I Bring the Fire

The weeks are slowly creeping past! I can’t believe it’s almost March…and you know what that means? March Madness! Of course, I’m rooting for Memphis to make it all the way again! Go Tigers!

I’ve settled into my routine for the weekdays. Wake up at 6:30am, get ready, catch the metro at 8:00am, eat lunch and go to CVS with the other interns (seriously, we are there everyday), leave at 5:15pm, then come home and rest. I have never loved my bed as much as now!

Me and Angie on our way to CVS…who knew?!

Jenn and me outside our building. The security to get into this place is the bane of our existence!

Fun in the intern cubicle during lunch!

Speaking of work, it’s been crazy. I feel as though I’m not going to pursue a career with the government as far as an assistant attorney general goes, but I’m not going to discount it either. I like to write, and to my enjoyment, I have been able to draft a few stipulations. I take out facts from a petition and write out these facts with careful wording. For example, instead of saying “Ms. Mom hit Child”, one would say, “Ms. Mom acknowledges that she used physical discipline on Child.” The point of the careful wording is that you want the mother to stipulate to the facts and pass an evidentiary trial. This seems to be the only creative outlet as far as writing goes with court documents, other than a joint pre-trial statement. The others have templates and information is simply filled in to complete the document. There is not a lot of room to add more text to permanency hearing orders, dispositions, initial hearings, etc.

Last week was interesting as far as court hearings go. I sat in on a revocation of protective supervision hearing. The process behind this is that after a child is initially removed from the home but the mother shows a level of commitment to the child, such as taking them to therapy and attending any other court ordered services on a regular basis, the court places the child back into the home of the mother under supervision of the court. If a mother slacks off her court ordered services or neglects the child again, then the court holds a revocation of protective supervision hearing, in which witnesses are called to testify to whether the child was neglected or not. The mother in this case contradicted herself on the stand under oath and did not do what she needed to do for her child, so the judge ordered a revocation of protective supervision. The mother became so upset that the judge had to call the U.S. Marshals in to gain control.

In The Child Protection section, you realize that everyone present is there for the parent(s) – it is not like a criminal trial where one party is for the government and the other party is for the defendant. The mother in the revocation hearing said, “That AAG got what she wanted!” which is untrue in all aspects. After the revocation hearing, my AAG stated she did not want to say she “won” the trial, because she really did not win at all since the goal is reunification of the children with the mother. The social worker who removed the children from the home is for the parent, the AAG who represents the government is for the parent, the GAL is for the parent, the parent’s/parents’ counsel is for the mother, the judge is for the parent – it is a joint effort to help this parent/these parents be the best they can be and achieve their goals. It can be compared to a mother punishing a child for bad behavior. They only want the parent to learn from their mistakes and become a better person because of them.

In terms of roommates, I’m still glad I have mine – they really are the best!

The roommates minus Florieli

The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution

Yes and I with my metro coffee cup. It’s a little tourist-y, so I leave it at home, but secretly I LOVE it!

Advice for the day: If moving to D.C., invest in Verizon as a cell phone carrier. They have towers in the underground parts of the metro, and let me tell you, that would be nice to have since most of the places I travel to are underground. T-Mobile should get wise to this. I can’t get any service until I’m about 3 feet from the top of the escalator.

Virtual Apartment Tour

Okay, I know a lot of people are interested in how the apartments look; I know I was! Unfortunately for me, there were only floor plans for my apartment and no pictures; fortunately for you guys, I have pictures (but only for one building...others may provide different layouts and amenities)!

Let us start the virtual tour then!

That door to the right is the entry door and this is our kitchen. It’s very spacious!

The door on the far left is the entry door again. The door in the middle leads to the guest bathroom, and the door on the far right is a food pantry.

The rest of the kitchen

Our living room with the enclosed balcony/dining room.

This is very important – a map of the Metro!

The master bedroom, which isn’t any bigger than the guestroom, it just has one door leading to the bathroom instead of two. The guest bathroom also has the washer/dryer in it. I know in other TWC apartments the washer/dryer are in the hallway. My bed is the one with the green comforter!

Our closet is walk-in, and it’s so big I couldn’t fit it in one picture!

The bathroom is through here…

Although some apartments are lacking in the bathroom and closet space, they may boast cable in the rooms…we only receive cable in the living room.

The master bathroom also has a HUGE closet…the guest bathroom does not since the washer/dryer are located in there.

I’ll leave you guys with this picture. Since Florieli and Bianca are from Puerto Rico and Yes and Bianca speak French (and I, un petit peu…), we started the Language Wall. Upon this wall, we have index cards with a Spanish word, the French equivalent, and the English translation on the back. I am determined to learn SOME Spanish and work on my French while here. Wish me luck!

Down to the Nitty Gritty

I’ve had my first two weeks of internship and class. What a week! I work with the Child Protection Section in the Family Services Division of the Office of the Attorney General (OAG). The section is not located in the OAG office but rather in the Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) building. The building is in the best place ever – a few feet from the L’Enfant Plaza metro stop! There are many food places around to eat at during lunch, and there is a shuttle that runs between the CFSA building and the court house, which is nice because the court house is across The National Mall (although it’s a very nice walk – Hello, Capitol! – I would not want to walk that everyday, back and forth).

My work at 400 6th St. SW

I work well with the assistant attorney generals I have been assigned to, and I really like them all. I have enjoyed all the projects they have given me so far – not a lot of boring intern work, but rather very informative projects. I’ve written several case notes for one attorney, drafted a stipulation (which is an agreement that certain circumstances existed which caused the child to be neglected), edited a few other court documents (such as permanency hearing orders and disposition orders), read court cases, attended court hearings, served someone with a subpoena, drafted witness questions, and copied a few things (you gotta get used to the few mundane tasks you have to do at any job, although these types of tasks for me have been few and far between). I am very happy with my placement!

The court hearings are a lot different from the ones on TV (obviously). At some of the court hearings, the parent/guardian isn’t present; at others, they are. A lot of the hearings are small and seem more like a discussion. At one hearing, I felt the anxiety and frustration of one attorney when a social worker arrived a half hour late! We were running in and out of the courtroom trying to track this social worker down.

I like all of the interns in the office. We go to lunch together and do our work in the same cubicle, if possible. The atmosphere surrounding the office is different than I expected. I thought it would be very strict and uptight, but everyone is laid back.

My academic course for The Washington Center is International Organizations and Humanitarian Law. I have not had any previous courses in either of these topics, so I am eager to learn. My professor seems very knowledgeable on the subject and is a published writer as well. He has studied around the world and extensively researched humanitarian law. I hope to take whatever I learn in the class back home to help bring about change in the world and change in people’s thoughts on the importance of humanitarian law.

As stated above, I haven’t had previous classes in international relations and I am feeling a bit lost in the class. A very nice guy in my class, Nick (meet him at this blog) gave me some IR terms to look up and Professor Hilaire suggested a book for me to read. I feel a little better about the class, but still lost-ish. Hopefully I’ll get through all this reading material and understand it finally!

My friends and I walked The Mall over the long weekend. Here are a few pictures from it…we can’t end this blog on work and class!

In front of Tennessee!

At the Lincoln Memorial

A very neat saying at the Korean War Memorial. I especially liked it because I was born in Seoul, South Korea and my granddad fought in the Korean War – if not for him and the others, I’m not sure I could have been adopted!

A telegraph from WWII – it says, “Airraid on Pearl Harbor X This is no drill.” – from the war exhibit in the National Museum of American History

Astonishing!

Things I’ve Learned So Far in D.C.

A comprehensive list of lessons for a newcomer

1. ALWAYS stand on the right side of the metro escalator unless you are running up or down it. Getting yelled at or huffed at is embarrassing.

2. When you do stand on the left accidentally, do not yell back at them, “I’m sorry! I’m new to the city!” This only points you out as a tourist and a target. (Note: My friend did this. Thank goodness no one was really around, other than the angry pedestrian).

3. Almost everyone has an iPod or book in hand on the metro. Note to self: always keep the iPod handy.

4. Fashionable shoes don’t matter on the metro – it is ALL about comfort. And I do mean comfort – forget those cute little heels. They hurt. You don’t want to be walking funny in front of your boss.

5. DC people keep to themselves. This might seem like a negative, but it’s not. You don’t feel obligated to make awkward small talk with a stranger. Along with this, you have to realize that a lot of people don’t give you small smiles when you look at them.

6. There were no accessible outlets in the Starbucks in Chinatown. This is important to note because from my experience at Starbucks, they have one every two seats.

Have No Fear, D.C. is Here!

It’s been a little over a week since I arrived in D.C. from Memphis. The weather was definitely something to get used to! I was so excited when I saw real snow on the ground and not the Memphis-10-minute snow (for those of you who don’t know, it snows in Memphis for 10 minutes, then melts…yeah, fun).

My biggest fear coming here was relying on public transportation to get me around. I’ve never even been on a city bus in Memphis, let alone ridden a subway system I am wholly unfamiliar with. Let me tell you – the Metro is the best. I love not having my car (except when I want to do big shopping) because I don’t have to spend money on gas, although I think spending money on the Metro evens it out. The Metro is pretty reliable (but I’m on the yellow/blue lines and not the red, which seems to suffer the most from delays).

My second biggest fear: roommates that I have never met. Contrary to my fear, my roommates are the best roommates I could have asked for! The best introduction to a city I’m not familiar with is exploring it with my roommate Yes (short for Yesenia). My other roommates Bianca and Florieli are trying to teach me Spanish. Thus far, I’ve learned “pollo” and “mejor", and my hopes of understanding a sentence by the end of the semester might be shot down.

Our first night bonding, we set up a wireless internet connection in our apartment. What a way to connect! Advice to anyone worried about roommates – set up a wireless router together without the software and you will be the best of roommates ever (side story: after an hour of trying to get the internet to work, three of us could get on and one could not. We put an ethernet cord in the router and she could magically connect, so now we have a random ethernet cord hanging out of the back of our router – we’re scared to disconnect it even though it isn’t attached to anything!).

I forgot to mention that in my first two days, I had two orientations and (most exciting part) went to The Museum of Crime and Punishment! There was a history of punishment exhibit that covered medieval times, the original gangsters, serial killers, kidnappings, and cybercrimes. We participated in a crime scene investigation lab that covered how to take footprints and fingerprints.

I love the rush of everything, the Metro, the people, the city. Everyone minds their own business. The shopping is amazing. I love walking everywhere!! I love wearing my long D.C. coat and feeling like I belong. I love the cold here. I love my high rise apartment. It’s crazy when they say something about President Obama on the Hill on TV and I think “Oh my God, he’s down the street from me!”

I miss everyone in Memphis like nothing else, but please let me stay longer than May!!