The DC Experience

Everyone who has ever worked in DC knows how it goes, this city is unlike any other in the way you always meet new people. This is because its a transient city where almost none of the professionals are actually from DC. Its kind of a sad dichotomy because the district is very poor, has terrible schools, so its hard for natives to break out. Well what actually ends up happening is that everytime you meet somone it goes like this?

Hey, where you from? (answer either a state or major city)
What school did you/still go to?
What do you do in DC?

Usually if either A or B are somewhere you know of you play the name game as in, do you know this person. Also, in today's world it seems that everyone going to about 30-40 different colleges in the northeast knows somebody at every other school in the Northeast.

Well I bring all of this up, because its interesting about howI might play baseball next saturday. So I was at this party with fellow Iowa interns, when two random neighbors in the apartment building just invite themselves in - not that weird actually for this city. Some of us were talking about baseball and pretty soon this guy was recruiting us to play for his team on Saturday. We didn't turn out last weekend becasue of the 9am start, but next weekend we might be in the mix. This is really just to illustrate how quickly acquaintances are made in this city.

The second example is how if you have even the littles thing in common with someone - it sparks off great conversation. For instance this guy I work with grew up in Vermont so instantly there is plenty of conversation. Rest assured, just about anywhere in this city is ripe with possiblities for meetings. Since no one has a home base here - everyone is looking for more.

Just an update about work. I've been digging through lots of old Harkin files and there are some interesting things. I found all these old memos on the constitutionaliy of Impeachment hearings. Up until Clinton's trail, all past impeachment hearings had been held in secret....

Here at the New America Foundation I got to do registration at an event today with the leader of the Green party in Germany. He spoke a lot about Iran, but I was interested in how amazing the building was. We were at the Carnegie Institute which shares space with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institute. This is like the Mecca of the think tank world. New America is right there, just no one knows it yet...