstairs and told the interns we could go home.  Sigh, what an uneventful day.


Friday


Came in this morning and did more reading, more typing.  Except!  I was more awake today.  I went to bed at 11PM last night, so I was pretty well-rested.  Well, kinda.  I still yawned on and off during the first couple of hours.  I read a bunch and took notes on articles about drug patents and the TPP so I could absorb more info.  Also occasionally checked my email, which consisted of various emails from the listserv and invitations to seminars and fundraisers.  I registered for a couple that I'll be attending in the next couple of weeks with the other interns.  Speaking of emails!  I have an official email account with PC: jha@citizen.org.  Don't spam mail me.  I just wanted to share the official-ness of it all XD


At 1PM we went out to a team lunch to get to know each other and discuss upcoming projects.  Burcu selected the restaurant for us, a nice swanky Turkish restaurant called Levante's.  

Flat bread and olive oil.  This would've been prettier but I got hungry...

Classic fried calamari

Some kind of Turkish pizza--delicious!  Also more flat bread with a lingering of baba ganoush (I LOVE EGGPLANT).

My falafel sandwich in pita bread with a side of fries.  Doesn't look that pretty because it's wrapped in paper, but I assure you, it was delicious.

We ate, discussed, laughed... all that jazz.  T'was a fun 2 hour lunch.  By the end though, I was getting sleepy due to all the blood rushing down to my digestive system to process all the delicious food so I was struggling a bit to keep my eyes open as Peter finished up our meeting.  On the way back, we discussed the small project he wanted Keanan and me to finish for Monday's quarterly meeting.  Once we got back though, People of the Penthouse decided to move around the office furniture because an old employee was coming back so Keanan needed a new desk.  After spending some time doing that, we got back to work (but only kind of, since it was Friday, after all!).  Keanan and I created a nifty high-tech-esque PowerPoint thing using a program called Prezi.  If you haven't already heard of it, check it out--it's pretty cool.  Anywho, we finished the presentation slides in no time, and then it was time to go home.


Upshire Girl and I WERE going to go to Target again for another adventure, but on my walk home, I started feeling sprinkles, so we decided against it.  If you don't DC weather, you should know that it can change pretty quickly.  One moment it's sunny, the next it's rainy.  It was pretty sunny this morning but 5PM, a storm was a brewin'!  A thunderstorm, to be exact.  Intending to avoid the rain, Upshire Girl and I decided to forgo Target and stay home to make a fancy dinner.  To use our beloved half-and-half (if you don't know why it's beloved, do check out Upshire Girl's blog post on it lol), we decided to make roasted garlic mashed potatoes.  To complement the potatoes (usually you build a meal the other way, but whatever), we roasted herbed chicken thighs and topped it all off with some caramelized onions and mushrooms.  Since we had some leftover basil from spaghetti night, we chopped it up and threw it the dish as a garnish.  And the final product:

Sooo good!

After dinner, we wound down for the day, with me watching TV and Upshire Girl typing away at her next blog post.


Man, if you're still here reading this, you, sir/madam, are a trooper.  Thank you, haha.  Well, I must bid thee farewell.  Tomorrow's adventure, including visits to the Smithsonian museums, more Target, and possibly the LOC (again), awaits!  Hopefully I'll be able to get my camera by tomorrow or Sunday, so I'll have more (and better quality!) pictures for you guys.


Over and out,
Agent024