Hello again everyone!
Yes, I am alive. I have just not updated for awhile. Sorry!
So...the last few weeks have been incredibly busy, and rather unpredictable. I've been to Iowa, New York, and alllll over DC. To be completely correct, I have been to Maryland, Kentucky, Iowa, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and back to DC. Why? Here goes:
I ended up heading back home to Iowa the week before Thanksgiving for my Grandma's funeral. Not a fun reason to go back, but it was great to see my family and get back home for a few days. And to see my little doggies, who were very excited by the surprise visit.
The day after returning from a whirlwind trip to Iowa, my TWC program went on a day trip to NYC. I've never been to New York, and I was pretty excited to go. However, a 4 hour trip one way is quite a bit of travel for one day. The trip there was uneventful, just long. Once we got there, we had an hour to grab lunch- I got some pizza. You know, New York and pizza just kinda go together. Then we heard from a speaker at the US Mission to the UN. Pretty cool stuff! Then we had a tour of the UN Headquarters, which was pretty cool. We even got to go in the room where they actually hold the UN meetings. :) Then we had an hour to grab dinner then headed out. Literally, our time in NYC was about 4 hours. Then began the horrid bus ride home!
We were riding along when, bang thump thump...apparently the tire blew. We drove around trying to find a tire repair shop, but sadly none were open/could help. So we drove on to Baltimore (on a bum tire) and switched buses. However, we had to wait about an hour for the new bus to arrive. A few of us were a bit hungry, and saw a McDonald's in the distance. So we walked there, and only the drive thru was open. So, we knocked on the drive thru window and ordered while standing there in the drive thru. :) Those fries were delicious!
Finally, the new bus came and we drove the hour-ish trip back to DC. Talk about exhausted! After about 10 hours of travel back from Iowa the day before (including by car, 2 flights, train, and taxi) I spent about 10.5 hours on a bus to and from NYC the next day. I am a bit traveled out right now!
I shall update about Thanksgiving later on in the week!
Jen
Monday, November 29, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
NEON Workshop
Last weekend I spent the whole weekend (Thursday-Sunday) working! Sounds dreadful, right? It was actually pretty awesome! The ESA was organizing a workshop for about 25 college and graduate students. It has been my main project at my internship for the past few weeks, so it was great to see it happen!
We held the conference in Chevy Chase, Maryland (incidentally the first time I've been to Maryland since I was about 8 years old) and it was nice to get out of the downtown part of DC. I saw many trees and forested areas, which was absolutely beautiful since it was fall. Don't get me wrong-the city of DC has tons of trees, just not forests. And being out of downtown was nice for a bit. However, we weren't really out of the metro area, and a few blocks away awaited crazy traffic, huge buildings, and the city atmosphere. :)
The workshop was entitled "The Future of Environmental Decisions" and was designed as an introduction to GIS (geographic information systems), which is a technology used in environmental sciences. Meghan, the other intern, and I actually got to be full participants in the workshop, and I learned a lot (I'm sure Meghan did too)! I hadn't had any GIS experience, and it was nice to have an intro since I must take a GIS class with Dr. Anya next semester, and it's rumored to be a very difficult course. My group explored whether land cover and urbanization had any effect on stream temperatures in the Chesapeake Watershed. We were unable to determine any correlation, mainly due to the fact that we had about 24 hours to put the project together. If you've done GIS, you realize how crazy a time restraint that is! :D
The students who came to the workshop came from all over the US- Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, Arizona, Virginia, Hawaii, etc. Literally, all over. They were an AWESOME group of people! They made working all weekend a fun experience, and helped me to learn more about GIS.
On Saturday night the students were set free to explore the city! Teresa, Meghan, and I went with a group of students to a Vegan restaurant near Dupont Circle, and the food was incredible! I have no plans to become vegan (or even vegetarian) but the mac and cheese-yes vegan cheese-was wonderful, as were the dumplings, miso soup, and chocolate cupcake. You would NOT know any of it was vegan. Not even the chili-cheese fries. It was definitely a great experience!
Sunday was not the happiest day- I woke up first at 4:45am to see people off on a shuttle, then again at 5:40 and 6:35 (multiple departures). Considering I didn't go to bed til nearly 1am, I was TIRED! I came back to my apartment and slept for a few more hours.
Jen
We held the conference in Chevy Chase, Maryland (incidentally the first time I've been to Maryland since I was about 8 years old) and it was nice to get out of the downtown part of DC. I saw many trees and forested areas, which was absolutely beautiful since it was fall. Don't get me wrong-the city of DC has tons of trees, just not forests. And being out of downtown was nice for a bit. However, we weren't really out of the metro area, and a few blocks away awaited crazy traffic, huge buildings, and the city atmosphere. :)
The workshop was entitled "The Future of Environmental Decisions" and was designed as an introduction to GIS (geographic information systems), which is a technology used in environmental sciences. Meghan, the other intern, and I actually got to be full participants in the workshop, and I learned a lot (I'm sure Meghan did too)! I hadn't had any GIS experience, and it was nice to have an intro since I must take a GIS class with Dr. Anya next semester, and it's rumored to be a very difficult course. My group explored whether land cover and urbanization had any effect on stream temperatures in the Chesapeake Watershed. We were unable to determine any correlation, mainly due to the fact that we had about 24 hours to put the project together. If you've done GIS, you realize how crazy a time restraint that is! :D
The students who came to the workshop came from all over the US- Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, Arizona, Virginia, Hawaii, etc. Literally, all over. They were an AWESOME group of people! They made working all weekend a fun experience, and helped me to learn more about GIS.
On Saturday night the students were set free to explore the city! Teresa, Meghan, and I went with a group of students to a Vegan restaurant near Dupont Circle, and the food was incredible! I have no plans to become vegan (or even vegetarian) but the mac and cheese-yes vegan cheese-was wonderful, as were the dumplings, miso soup, and chocolate cupcake. You would NOT know any of it was vegan. Not even the chili-cheese fries. It was definitely a great experience!
Sunday was not the happiest day- I woke up first at 4:45am to see people off on a shuttle, then again at 5:40 and 6:35 (multiple departures). Considering I didn't go to bed til nearly 1am, I was TIRED! I came back to my apartment and slept for a few more hours.
Jen
Monday, November 1, 2010
Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
On Saturday, in between committee sessions at Model UN (they gave us a convenient four hour break) I was able to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. It was an experience, that's for sure! I personally think it might have been the very definition of insanity, due to INSANE amount of people!! Estimates say that anywhere from 200,000-250,000 people came. To put that into perspective, the total population of DC (not the Metro area, just the District of Columbia) is a bit less than 600,000. Also, the ridership of the Metro system on Saturday was a record-breaking 825,000, compared to the average Saturday total of about 350,000.
We actually rode Metro to the Rally, which was difficult. The trains were packed, and by packed I mean we ran along 3-4 cars before we found 1 where I could fit in. My roomie couldn't squeeze in and had to wait for the next one. I was plastered against the door...literally. A very interesting experience! I couldn't hold onto anything, but as there was no room to move, I couldn't fall down!
As we walked up to the Rally, we heard the National Anthem being sung, and the roar of the masses. No matter what the cause, those sounds are inspiring! We couldn't see the crowd at that point, due to huge governmental buildings, but we could hear the size of it. Then we turned the corner and were shocked! I think the crowd was larger than I or my roommate imagined.
If you've ever been to the mall, actually walked even a part of it, you can appreciate how big it is. Photos cannot do the size justice. The crowd stretched from the stage near the Capitol to almost near the Washington Monument. We tried to move closer to the stage, and got pretty close. However, only people with tickets could get into the area closest to the stage. We also couldn't hear much, but going and checking things out was a pretty neat experience! I felt bad for kids and babies who were brought along, because that just wasn't the right place for kids (crowds waaaay too big). And seeing the signs was pretty funny, for the most part. I took some pictures of signs, and will post later.
Being in DC during the time of this rally was pretty awesome, and I'm glad I had the chance to go. How many times in your life do you get to join 200,000+ people on that National Mall?
Jen
We actually rode Metro to the Rally, which was difficult. The trains were packed, and by packed I mean we ran along 3-4 cars before we found 1 where I could fit in. My roomie couldn't squeeze in and had to wait for the next one. I was plastered against the door...literally. A very interesting experience! I couldn't hold onto anything, but as there was no room to move, I couldn't fall down!
As we walked up to the Rally, we heard the National Anthem being sung, and the roar of the masses. No matter what the cause, those sounds are inspiring! We couldn't see the crowd at that point, due to huge governmental buildings, but we could hear the size of it. Then we turned the corner and were shocked! I think the crowd was larger than I or my roommate imagined.
If you've ever been to the mall, actually walked even a part of it, you can appreciate how big it is. Photos cannot do the size justice. The crowd stretched from the stage near the Capitol to almost near the Washington Monument. We tried to move closer to the stage, and got pretty close. However, only people with tickets could get into the area closest to the stage. We also couldn't hear much, but going and checking things out was a pretty neat experience! I felt bad for kids and babies who were brought along, because that just wasn't the right place for kids (crowds waaaay too big). And seeing the signs was pretty funny, for the most part. I took some pictures of signs, and will post later.
Being in DC during the time of this rally was pretty awesome, and I'm glad I had the chance to go. How many times in your life do you get to join 200,000+ people on that National Mall?
Jen
Model UN
This past weekend was the National Model UN Simulation in DC. As part of my program, I had the chance to participate. Our program represented the USA, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Sierra Leone, and Bosnia/Herzegovina. The other class from TWC represented Iran and Israel. It was quite an interesting array of countries to choose from! I ended up representing the USA on the General Assembly 2nd Committee, which dealt with globalization and development.
There were around 500 or so participants in NMUN (National Model UN) at the DC conference, from all over the USA and around the world! Our committee had 50 delegations (countries) represented, which was large for a committee. However, considering the topic, being the USA was pretty awesome, but stressful. There was the potential to be under attack for the USA's trade and development policies, but that only happened a few times. The large majority of delegations wanted the USA's support, so they were willing to work along with us. Overall, NMUN was an awesome, stressful, fun weekend. Long days, as we didn't get done until 10pm or so on Friday and Saturday.
Our committee ended up passing 8 resolutions on a wide variety of topics. The USA sponsored 2 of them, and was a signatory on 4. But we voted for all 8 of them. :)
The simulation was actually done very seriously. The rules were followed pretty much perfectly, which are pretty much the rules of the UN, in terms of the procedures and such. We had to be very specific about our wording and such. It was pretty interesting view of how the UN works. Some delegations also acted the part perfectly, reflecting the actual wording and attitudes of the real UN delegations of the country. As the USA, I had a bit more leeway in how I interacted with other nations.
We had a nice surprise at the end of the simulation. The USA delegation got an honorable mention for the best delegations at the simulation! It's awesome because nearly all of us were first timers for NMUN. Pretty good overall! I also had several people say they were surprised I had never done it before, and one person said I was like Hillary Clinton. Considering she's the Secretary of State, I thought that was a great compliment!
There were around 500 or so participants in NMUN (National Model UN) at the DC conference, from all over the USA and around the world! Our committee had 50 delegations (countries) represented, which was large for a committee. However, considering the topic, being the USA was pretty awesome, but stressful. There was the potential to be under attack for the USA's trade and development policies, but that only happened a few times. The large majority of delegations wanted the USA's support, so they were willing to work along with us. Overall, NMUN was an awesome, stressful, fun weekend. Long days, as we didn't get done until 10pm or so on Friday and Saturday.
Our committee ended up passing 8 resolutions on a wide variety of topics. The USA sponsored 2 of them, and was a signatory on 4. But we voted for all 8 of them. :)
The simulation was actually done very seriously. The rules were followed pretty much perfectly, which are pretty much the rules of the UN, in terms of the procedures and such. We had to be very specific about our wording and such. It was pretty interesting view of how the UN works. Some delegations also acted the part perfectly, reflecting the actual wording and attitudes of the real UN delegations of the country. As the USA, I had a bit more leeway in how I interacted with other nations.
We had a nice surprise at the end of the simulation. The USA delegation got an honorable mention for the best delegations at the simulation! It's awesome because nearly all of us were first timers for NMUN. Pretty good overall! I also had several people say they were surprised I had never done it before, and one person said I was like Hillary Clinton. Considering she's the Secretary of State, I thought that was a great compliment!
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