Sortations

Well, since my post was so serious today...I thought I'd share these --

I just love our President... he makes it all the more fun when he mixes his words up-- I think it's ok to laugh without being disrespectful since he laughs at himself:

"I'm also mindful that man should never try to put words in God's mouth. I mean, we should never ascribe natural disasters or anything else, to God. We are in no way, shape, or form should a human being, play God."—Appearing on ABC's 20/20, Washington D.C., Jan. 14, 2005

"The CIA laid out several scenarios and said life could be lousy, life could be OK, life could be better, and they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like."—New York, Sept. 21, 2004

"That's why I went to the Congress last September and proposed fundamental—supplemental funding, which is money for armor and body parts and ammunition and fuel."—Erie, Pa., Sept. 4, 2004

"Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat."—Washington, D.C., Sept. 17, 2004
What kind of hat would that be exactly?

Oh, and while I'm on the subject of President's making me laugh... on a video interviewing past presidents that I saw at the Smithsonian, Bill Clinton said with a smirk, "Well, I've enjoyed the job a lot and I'm really going to miss all the perks."

I think I embarrassed the girls that were w/me cause I laughed out loud. Honestly, couldn't he have summoned something a little less honest and little more presidential sounding to say? Never thought I'd accuse him of being too honest...

Ramblations

Penance for forgetting about R--

While President Bush was in Germany this week, thousands of Germans took to the streets to protest President Bush and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. See, that’s when you know you’ve accomplished something, OK? When the Germans think you’re invading too much.

President Bush met with German leaders and they found common ground. We both hate the French.

Here’s a startling story – police in Portland, Oregon, have arrested a 97-year-old woman for selling crack. A 97-year-old woman! Here’s my question: Where are the parents?!

Quadragesimations

Well, I just turned in my weekly assignment for International Politics and was so relieved to be done until March 14^th because of Spring Break. Then I realized I have a paper due Friday. Ugh. And I was going to write it on a book I’m reading but I won’t have time to finish the book so I’ll have to change topics. It just never stops. Well, hopefully this weekend will be slower.

Well, we were ‘posed to get 7-10 inches of snow over night last night and be snowed in. I awakened at 5am to check the Fed Govnt status and was not happy to discover the storm was “postponed” so work was not canceled. I went back to sleep for a little while and dreamed a helicopter came to get me out of bed and drag me to work—obviously I was really wanting a day off! Oh well. It did snow really hard all day, but stayed so warm it didn’t accumulate on the roads, so we didn’t even get to leave early. It was just wet and ugh and made me much more ready for spring. It is pretty in the neighborhood where I live though, cause it accumulated here.

Ambassador Hanford leaves for Vietnam tomorrow, so I spent a lot of my day making random preparations for them. I am very excited to see the results of their trip and negotiations for religious freedom.

I had a random moment today I haven’t really figured out yet. One of the things the Ambassador asked me to do was run to pick up his shoes which were being re-soled. Happy for some mindless work, and knowing it was necessary, I didn’t mind the errands at all. As I approached the State Dept on my way back, I was thinking about my role in this whole Vietnam process—from memo-writing to errand-running, playing a small role to facilitate progress toward freedom in that tyrannical Communist nation. Having made a re-visit to the Price of Freedom military exhibit at the Smithsonian this weekend, I was thinking about the Vietnam war… lost because Americans did not recognize their cause and not because the cause was not worthy nor because the battles were unwinnable. I often think of that while I am reading letters pleading with the US Govnt to intervene in cases of torture, imprisonment, and death of Christians in Vietnam. I think of how much their blood stains America’s record. Not because of what we did in Vietnam, but because of what we failed to do because we had the power but lacked the will. While I did not plan nor forsee involvement in Vietnam when I came to work with the Religious Freedom office, I think it may be what stands out the most to me in retrospect. I almost feel I am playing some tiny part in stopping the flow of blood that has not ceased since we abandoned the Vietnamese to communism so many years ago. Today as I carried Ambassador Hanford’s shoes back to the office, tears came to my eyes. The “shoes errand” was the most insignificant and unchallenging task I’ve had the opportunity to do to prepare the way for this historic trip to negotiate freedom for Christians in Vietnam. It may sound strange to you… but somehow it symbolically captured it to me—“preparing the way” seems rather literal when delivering the shoes the Ambassador of freedom will wear. Maybe I’m just so visual it made it seem much more real to me. As I pray for his mission’s success, I am confident this is a divine appointment in every way. While I cannot share details of the negotiations, I am confident that pastors will walk out of prison, churches will be opened, and souls will be saved as a result of this trip. While all this would certainly have been possible without my role, I am humbled and feel privileged to have played a part in the past few weeks of work leading up to this point, and I feel just as involved as if I were the one getting on that plane tomorrow morning. Well, I’m not sure that made any sense in the telling…but I wanted to at least try to share the overwhelming sense of thankfulness to the Lord I felt today in my contemplations…

Photographations

Whew… another Saturday of walking like 8 miles (though Laura insisted last week it was close to 30)… The “tour guide” awakened a little late today, so we got a late start getting passes to the Capitol, and during out wait for our tour we saw the Library of Congress for couple hours. Then we did the tour, and miracles of miracles, got a tour guide without a speech defect. In comparison to last week’s experience, actually, this tour guide was really good! He was informed and had a loud clear voice, and told us all the trivia stuff tour guides are supposed to share. In comparison to last week when the depth of the tour’s information got as deep as “Every state sends two senators to the Senate”… Last week’s tour guide showed us how one of the room’s acoustics allow you to hear clearly someone on the other side of the room. He never explained why this was historically significant—and it turns out that’s the reason the House of Reps chose to move out of that room because of the annoying noise of people whispering on the other side. Anyways, I was glad I went back to get a “real tour guide.”

After the Capitol, we walked through the monuments. Mary Beth dropped my camera and broke the flash…possibly the entire camera but I won’t know until I get a roll developed. That was a major bummer. That would be the third camera in a year and I’d already decided I can’t afford to replace the lens on my SLR camera until I finish grad school. Actually, Thursday was a bummer day too. I left my copy of Passion and Purity on the metro Thursday night. I was so upset. It’s the copy I’ve had since I was 11 or 12, and it’s my all time favorite book too… it had highlighting in it from passages that have meant something to me in many different seasons of my life and it kinda represents a journey to me. I grabbed it to read on the ride to pick the girls up at the airport and left it on the way back. Very depressing. I can buy another copy but that one was mine, ya know?

After all our walking, we went ice skating by the white house. It was pretty and nice…

We ate Mexican, grabbed starbucks, and made it home surprisingly early. Gotta get up early to go to Arlington before church tomorrow so I need to get to bed asap.

Oratations

I have to admit Fridays are coming pretty fast. Today we were figuring out how to do some shuffling of office space at State and it’s amazing how quickly the weeks are disappearing from my remaining time.

The girls got in all right last night—we ran to make the last metro back to the house. It snowed for over 24 hours straight Wed-Thurs. Today it finally stopped, but it is quite piled up still. I’m ready for spring.

I skipped coffee this morning cause I wasn ‘t feeling too well and as a result I was terribly tired all day—hardly keep my eyes open. Deborah, my supervisor, asked me, “What’s up with you? Were you out late drinking?!” I guess my exhaustion showed. The girls kept me up until after 2am last night as I was trying to get them ready to go out on their own today while I was at work and then I got less than 4 hrs sleep. Used to seem a lot but in my post-college days I have grown more sleep-dependent.

Mainly worked on some memo drafting for the Secretary, and followup work on Saudi Arabia today. Case came up in Haiti of an arrested priest who claiming it was for religious reasons—so I did some investigation on that which I can’t share… Anyways, relatively routine day.

I met up with the girls for Indian food after work, and they’re downstairs watching tv and I need to try and get either some homework done or some sleep.

Natterations

Thursdays are such a strange day—not the beginning or middle of the week but then again, not the end either…

I spent most of the day at a conference on Culture and Development in Latin America which was at the Inter-American Development Bank. Sounds interesting? It wasn’t. Well, parts of it were. But I suck at shoulder-rubbing. Unlike other ppl, the opportunity to try and get your name remembered by important ppl in a given field does not excite me. The conference was mainly panels of Ministers of culture. And since I know someone reading this is wondering what denomination that is—let me clarify that “Minister” is the title much more commonly used than but comparable to “Secretary” in the US Govnt. And no, they don’t answer phones or file papers. Secretary as in “sec of state” of “sec of defense” etc… And (sorry to all of you who DO know whaat I’m talking about) the reason why you’re not pulling up the name of the “secretary of culture” for the US is because he/she doesn’t exist. Thank God there is some bureaucracy we have yet to create in this country. In fact, the only thing we have that is Federal Govnt for arts and culture is the Nat’l Endowment for the Arts and there was a rep there from that. There were also Ministers of Finance at the conference (such as the one from Peru) so they made it slightly more interesting—that is like the equivalent a mixture of the US Secretary of the Treasury and Alan Greenspan. The conference mainly discussed cultural dev’t = economic dev’t and aspects of LA culture that do/do not help economic/social development. If you think it sounds liberal, it was… but parts were useful. I think the most striking thing of the entire conference was the discussion--and complaining—concerning the budgets of the Ministries of Culture. The Brazilian Minister of Culture took his entire panel time to lament that they only get 1% of GDP as their budget and need the Govnt to take them more seriously…he compared Brazil to Mexico where the Ministry of Culture has 6% of GDP for a budget and said he hoped to bring Brazil to that level. When the Rep from the Nat’l Endowment for the Arts spoke, she pointed out (complaining) that their budget is .0005% of GDP in the US. There were lots of economists there but I was unimpressed by their math for the following reason: no one seems to realize that if the richest country in the room pays the least govnt money toward cultural development then MAYBE just MAYBE the answer to solving economic problems is NOT increasing the Federal monies spent on developing culture…. DUH…. Ergh. Anyways, I mainly stayed awake so it wasn’t too bad…and my report for Steve at Heritage can be pretty short I guess. Oh, and Colombia has this young beautiful girl for the Minister of Culture—she looks like she stepped out of a movie—like I’d guess she’s 28 or so. Only in Latin America would one of the highest ranking females in the Govnt look like a Hollywood actress… perhaps I should mention that in my report…

By the time I got to the State Dept after the conf (around 2pm) the announced the Fed Govnt was shutting down cause it’d been snowing really hard since about 8pm last night. So ridiculous cause it was so warm outside, the snow wasn’t accumulating on the roads—only everywhere else. I stayed at work til 5 cause I had stuff to do and leaving seemed silly. I had planned to go straight to the airport to get the girls but then realized their plane doesn’t come in ‘til 11pm. So now I am home trying to get stuff done before going to retrieve them.

Yesterday I got everything squared away to switch both my internship and my advising to Dr. Bom since I have a relationship with him and he wanted to oversee them. That made me happier cause I don’t have to worry about this prof that was supposed to be overseeing my internship that I could never get a hold of. I’m working now on my resume to give Dr. Bom since he said he would use it to recommend me to the Dean and other professors for a Graduate Assistantship… I just realized there are only 6 positions awarded with full tuition and the stipend, so I am emailing the professors he suggested to try and get an “in” since I really need the position.

Ok- stuff to do and I’m sure you have more things to do than read this. Hasta Luego…

Meanderations

Well, I’m severely behind in blogging obviously! I guess it’s the ultimate evidence I have no social life here- when I finally get one I stop blogging! I really enjoyed having everyone though… and I really only get/got a two day space before Mary Beth and her friend Christa come up Thursday night. After they leave Sunday I’ll return to my isolation… =) At work, things have been going pretty smoothly… getting more routine in writing and research projects but very interesting for the most part. At Heritage, Steve has asked me to write the intros for the 20 Latin American countries in the Index of Economic Freedom—which is the authoritative annual guide to economic freedom that Heritage publishes. I’ve just kinda tried to get started on that project. Steve’s in Colombia this week so that gives me some room to breathe. I’ve found myself completely unmotivated since my family and friends abandoned me on Monday…I plan to pull an all-nighter if necessary tonight to get stuff done. I had a little downtime at State to do some heritage stuff today so that gave me a head start.

At State, we finally got the memo cleared and up to the Secretary to authorize the agreement with Vietnam. We also are in the process of the negotiations but I can’t share anything about that right now. I’m working on a cable to all the embassies in the world right now requesting information related to my research on Saudi Arabia. If we get anything unclassified on that I can share, I will. It’s really exciting.

When my family was here I mainly saw them at night so I didn’t do the tourist thing much but I did it w/Mark, Laura, Emma, and Erik this weekend—Capitol, smithsonians, holocaust museum, nat’l archives etc… Actually, the only thing that was completely new to me I guess was going to the Nat’l Cathedral Sunday where an Asbury group was singing. I really love the cathedral and the Episcopal service was an interesting new experience for me.

Yesterday I went on the State Dept intern tour of the Pentagon. I had wanted to see it and so that was interesting. It’ s unbelievably big (23,000 employees work in the bldg…and the State Dept is just around 15,000 at the Main State bldg though we have 48,000 some odd employees around the world) they have a whole mall including a total of 5 starbux inside the pentagon alone. Incredible. We went through the rebuilt portion of the bldg that was destroyed in 9-11 and saw the memorial there. The glass pains in the room where the plane actually entered are original from pre-9-11 because the glass, built to withstand bombings, popped out but did not break. Looking out the window, standing in the spot where the plane came in was a pretty wild feeling. The memorial room includes a chapel and has the 10 commandments displayed beside where all the victims names are listed…from the 3 yr old to the 71yrold. One story I hadn’t heard… there was an employee who’s office was located right in that portion of the bldg but he was out of town for the day—and happened to be on one of the flights that hit the WTC. Don’t know how you would analyze that one. Well, the Pentagon bldg wasn’t quite as interesting as I’d hoped (the army and navy officers who conducted the tour weren’t high-enough ranked to know how many levels under the ground the pentagon extends…or any other secret stuff) but I was glad I went and saw it while I had the chance since it’s not open to the public at all.

Well, I’m behind in Heritage work and need to update the Christian FM website and need to finish my assignment for my class and need to do laundry and need to do like a zillion other little things and it’s already 8:15 so this is all for now! Write me please…

Luminations

If you’re super slow and still haven’t noticed my alphabetical patterned titling pattern…well, I guess tomorrow being V-day the “l” choice should have been natural. However, I’m rebelling as usual, against the cultural hype that thinks romance and love have something to do with each other. Oh wait, maybe they do, but that’s beside the point. MOST romance doesn’t involve love so I’m still right. Nothing new about that though…

Well, the weekend update isn’t particularly thrilling. I’ve been trying desperately to buckle down and philosophize my way through some difficult reading for my class…promising to get the next two weekends done since I’ll have visitors in town both weekends. I’ve really not been in the mood so just today I finally forced myself to be productive. I decided getting out of the house and away from an internet connection would help. So I started at Borders downtown… where I had to turn my discman completely up to drown out the Spanish lesson going on next to me or I was terribly distracted by the tutor’s mistakes. I tried drinking their coffee..bad mistake. It was funny cause the girl reacted when I handed her my credit card…which happens to be a “duetto” card meaning it’s both a starbucks card AND a visa and I use it for everything so I get starbucks credit every month when I pay it off. Anyways, she teased me about using a starbucks card at Border’s but after tasting their coffee I decided the 1% in starbux money I’d get was the only enjoyable thing that would come out of that purchase. Ugh. Anyways…I spent a couple hours studying there until my laptop battery died. Then I migrated back to Tenleytown (the area where I live)… and… drumroll please…. Ate dinner in a restaurant by myself. Yes, this was a big accomplishment. I never thought I’d be secure enough to do it. However, I’ve walked past this Thai restaurant everyday now and noticed tons of people eat there alone…and since that’s so common in the city I figured I should suck it up and try it. You could never get away with such a thing in Vero, of course….you’d need a loser sign on your table. It was really not awkward at all, especially since I was doing homework and I went early so it was quiet… I’m proud of myself =) Especially to do it the night before V-day..especially brave…

Anyways, then I went to Starbux, where I studied a while longer, finally ending my migrations back at home, where I am blogging before I return to studying b/c Immanuel Kant has boggled my mind and I must figure out what the heck he is writing about…

And the funniest moment of the day award goes to…

So I’m at Starbux, following my above described trek around the city. First, of all, I order and hand the girl my credit card, specifying to use the Starbux side as usual. She looks at me strangely and objects and then I realize I handed her the wrong cc…ironic due to my above experience at Borders. So I ran back to my stuff and retrieved the correct cc… but I’m not to the funny part yet… The guy who made my drink was trying to tell me it was on the counter and the girl was telling me something else and I heard the word “shirt” and I just nodded and said “yeah” as I grabbed my drink. She responded, “Oh, that’s cool…I’ll have to try that!” so as I walked back to my seat I wondered what the heck she was talking about and looked down at my rather normal black button up shirt. OH… my shirt was misbuttoned… a button off. The way it had been…of course…the entire day. Evidently, what she said and I didn’t hear, was to ask me if I knew my shirt was misbuttoned, and then when I said “yeah” she assumed it was a new style! SO…in a few months when everyone in D.C. is wearing their shirts misbuttoned, you’ll know who started it all… It could only happen to me…

Perhaps that’s why the waitress giggled everytime she came to my table during dinner. I wondered what that was about…

I’m so excited my family (well, 6 of them..mom,dad, jj, paul, hope, and ben) arrive tomorrow morning! It’s going to be a super crazy next week and a half but good. (they’re here through Friday, and then mark, laura, emma, and erik come up for the weekend through Monday) So I better get work done now cause otherwise it’ll never get done…

Konversations

Well, I just started to do my daily Latin American news summary for Heritage and then remembered its Friday and I don’t have to do one ‘til Monday night! Kinda ironic since Wednesday night I almost forgot to do it… I had even flagged a message from Steve Johnson to remind myself to reply to a question the next day, forgetting I’m obligated to email him every night with the summary. I only remembered after I’d turned the lights out and was headed to bed, and I turned back to my computer to pull up the christianfm site so I could turn on careathon the next morning (Thursday). As I was minimizing my favorites folder for “LA news” something didn’t feel right… OH, then it hit me I had totally forgotten the summary.. anyways, I did it then of course but now I’m paranoid I’ll forget again…

Well, I have a couple random things I wanted to write about tonight but first I’ll summarize my day… hmmm, what did I do today? Oh… well, let’s see..made some calls and had a meeting regarding tracing “evidence” of Saudi funding of the export hate ideology. That was interesting and I made some good “finds”…also read about 100 cables today finding more evidence, and next week I get to go through 300 more…not so exciting. I also organized Deborah (my supervisor)’s files for her …which didn’t take long and was kinda nice to do something less brain intensive for a little while. I also wrote a congressional and spent a few hours getting clearances on that and everything… Umm…well, today seemed to be the day everyone asked me to fetch things for them (which isn’t very usual and that’s a good thing) so I spent lots of time learning new parts of the building which I think I’ll never totally understand. I found Dr. Rice’s office today on accident…really cool elevator up there too. They do these periodic tours of the diplomatic rooms for the interns, but the problem is I never get to do “intern” activites cause I’m too busy with real work. It’s also a problem with heritage… I get all these emails of groups wanting to go out after work too…Heritage and State.. which I would like to do the former more than the latter since I would say the majority of interns at Heritage are at least nominally Christian, and it’s already been acknowledged that “going out” does not mean drinking alcohol. On the other hand, I’m sure some of the interns would so that might be awkward. On the State side, invitations to “happy hour” are not at all tempting…that does not sound fun. I wish they were all more creative in activities but on the other hand I never get off work in time to go anywhere with either group anyway. As the office manager of IRF told me yesterday she had explained to someone who asked who I was… she answered I was an intern, and I guess the person she was talking to was confused as to why the intern was in charge of whatever secretary memo they were talking about at the time… Shellette (the office manager) said “Martha? Oh, she’s not a real intern…she’s just technically an intern cause she works like an officer”… I laughed when she told me, but it’s funny how I really do feel that way…It’s a good thing until someone outside the office treats me like an intern and I’m almost offended and then I remember that’s what I am. I’m glad I picked up on dynamics fast so I don’t feel so “lost”… and having a newer employee on the staff that knows less than I do helps too. I find myself avoiding telling people I’m an intern when they ask my responsibilities in IRF…it’s easier to avoid that “detail”… At Heritage, Steve calls me his “research assistant” so that’s nice. ANYWAYS…. So yeah, I think that was pretty much was I did today…nothing too earthshattering. Oh, I almost killed a lawyer too. Or I wanted to anyway. This project I’m working on for getting ready to sign a binding agreement with Vietnam requires this legal type memo. The “L” person (legal advisor) IRF generally deals with and who had explained how to do this “simple” memo to me in the first place is in Geneva for the HR conference and I was dealing with a backup person. He sent me this marked up copy of the memo, changing EVERYTHING and wanting us to add about 30 pages of legal mumbo jumbo…. He wanted us to define religion and prisoner and absolutely ridiculous things…including attaching a list of every active religion in Vietnam with definitions for each! That was COMPLETELY unrelated to the simple subject of the memo. He must be related to Bill Clinton. Anyways, he basically was being a complete obstructionist with an attitude toward IRF. Thankfully we found out our main lawyer is coming back Monday so we’re waiting on her and then we shred this guys notes. My supervisor called his boss screaming about it when I brought it to her… so now we should see some faster action which is really good cause we sent off terms to the Vietnamese tonight… I’m excited! Miraculously, they’ve already agreed to do anything we ask and turned down the offer of an additional 90 day waiver, saying THEY wanted to act fast on releasing the prisoners and opening the churches!! IRF is getting to do/doing so much more this year than ever in their short history and its cool to be a part… My day also had its humorous parts... my coworker, David, who is the foreign relations office for Saudi Arabia and supervising this whole project now calls me "cat" and barks at me like a dog... it's a long story but had nothing to do with the two of us fighting and everything to do with the fact we share a quirky sense of the humor the rest of the office doesn't usually get...and when you deal with such serious subjects you have to laught at something! Anyways, so when I got off work I ran to CVS to pick some stuff up, came back and did a huge cleaning of my room, bathroom, and the kitchen…convincing myself my family really is coming on Monday! I had become quite the slob so it’s nice to have it clean again…

Having finished my day summary (this will be a long blog, sorry) here’s my random thoughts… I had them both before 9am.

On a light note, I’ve resolved to establish a routine for getting dressed. I’ve never had one regardless of where I’ve been living, but this inefficiency is officially ridiculous…I noted today as I struggled to brush my hair with one hand, put on my watch with the other, with my shirt over one arm and not the other and one pant leg on, all while trying to check the weather on my laptop. Why? Because I’m far too easily distracted! I get up early since I don’t like to be rushed in the morning (I move too slowly…and before Holly protests that I sleep until the very last second, I have reformed and am allowing more time now) but then I start to put a sweater on and then go, “oh, I need to put my watch on” and then while doing those two things add a third as so on… It leads to me starting to walk out the door missing vital pieces of clothing….which is especially easy to do with so many layers on, it’s hard to notice unless I look in the mirror…which is not ever really a part of my non-existent routine. Anyway, so that is my resolution for the day: establish an efficient morning routine to make sure I get completely dressed before I leave the house AND that I can sleep as long as possible before getting out of bed. Just thought I’d share my epiphany. =)

On a much heavier note, I hate the media. It makes me so mad that they get to “decide” what is newsworthy. If a single Iraqi is killed (even if its an insurgent who blows himself up, failing to murder others) it’s going to be prominent in tv and print news. On the other hand, news which came out this morning that the North Koreans have murdered 70 people who escaped to China and China deported back to North Korea (knowing they would be tortured and possibly killed)… some of those murders were public, attempts to thwart further North Koreans from feeling the torture and starvation. Was that worthy of prominent news? Of course not! I chose to compare it with an Iraqi death because an argument could be made that American deaths in Iraq are more newsworthy than foreign deaths… but why Iraqi deaths, which can be blamed on Bush, and not North Korean deaths? On the way to work this morning on the Metro I overheard a conversation. Remarking on the news story concerning NK’s resistance to multilateral talks, a young man commented “Well, I would be COMPLETELY against any action against North Korea regardless of what they do.” He went on to argue troops in Iraq should “on boats tomorrow coming home.” At the time I laughed at his ignorance, and wondered if he realized what a scary world his children would live in should his ideology decide America’s foreign policy. After receiving the email about the murdered North Koreans, tears came to my eyes as I considered his, and most Americans’, apathy toward the tortured innocent of other nations. I’m not advocating an immediate invasion of NK, of course, because I don’t know what the answer is with our military power so limited…but I do know we should care, and there should be great outcry at the daily deaths that take place in NK at the hands of a crazed dictator. People casually refer to the “starving children in Africa” but hardly know of the thousands of children intentionally starved to death in NK. It’s just injustice that we would rather decry our diplomats for accusing NK of tyranny than acknowledge the terrifying reality and work to change it.

Well, I’m going to end this now but I wanted to share a story I received yesterday. This list I am on smuggles stories out of Cuba, mostly relating to everyday experiences. I read them daily but they only have an English edition once a week so up til this point I have not had any particularly poignant stories I could share without having to translate… So here is one… It’s not long but it illustrates a life so close to home and yet a mindset so different….

For dissidents only: State Security provides alternative garbage pickup

José Moreno Cruz, Cubanacán Press

SANTA CLARA, February (www.cubanet.org) - Many a morning, when the municipal garbage pickup personnel in my neighborhood just don't show up, my garbage is the only one in the whole block that is never left at the curb.

I never thought much of this, since every once in a while I had noticed a young man in a bicycle who sped by my house, often at night, and snatched the plastic garbage sack. I had speculated the man perhaps expected to find something useful or marketable among my discards, and let it go.

Until recently, that is. I was at a friend's home, doing some work, and I asked my friend's mother to throw some papers in the garbage for me. She very nonchalantly replied that she would burn them as she did all papers since she had seen some character picking up her garbage sack in front of her house some time past. And that's when it dawned on me; my personal garbage man works for the government, but not necessarily for the municipal waste service.

All of a sudden I remembered the wrinkled documents reproduced in the book The Dissidents, put out by the government security services over a year ago to discredit the dissident movement they say barely exists. I remembered the listening devices placed by the government telecommunications company, ETECSA, in the home of Laura Pollán and her husband Héctor Maseda, now in prison, and the several discovered by human rights activist Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas throughout his home.

Most, not to say all, government opponents and dissidents take it as a given that their phones are bugged. Recently we had news of a device called the "Voice DNA machine" installed at phone company central offices, which can identify 36 distinct parameters of the human voice and automatically record those it has been programmed to recognize, no matter where the calls originate.

As a journalist, my goal is to disseminate my work to the widest possible audience; what secrets the powers that be expect to find in my discards is beyond me. But maybe they just want to insure my garbage is picked up in a timely fashion lest I expose the deficiencies in municipal services.

Journalations

Today has been such a strange day…emotionally and mentally anyway. I’ve felt so torn in different directions I’m not “all” anywhere. This whole week is has been hard to not be home because of Careathon. This is my third year of not being there and the first time that I recall it really bothering me. I always miss being a part of it, but this year I really hated it. Partly, I guess, because I was able to “hear” so little of it that I felt even less participatory. I caught the end last night, from 6-7am this morning, and then I was able to leave work in time to hear the last hour tonight. It’s so weird to be like, oh well, it turned out well, that’s great…but totally not be there. I’m really glad my family is coming next week so that should make me less homesick…

This morning started out well…I actually got out of bed at 6am thanks to the mental stimulation of the radio. That made me early to work and I had time to get coffee…so I thought that was the source of my adrenaline rush but the feeling never went away—it was almost the physical feeling rush of the last day of careathon without being there…really strange….but it was good I stayed alert cause I had SO much to do today at work. The 10:15 staff mtg turned into a briefing on SA that last til 12:30 and I left with a very long list of things to do. I’ve become the main drafter of memos and letters to Secretary Rice so that keeps me busy both writing and getting all the clearances necessary for every single thing that goes to her. Today I put together a briefing book for Amb Hanford to use in his weeklong campaign to get the Dept of State, the White House, and the NSC on our side for what we want to do with Saudi Arabia. It’s almost harder to get the whole US Govnt together on something than it is to get a foreign govnt to agree! Crazyness, but anyway it was basically lots of summaries of my “findings” as well as related evidence. That was a huge project due this afternoon before he had a mtg with the undersecretary. Then I also wrote a memo to the Sec and a letter to USCIRF, which is a commission est’ed by the Int. Rel. Freedom (IRF) Act but unassociated with the office and ambassador…they function under congress and research and report findings to us… they are kinda like a govnt funded ngo…they don’t make policy recommendations. They have a love/hate relationship with the IRF office because they tend to publicly attack IRF for not taking the actions they want (since they don’t have to deal with the bureaucracy of trying to get things done) and yet obviously they work for the same ultimate causes so…yeah, it’s all complicated. A story a xian news service put out today was basically them attacking us for not acting on SA…oc, they have no idea we’re TRYING to do something… they just kinda can say whatever they want and everything IRF says is representing the Prez so you can’t speak that freely…

It was funny watching the difference to the news on N Korea dropping 6 party talks and announcing they really do have nukes. Outside, the media FREAKED …”They have nukes!!” and inside the bldg everyone was like, oh, btw, NK is being fussy again and saying they won’t talk to us. We’ll see how fast they come around… The “announcement” of nukes was NOT news and NK pulling out of talks is like “Oh, are we going to go through this again now?” .... interesting….

The funniest thing I saw today… a memo came through, a report on one of the human rights groups mtg with some gay activists from Kuwait or somewhere, expressing complaints about anti-gay violence there etc…The acronym for the group was J-FLAG and the report had a typo calling it J-FAG…. I thought that was pretty ironic…not sure if anyone else caught it or not =)

Anyways, I didn’t post yesterday cause I was so exhausted and feeling sick I just went to sleep..leaving undone homework I need to get to now. I’m going to call home to try to stop feeling so isolated and then get stuff done…

Informations

Well, I almost skipped blogging tonight because I need to work on my assignment for school, but I figured I’d forget today by tomorrow night.

Today, since its Tuesday, was a double day with morning at Heritage and afternoon at State. This morning was not particularly eventful. I had to go get “database training” for this massive database they use so I can help Steve Johnson with it. I was skeptical, of course, that I really needed to learn anything I couldn’t figure out myself. It is pretty expansive (20 million contacts…with everything down to their children’s names on these people!) which makes sense on why Heritage does such a great job fundraisin… I heard they have like 200,000 donors annually giving something like 60 million or more/yr. Pretty overwhelming figures. Anyways, the “training session” which was one-on-one turned into a conversation between me and the IT guy, who is from India, came to the states for his education at UF when he was 21, 28 now and wants to go back but is trying to decide how to make a true contribution etc… And talk his girlfriend (relationship seemed really serious) who is also Indian but raised in the US, into going back… Anyways, very interesting life story so we talked about India and debated UF football and Fl State school’s academics etc… After 50 minutes of talking, he showed me things about the database for 10 minutes and that was that =) Then we had an intern lunch with a briefing about the Leadership Inst. And that was a good time to chat with other interns. A couple of girls asked me to help them start a weekly morning Bible study there at Heritage so that should be good…

By the time I got to State I was rather crushed with things to do. Lots more calls on Saudi Arabia. Got completely bashed by this libertarian psycho who refused to give any information he knew about SA or Islam because he was so concerned the US govnt might try to DO something to keep Muslims from freely killing non-Muslims which they have a right to do under his concept of religious freedom. I tried to convince him this is about the US Govnts dealings with the SA Govnt and not about individual Muslims but he was very firm that the SA Govnt should be freely permitted to send people and materials to the US to incite people to kill non-xians if they chose because that was true Islam. This guy, btw, was a prof at NYU and NOT a Muslim. He also tried to convince me that the Vatican was equally guilty because they “export” the Bible and the Old Test is just as violent. When I pointed out the Old Test doesn’t say it is every Jew (or xians) responsibility to kill unbelievers, he wanted to bring up the Papal bulls during the time of the crusades. I just laughed at him, and once again pointed out that the Vatican, nor any other govnt, affirms those as valid commands for today. I don’t even know of any cult that does! He didn’t really have much of a response to that and I kept trying to bring the subject off of Islam itself and back to the SA Govnt but that was unsuccessful cause he thought if he convinced me he could change US policy I guess. Anyways, that was a pointless call. Others were much better. I also keep getting these misc. projects from the Ambassador that are “secret” because they’re related to Christianity and not very related to religious freedom (just info he needs…in this case for his mtg with Collin Powell Thursday) so he doesn’t want me to tell even other people in the office what I’m doing for him… It’s kinda strange cause he gives me these projects cause I’m a Christian and he trusts me more than because I’m the intern there or whatever… but it’s not a big deal I just wish he gave me a little more time on them.

I’ve been really homesick today missing Careathon. It sounds silly cause it’s like the only place I could be and be more stressed and hectic than I am here right now but I still miss being in the center of everything. I hate that I can’t even hear it at work cause of computer probs and that means I get to hear nada of the live portions including Thursday night and the wrapup. I’m just trying not to think about it cause it makes me so sad.

I’ve also really been missing Tookie all week. I’m sad she’s not coming with everyone else next week to visit. I know it’s not practical because Anna’s still so little but I really want to see her anyway. Oh well…I guess I can’t keep her at work with me =(

Well, gotta get some work done. Write me please.

Homilyations

Ok, first I must share the funniest find of the day: Jason Illian. Ok, so I’m subscribed to this Christian teen ezine and the headline article this week was about this guy who’s a Christian and was on the bachellorette (like 200 other guys in the USA…he wasn’t a finalist or anything) and I guess he admitted to his virginity on the show and drew some attention or something. Anyway, I’d never heard of him but reading his article gave me one big hint: he’s full of himself. So intrigued I visited his website Oh my goodness… you have to look at it. Here’s this guy, graduated from a Christian college, hasn’t really gotten a real job yet or anything, but boy can he market himself! Reading some of the stuff on his site knowing he wrote it about himself makes it HILARIOUS. My fave part is the quotes from other ppl about him… other ppl like his football coach, his college professor, his pastor… I think the quotes must have come from recommendation letters that evidently didn’t land him that job he was going for. To me the site is like a “help, I’m single!’ cry…it’s SO funny. Anyways, Just thought I’d share that…

In other random daily news: Condi Rice is prophetic. Here’s a quote from two days ago:

"Ms. Rice said in Israel that she might try to stay up and watch some of the Super Bowl, which begins at 1:30 a.m. Monday local time, but aides said it was more likely that she would watch the very end of it while exercising in the early morning and later look at the whole game on tape. Meanwhile, she has told aides that the New England Patriots will win by 3 points. "

She's prophetic--she should definitely be president =) Btw, if you missed it..the Patriots DID win by 3 pnts though most ppl had predicted it would be by more.

Anyways, I guess this blog is supposed to be about me after all. I think I need more flashy photography… oh wait, I hate pictures of myself. Darn… =)

I had a good day…just a little crazy. Did about4 or 5 phone interviews concerning Saudi Arabia ranging from NY profs and FBI agents to some random guy in Sudan. I’m following all leads and feel more like a reporter than a govnt researcher but it’s incredibly interesting and I’m not an expert on Saudi Arabia’s religion and government!

Anyways, I also had random other responsibilities and endless memos. Oh, and I have to review all these Human Rights and Democracy reports and add a section about religious freedom in that country. We each have to do them for the countries we cover but for me that’s like 30 countries since it’s ALL of Latin America. Today I had like 5 come through with a deadline two hours later. Nuts. What’s even crazier, is (and you may have seen this in the news) some congressmen had this BRILLIANT idea that in response to Bush’s policies they should establish an office of democracy in the state dept and have them publish annual reports on the progress of democracy in each nation. That State Dept’s response? HELLO, we HAVE that! There IS a Bureau of DEMOCRACY, Human Rights, and Labor… and there are not only the annual democracy report, there is also an annual human rights report, AND the annual Religious Freedom report. Last thing we need is more bureaucracy but that’s what Congress is good at creating…

Oh stink. I just got my weekly assignment back and I got a B+. He said I didn’t give enough commentary “unusual for you”… this always happens to me. They expect more because I give more and then when I don’t give a ton they are harder on me grade wise. My assignment was FINE, I just didn’t go into a ton of commentary cause it was more of the same stuff I’ve already expressed my opinions about and I was in a hurry etc… He already knew I’d been working overtime last week and had a paper due so I would have thought he’d be more understanding. He also only gave me an A- on my paper but I thought that was deserved cause I really could have expressed it better had I had more time. Oh well, it’s not a grade I can’t recover from (averaged into 16 weeks) and really he’s so subjective (at the end of the semester, 50% of the grade is TOTALLY based on his “feeling” about our performance in the class) so I feel well-liked enough to get an A anyway. And he’s so funny…he’s sending me all these articles he finds on latin America just cause he knows I’m interested. I have so much to do the extra work to express opinions continually seems a waste of time—since last time he told me I didn’t have to comment SO much… I guess I’ll go back to slamming the liberal ideas that are so wacky they hardly deserve a response (do I really have to SAY that I’m against creating a world police force and disarming every nation? I think I’ve expressed that already)…

Ummm… oh, the other “event” of my day was rather strange. Amb Hanford had a radio interview scheduled for 6pm … its for the Osgood Files and the way they do it is the send a freelance radio techie to record on a DAT while the interview is done over the phone and then they edit in the answers so it doesn’t have phone-quality etc. Anyway, so at 5:55 Amb Hanford realized they were going to ask him these strange questions about an area he didn’t know much so he had me research and brief him real quick and then give him briefing materials to review while I retrieved the techie and stalled with him for an HOUR. This was, of course, a rather strange character –being in radio. Old radio type, crazy HAM operator who somehow got into studying African audience preferences through his HAM hobby and is like the ultimate short-wave guy…been doing it for 60 years…which led him to the Africa thing which has led to travel to Africa to do strange seminars on how to use consumer electronics… never married, does random odd radio jobs now… all around a strange guy but he kept me entertained! Rather talkative so that made it easier to stall the hour away. I was the blessed person to get to work late but oh well.

I came home, spent a couple hours getting Christian FM’s website ready for Careathon to start tomorrow etc…

Better get to sleep quick before I repeat this morning’s disaster: set the alarm for 6am and awakened with no alarm at 7:55am. No idea what happened but I was ten minutes bed-door and still later to work than I’d planned.

Btw, don't forget to sign comments! and check out the Jason pyscho's site...

Hasta Luego…

Gabbyations

Well, today hardly warrants an entry is was so uneventful! But I have to post just for the heck of it.

I spent the morning on the metro. A 45 minute commute to church turned into over 2 hours due to construction delays and disorganization so I spent “church” in a dark tunnel unable to escape and WALK to church. It was frustrating. While I sat there I engineered an entire plan whereby metro could have efficiently handled the construction…but alas, I have no plans to work for them. In fact, I don’t think they hire white people. Not sure why, but I have NEVER had a white driver/attendant/metro police… NADA, it’s like the unspoken rule you must be black to work for them… hmmm. Strange. Disclaimer: I draw no connection between the inefficiency and disorganization of metro today and the race of the people running metro. I’m sure it was a evil plot to keep me out of church this morning and had nothing whatsoever to do with race =)

Um, so yeah, I came back and went grocery shopping when metro released me from its dark dungeons. Came back to the house (‘nother beautiful day, btw) and talked to Lisa for a while which was good… its hard cause I always feel like I can’t say too much or she starts disagreeing and she doesn’t aggressively disagree…it’s just awkward when she gets this look an I know she’s disagreeing with me… but she disagrees with the strangest things… like last night we were discussing standardized tests and she wanted to argue professors are completely objective in grading essays. I was like, ok, whatever. She’s a real idealist and yet very unopinionated in some ways. I think her opinion is that we should all just be nice and get along and anyone who holds a strong opinion is in the wrong. Typical moderate—think they’ve discovered the “balance” in all areas of life. It limits our conversations… She’s has the “schoolteacher” look and feel and is very sweet, just not particularly easy to get to know I think. Either that or there’s not as much there as I expect… not sure…

Anyways, so since 2pm I have been on my bed with my laptop getting things on my ‘task list” accomplished. I did break to go cook and eat dinner. I decided that I would deny myself wasting 4 hours on the Super Bowl. It’s not as if I’m into the teams that are playing so it would just be entertainment. Instead I just kept the game tracker on my computer so I know what I need to know without being distracted by the tv. I plan to catch the end of it now. Not too exciting though…

I have gotten a lot done today..almost caught up on emails too… But I still planned to get one more week’s homework done to get ahead. Oh my goodness, it’s almost 10. Time has flown. Early morn tomorrow cause of crazy week w/work on Saudi Arabia. Well, write me please. I even added a cool link on the right column of the page. Html editing has its benefits=)

Formations

Saturdays go by way too fast I have decided. I need like twice the time—half to sleep and half to do stuff…. Plus I always have to do laundry Saturdays (it’s the only time the girl who lives in the basement isn’t home and I am) which ties me to being home a couple hours. Once again, I have made no progress so on homework thus far. Prolly means no super bowl party for me tomorrow…I need to get this and next week’s homework done.

This morning I went to the national archives. They have really set up an expansive museum since they opened a lot of popular items from the vaults last year. I got to read the declassified 1946 papers on waging a war with the USSR if it became necessary. Made me wish we had attacked back then cause we’d have easily won and saved tens of millions of lives. Listened to the tape of the oval office discussions about the Cuban Missile “crisis” … not surprising contents but interesting nonetheless. I think Kennedy is being concreted as my most despicable President. I still liked Jackie’s scarves though… =) The rotunda itself was pretty crowded by school kids so I didn’t stay long…I’d rather go back when they’re gone. Btw, There are gaurds posted on either side of the Declaration of Independence and they didn’t know that in the movie (whats it called? The one about stealing the declaration…) but I wondered if they were posted in response to the movie and copycats. Prolly not but who knows. They do have those little rolled up version of the Declaration though… =) Looking at the original Constitution is so powerful to me. It’s hard to explain, it’s like supernatural or something… I feel that I am looking at the United States…its very foundation in the deepest sense of the word. It really is amazing to think about those 4 sheets of paper….NOT the men who sit in office on the hill or across the world… as the TRUE government of the USA. I can’t even look at it without tears coming to my eyes…so much blood was shed for the right for just law to rule in this land. So few Americans have any idea what the Constitution says and even fewer recognize its significance in our nation. To me there is almost a tangible …presence around the articles….the essence of freedom and democracy itself and the dream of the men who penned their names to the bottom of that document … a dream they dared believe it was ludicrous to imagine. ….I know, I make it out to be like the Bible or something… and I’ve obviously never seen original scrolls of the Biblical texts… though it seems our copies of the Bible are so cheap and plentiful they just become words and ink except for the Life they contain when read. I guess that’s true of a textbook’s reprinting of the Constitution as well…the original is so much more impacting. And NO I’m not really comparing the two because there is an infinite difference in authorship and significance… I was just thinking….

Anyways, after the Nat’l Archives, I made my weekly Target trip to Maryland which was mainly grocery shopping (I know that’s a strange place to grocery shop but it’s the most convenient and cheap!) …. Then tonight I went to the dance theatre performance. It was interesting… good for the most part. It was multiple renditions of creation stories from different renditions (African, Asian, Biblical, etc) It wasn’t Christian, of course, but it was very intriguing. It was all done by one choreographer...it was “modern” which, as usual, incorporated a lot of different styles of dance and gymnastics. Towards the end it got repetitive and long… 2 hours of dance with one guy and one girl (lots of different Adam and Eves in the different dances) and the same choreographer…even with varying music it was too long…I had the idea after the first hour and ceased to be fascinated…plus the end was more modern and less dance so that made it less enjoyable. I was glad I went though… and as always, seeing dances makes me miss dancing….

Well, I’m tired so I better get revise my paper, email it to my prof, and get to bed…

Emancipations

Well, I just tried to brush my teeth with my hairbrush. It’s a good thing its Friday.

On the metro on the way home, I fell asleep, got disoriented and the only reason I didn’t not get off at my switching spot from leg one to leg two was because the train got held up there and after about 3 minutes of sitting on the stopped train asleep, I realized where we were and got off…prompting some puzzled looks from my co-travelers. Then I wandered around the metro station for a minute trying to figure out if I had done the second leg of the trip yet or not and if I was going to work or coming home. I figured it out eventually. It’s a good thing its Friday.

I started the morning by a mad attempt to get clearances from all semi-involved parties for a letter I wrote to Senator Brownback in response to a letter to Ambassador Hanford about a lady in China that was beaten to death after being arrested for distributing Bibles. I only had to get 5 people to approve the letter so I thought that would be easy. Unfortunately, people think that “clearing” a letter means editing it to sound the way they would have said it had they written it. Instead of limiting themselves to content changes or grammatical corrections, they insist upon making stylistic modifications. The problem with this, of course, is that I ended up with FIVE different versions of the same letter all saying the same exact thing only with five different styles. Then as the drafter it is my responsibility to decide which changes to accept and cross my fingers no one will get mad at me for sending a letter the ‘cleared with changes” that I then changed back… every phrase one person added, another person marked out… and it was SO pointless because the way I wrote the letter in the first place worked just as well! As a relatively skilled writer, I am accustomed to getting high grades on papers and few marks from the professor…with some exceptions. It is difficult for me not to take it personally and get emotional when someone writes me back attacking the letter because someone ELSE’S change created a situation where a word was getting used twice in one paragraph (heaven forbid!)…. ‘This is ridiculous. The word concern is used twice in one paragraph. Fix it and resend, I won’t even review something so unpolished.” …this is someone I’ve never even MET who is writing me a note like this. And the word was used twice because my supervisor inserted it a second time in her initial edits. AHHH… I’ve been told this is the worst thing about the State Department’s system: getting clearances. I understand the need for everyone to be on the same page regarding US policy. However, a simple 1.5 page letter should not take 1.5 days to get permission from everyone to send it over stupid stylistic preferences!! I finally got it out late in the day. It’s a good thing its Friday.

Someone I’ve found myself as the research director for the Saudi Arabia project. In the words of the ambassador, this is the biggest and boldest step the IRF office has ever taken. We’ve been given the evidence (or the opportunity to find it) that will allow us to hit them hard and force reforms. It’s very secretive in the office now because we’re quite certain we’ll meet big opposition from elsewhere in the building. No one wants to rock the boat. I’m just grateful the people I’m working with understand Islam and aren’t afraid to say that Islam in its basic pure form is violent; therefore, we have to understand that “extremist literature” with hate ideology is not coming from some deranged cleric, its coming from the Saudi Arabia (and other) government and its being consistently preached as true Islam—in opposition to the watered down version that so many want to espouse as peaceful. Anyway, today I went through a process of getting contacts in the CIA and interviewing them for information on this topic. Fun, no? It was somewhat challenging in that CIA agents don’t list their specialties in the yellow pages, and somewhat frustrating in that they don’t seem to know as much as I wish they did… but none-the-less…it was frontline research and I love that. Monday I tackle the FBI. Not literally though cause they’re armed. I have collected about 1000+ pages of paper in this research project thus far… my desk is a neatly organized but highly piled with stacks of red-binders. Just as I was about to leave work (almost early!) a press guidance came in…meaning someone in the press asked a question at the State Dept press conference today about the Dept’s response to the initial report on Saudi export of hate ideology which prompted this whole project. I got assigned to answer the question which meant going through the whole clearance project again (this time someone called me Jesus when they commented on the answer to the press question…and I think it was a joke but I didn’t get it?) Anyways, answering a press conference question was a first for me…hey-I could get quoted in the Post! Nah, that won’t happen cause I basically put them off so we have more time to draw conclusions before we tell them anything. Amazing how it can take so long to put together just a few words to put them off…but on the other hand, I’m hypersensitive to how things are worded after having my writing massacred this morning. Monday I have to put together a real answer which means we have to draw conclusions so we can share them. I feel trusted that I’ve been given this project (we have two other staff members that are also working full-time on this issue, but I’m the main research person) and I’m excited that the impact of this will probably be real and significant. I’m also feeling overwhelmed by the vastness of the unsorted and unanalyzed information that really makes this first hand research—verses reading research everyone else has already done. Today I ended up with a lead that dead-ended in a completely Arabic website. Altavista babblefish doesn’t translate Arabic =( If Arabic were more like Chinese I might be able to figure out the letters…you know… this one looks like a house with an apple on to so it must be the word for hospitality…. Jk…we do have a brand new employee who is also an Arabic translator in the office so I called him to the rescue. Monday I have to not only do more interviews and follow every lead I can get my hands on, I have to condense it all and brief Ambassador Hanford before he heads to a White House meeting. The task is more than a little overwhelming. Good thing it’s Friday.

I started my weekend with a shower and some chicken noodle soup. I have a cold and have been really congested so I thought that might help. Well, actually, I didn’t have any choice cause the cabinet was empty and I wasn’t going shopping tonight but hey, it might help the cold anyway =) I plan to work on my homework the rest of the night to try and get ahead so I won’t be doing it when I have company the last two weekends of the month…but I might fall asleep before I get much done. Good thing it’s Friday.

The rest of my weekend plans include an attempt at socialization. I want to try and get tickets to a big dance performance tomorrow night that is multiple interpretations of the creation story. Looked interesting and I figured I need some cultural enrichment while I’m living in a city where it’s available. I’m also tentatively planning on going to the church’s football game on the mall and super bowl party afterwards on Sunday. Doing more than a church service might help me build some relationships in the church, which I’ve really just been too busy and exhausted to do. Speaking of which, I better do something productive before sleep overwhelms me. At the risk of sounding annoying, it’s a really good thing its Friday.

E-Mail at: mailto:abbasdancer@yahoo.com

Dissertations

This will be a quick blog because I am already so tired. I just finished writing a paper and submitting the Heritage news summary. Tomorrow will be another long day because I have committed to projects that are due soon so I will have to go in early to get approval on a congressional (letter to congress) from the Ambassador and stay late getting clearances from everyone else involved.

Today was good and mostly just busy. I had an awesome 2 hour conversation with a Princeton professor who knows absolutely everything about Saudi Arabia and since I knew nothing I didn’t understand everything but I took SO many notes… and learned a ton too! My status as the one who gets to work on any urgent matter means I’m getting stretched in areas I don’t have a lot of expertise. I didn’t know what Wahhabism WAS a week ago and now I know a ton! (It’s Saudi’s form of Islam and extremist)…

Anyway, I also worked on the Vietnam memo to the Secretary and created a database for the classified system and gather articles and had a staff mtg and… it all blurs together now. It was busy though I did get off work around 7.

I think that’s all for today. I've been writing all day and can't write anymore. I’m so glad I get to sleep in about 48 hours… well, sleep a while that is… and I'll get caught up on emails too...

Contemplations

Funny how it’s all relative…I was very happy to get off work by 6:30pm. I actually went in later too… partly since my supervisor is out of town and I had more flexibility at the beginning of the day than at the end… I was also slightly later than I’d planned because as I started to walk out the door I realized today was the bi-weekly maids day to come. I had been really neglecting my room so I knew she wouldn’t be able to vacuum so I had to run back upstairs and throw everything around getting it clean enough for her to ocme. Yes, I know, I sound like my mother…cleaning for the maid’s arrival. Seriously though, she is Latina but acts like an American maid. Latina maids will do whatever’s not done and straighten etc… but American’s attitude is “I’m not your maid” even if they are so they do the bare minimum and won’t vacuum if there is anything on the floor etc… and since all I can see she does is vacuum and take the trash out every other week, heaven forbid I should have my stuff get in her way! That’s my philosophy on that anyway…

Since I had worked a total of about 32 hours in just the first two days of this week I’m totally at a loss to what day it is. Yesterday morning felt like Friday all morning and then in the afternoon it felt like Thursday…lending to the overall theme that it couldn’t just be Tuesday! Today I don’t know what felt like but it wasn’t quite so long anyway…

I was so happy to realize on Monday that my paper wasn’t due Tuesday, it is due Friday… but now that is also quickly approaching and I haven’t even read what I’m writing on. But hey-I still have 48 hours, I’ve never been known to do something THAT far ahead of time.

Today… I wrote a memo for the Secretary to sign, getting permission to negotiate a binding agreement with Vietnam for them to reach certain goals, release prisoners and open churches, in order to avoid further economic sanctions.

I also had a meeting with the head of an NGO—Open Doors, which is a ministry to the persecuted church in Latin America… he brought along a Peruvian former congressman. He briefed me on situations in Cuba, Peru, Mexico, and Colombia as well as regional issues for the IRF office to be working on with those foreign governments. The Peruvian congresista told me a little of his background…he was in congress under Fujimori… and he, like many second-generation Peruvian Christians, personally witnessed the murder of his father and cousin for their Christianity. I wasn’t expecting to do the entire meeting in Spanish but he didn’t speak English so that was good practice for me… Also made it easier to speak freely as a Christian to him about the inner workings of the State dept processes without feeling like non-Christians would overhear and misunderstand.

Ummm… oh, I spent much of the rest of the day doing research on Saudi Arabia… determining the extent and nature of the govnt’s propagation of hate materials. Interviewing experts on the phone etc… Very interesting. The role I’m playing of doing work on whatever urgent project comes up is making it necessary for me to know background on a lot of different nations that I haven’t really studied extensively since they’re outside of my official Latin America portfolio role. It’s good though cause it adds to how much I’m learning. I’m sorry if some of what I say is hard to understand…I forget what is really common knowledge and what I just learned myself… Honestly, I was realizing the other day that 1.5yrs ago I couldn’t have told anyone what the State Dept or Heritage actually did…I mean, I had some vague idea about State and had never heard of Heritage…

I just finished watching the State of the Union Address. I think I’ll go to bed before I have to listen to the commentary which will prolly make me mad. I thought the highlight was when the mother of the marine who died in the Fallujah assault gave her son’s dogtag to the Iraqi who was so grateful to the US for the opportunity to vote last Sunday. I do have a question though…as the Prez was leaving a bunch of congressmen were handing him papers to sign…were they getting autographs?! Isn’t that cheesy?

Anyways, write me please!

Martha/Marc/Marco/#2/Me

E-Mail at: mailto:abbasdancer@yahoo.com

Blatherations

Well, it’s almost 10pm and I am finally “officially off work.” You know that feeling at the end of the day when it hurts to think?

• I decided today I really like the days I split between Heritage and State. Here’s some reasons why: I don’t have to be anywhere ‘til 9 am so I get to sleep ‘til 7am. I’m always the first one there and the other girl who is second is a friendly girl who must have been homeschooled (I’ll have to remember to ask…I have it so settled in my mind that she was that I forget she never told me that…) and she and I usually talk a couple minutes before the grouches come in and scowl at us to communicate they are doing VERY IMPORTANT INTERN WORK. Can you tell I’m skeptical? Anyways… I also like the fact I usually get a free lunch since Heritage hosts so many events and lunches everyday and has leftovers they offer staff and interns. And I like that I actually get to go outside in the early afternoon on my walk from Heritage to the Metro and Metro to State…and feel the sun which is something I don’t get to do all the other days when I work from before sunup to after sundown. I also like that I get to walk through Union Station’s Main Hall on the way to the metro…and that is one of the most gorgeous building in D.C. and I don’t ever want to take for granted that I get to see that…
• That’s the end of my list of likes cause my main dislike is the overload of work which led to me leaving work at 8pm and not actually finishing work until 10pm. I have now committed myself to a nightly Latin American news summary for my Supervisor at Heritage so I had to do that as well as some research for State that I couldn’t do there since I can’t access the databases from there… firewall.
• At State I’ve mainly been working on Saudi Arabia that past couple days. We’re gathering research and hoping for a binding agreement for them to persecute those who propagate radical Islam(as in, believe the Koran and therefore want to kill people) or they’ll get sanctioned. This is major progress because they are an “ally” against terror so we didn’t think we’d get to do anything at all… Btw, that’s not even allowed to spread within State and is limited to our office so don’t go blabbing to your many State Dept contacts =) It’s not classified because it’s not even allowed to be written down yet. The reason being, there are many people in the State Dept who don’t care about religious freedom and resent those working toward it so we have to get this done and get Sec. Rice to make a decision on it before any dissenters find out and try to cancel it. Make sense? *sigh… bureaucracy….
• Speaking of progress, have you seen these stories? It’s been all over the news about the Vietnamese prisoners being released (over 8,000 total) and we are very excited! Not sure how it got to the Press since it was classified info we got straight from the embassy last week but there’s always leaks I guess… This one talks about our ongoing effort (btw, I didn’t know this until I started at State….but all these comments that figureheads make…they don’t make those up. Someone else writes every word they ever say and then 200 people sign off that it is ok to say before it is said. I’ll never read “State Dept Boucher said…” the same way again!)… I personally drafted many of those words…as well as composing the list of prisoners to be released…
• While I’m talking about the cool stuff I’ve gotten to do… the Ambassador told me a couple days ago that the briefing materials I gathered on the new Ukranian President’s wife (long story, she was a former State employee and somehow I ended up being the one doing research on her)… Collin Powell read personally, commented on, and used during his trip to Ukraine last week. Cool, no?
• And in all my important activites…I’ve also added a few not so important ones to the list. Tonight’s new one: Fashion Advisor to the Ambassador. Will that look good on my intern log for Regent? Seriously though, I had a hard time not laughing at him when he came out with 4 pairs of glasses to try on for me so I could give an opinion on which to wear while he spoke to the International Bible Study tonight… Oc, lest I feel too relegated to fashion activities, he also gave me 1 hr notice to work on drafting his speech and briefing him on the IBS….It was a major problem he couldn’t change the size of the font in a word document either…. He makes Bart look like a techie! Talk about a rush though! I think I was much more stressed than he though since I had scheduled/confirmed the times with the IBS and he was speaking at 7 and didn’t leave the office ‘til 6:55pm. I assume he made it though…
• Well, it’s warming up during the daytime this week. I ice-skated to work and back though…since it was frozen over… I narrowly avoided breaking my back. Oh the joys of winter…
• Stephen Johnson (LA analyst and my heritage supervisor) lent me “Underdevelopment is a State of Mind” so I’m going to read it finally which I’ve been meaning to do all year….
• There was a special on Fox at 7 about Venezuela, did anyone see it? Mr. Johnson asked me to watch it but I couldn’t since I wasn’t home from work yet. I also couldn’t see PBS Bio on Castro last night which was very promoted … Lisa doesn’t have PBS on digital cable…go figure… I heard it was relatively balanced, any dissenting opinions?
• Another A+ on my International Politics assignment. I guess I adequately expressed my horror over the ridiculous ideology in this week’s documents –No, I don’t think we should get completely disarm every nation in the world and create a World Police armed with water pistols… =) The effect of Dr. Rice’s comment about being nice to interns since she was one has been aggravated by her explaining how she got introduced to the political world and switched from a Piano major: a class in International Politics. Since my coworkers know that’s what I’m taking now I’m getting teased even MORE that I might be SOS some day… I laugh it off and all the while feel slightly guilty for know that what they consider “the ultimate” would be a compromise to me since I know that’s not my calling… Anyways…

Well, the pain of thinking is outweighing any other thoughts about the day. Email me please!

Martha/#2/me/marc/marco

E-Mail at: abbasdancer@yahoo.com