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…