Omar Figueroa

On the first weekend of February I took a tour of the Library of Congress. It’s an impressive building, nothing like a government building. The following week our class saw the play King Lear at Folger’s Theatre (a Shakespeare Theatre). I took a walk to the White House.

In the third week of February our theatre class was “awesome”, I mean, they always are … but this one had a little flare to it. Dr. Rothman invited a stunt performer/producer who focuses mostly on theatre productions. He brought about 10 knives and 20 swords to show us (with dull edges of course). The stunt producer had a lot of interesting stories, and humor.

Right after Dr. Fowler’s class on a Wednesday, we went bowling near the Verizon Center with William and Mary University students.

On the fourth week of February we saw a silent production of Macbeth at the Rossyln Spectrum.

The weekend before the 26 of February a blizzard came through D.C., giving it about 4 inches of beautiful snow. Taking advantage of all the snow, we made a penguin (not a snowman) about 7ft tall, pretty cool ha.

There are several things to do when you get to Washington D.C. but the first I did was visit several museums. Those museums were the National Gallery of Art, the National Museum of Natural History, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

During our orientation week our director, Dr. Rothman, sent us fellows on a scavenger hunt. A few of the items we were to find were Adam’s Morgan, hotel of presidential assassination attempt, a panda, Howard U., Ben’s Chili Bowl, Teaism, and much more.

Our first Saturday in D.C. Dr. Rothman took us to two places, the National Museum of American Indian and a hockey game at the Verizon Center. It was my first hockey game, there weren’t any fights but I enjoyed it. It was the Washington Capitols vs. the Florida Gators, I think?

As far as placement, I picked the Democratic Caucus, 202a Cannon Building. This Caucus is being run by the chair Rahm Emanuel and vice-chair John Larson.

Working for the Democratic Caucus has been busy but entertaining. During the first week I did a variety of things, I researched population demographics of new (freshman) democrats and organized it on a spread sheet, I translated an article from Spanish to English, moved boxes, and organized stuff.

During the second week I mostly concentrated on learning how to use a huge printer for making posters, formatting posters, visited a hearing on immigration, throughout the whole time answering the phone when I am at the desk, and running errands to the capitol and other places. My working hours are usually 9am-6pm.

There was an Issues conference was in Williamsburg, Va. I stayed in D.C. and ran the office for a couple of days.

Classes have gone well. They are: a political issues class taught by Dr. Gray and a theatre class by Dr. Rothman.

Walking back from the Capitol the night of the State of the Union there were at least six security officers on every corner, storms officers on bikes, riflemen on every block, course cop cars everywhere, secret service, and helicopters (did I mention I’ve never seen so many black Suburbans).

So what have I done besides work and class?

Not much, just kidding, I have done a few things. I went out to a Salsa club called Bravo Bravo, much like La Montana in Greenville, SC. One night we (SC fellows) all went out to an Ethiopian restaurant in Adam’s Morgan, it was delicious. The eating style was different, instead of sitting on chair we sat on things like you use for foot rests and there was no silverware, what they provided us with was a tortilla like bread, but larger, about a 16 inch diameter.