July 28
What a day! First, we were surprised to find out that there was indeed going to be a SpecMat party for the interns at 10:00am. Mention of this had been made weeks ago but it had never been confirmed. So, I had RSVP’d that I would attend an intern-only session on “How Congress Works” – at the same time. Once I found out about the scheduling conflict, they agreed to move the party back an hour so that I could attend since they realized that they had forgotten to inform the interns that the party was even taking place. Miscommunication, how rare. I was really looking forward to the talk because I enjoy political science and I felt like I should go since they had asked us to RSVP about eight times. Normally, they just mention an event and don't ask for an RSVP.
So, the “How Congress Works” session was not your basic ‘How a bill becomes a law' kind of thing but rather sort of a historical perspective on how Congress has actually operated, complete with discussion of some of the better and more innovative Speakers of the House. It was pretty interesting, I thought. Our speaker was from CRS (Congressional Research Service), which is something I’m very interested in as a career path, so he described what they do a little bit (write nonpartisan reports for Congress).
The party was nice – all breakfast-type foods like croissants, muffins, fruit, danishes, etc…. I talked with a few people in that department who I hadn’t talked to before so that was nice. One of the catalogers informed me that the Library refuses to allow any political discussion during elections or really, any time at all. She told me how she went to a Jesse Jackson rally and put that down as her reason for taking time off of work and they told her to just put “personal reasons” and not be so specific. No one is allowed to wear buttons or show political preferences during election season, either. I guess this is all to avoid Congress finding out that someone has a differing viewpoint and refusing to fund programs because of it. Interesting when you think that Congress in general kind of exists because of the political interest of its citizens. As a side note, though, apparently the woman who sat in my cubicle before me was named Maggie Jackson – Jesse Jackson is her cousin.
Besides those two events of the day, the rest of the day was the same old thing. I woke up really early this morning (like 5:15am) to get to work as early as possible since I’m driving back to Cleveland this evening. Long day.
So, the “How Congress Works” session was not your basic ‘How a bill becomes a law' kind of thing but rather sort of a historical perspective on how Congress has actually operated, complete with discussion of some of the better and more innovative Speakers of the House. It was pretty interesting, I thought. Our speaker was from CRS (Congressional Research Service), which is something I’m very interested in as a career path, so he described what they do a little bit (write nonpartisan reports for Congress).
The party was nice – all breakfast-type foods like croissants, muffins, fruit, danishes, etc…. I talked with a few people in that department who I hadn’t talked to before so that was nice. One of the catalogers informed me that the Library refuses to allow any political discussion during elections or really, any time at all. She told me how she went to a Jesse Jackson rally and put that down as her reason for taking time off of work and they told her to just put “personal reasons” and not be so specific. No one is allowed to wear buttons or show political preferences during election season, either. I guess this is all to avoid Congress finding out that someone has a differing viewpoint and refusing to fund programs because of it. Interesting when you think that Congress in general kind of exists because of the political interest of its citizens. As a side note, though, apparently the woman who sat in my cubicle before me was named Maggie Jackson – Jesse Jackson is her cousin.
Besides those two events of the day, the rest of the day was the same old thing. I woke up really early this morning (like 5:15am) to get to work as early as possible since I’m driving back to Cleveland this evening. Long day.
posted by Cheri W. | 4:01 PM
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