Civic Engagement and You

The weeks have definitely become a blur! I have become well adjusted to my working life here in the nation’s capital. This past weekend I saw Shutter Island in Chinatown with a couple of my roommates and some friends. It was my first time to Chinatown and hopefully not my last!! The movie theatre is almost connected to the Verizon Center and the complex is MASSIVE. The movie was amazing and it was seriously the highlight of my life. Martin Scorsese is a genius, and I swear with each movie he puts out the quality of each dramatically improves over the last. Leonardo DiCaprio (or as I call him, Leo) was near the top of his game in this film. I can’t say he has ever put out a role that I didn’t enjoy.

This week followed the same pattern as previous weeks. Wake up, work, sleep, repeat. My class continues to be interesting. I love all the different theories and concepts of leadership, and I never realized how diverse the topic was until I started this class. It is a little nerve wracking to still be pushed behind because of all of the snow, and now that there may be MORE coming this upcoming week, it is just horrifying. It makes me wonder why I didn’t come for the summer term...

However, this week I got to devote a large chunk of my time to my civic engagement project. I had decided that I wanted to volunteer at the DC Veteran’s Administration Medical Center, or the DCVAMC. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, as I haven’t really done much volunteering before. I rose rather early on Monday to head out to my interview with Voluntary Services at the DCVAMC. I had to take the yellow to green lines, and then the Metro Bus to reach the facility. That was in and of itself an adventure, as I really don’t recall taking the green line yet so it was pretty unfamiliar territory. When I arrived I had an interview and that was it! I had a couple of options of where I wanted to volunteer, but I ultimately went with Caring Spoons. To follow up, this past Thursday I had my orientation at DCVAMC to learn all about volunteering. After that, I was able to meet with one of the coordinators of the Caring Spoons program to get a better idea of what it is all about. Caring Spoons is a program that allows volunteers to spend time with veterans during meals and assist them if necessary. It seems like something that really is for me so I am super excited to get started.

My only regret is that I didn’t get on the ball with the civic engagement planning sooner, as I could have potentially had an entire month more to volunteer as opposed to the roughly two I am going to have now.

This week we have President’s Lecture Series lecture at the Department of Agriculture which should be pretty cool, as it is our first big PLS event that involves ALL of the TWC interns and not just the Law and Criminal Justice program. I am definitely looking forward to it.

Ciao!