Week 4: Mobilize.org

This summer I am working at Mobilize.org, formerly ‘Mobilizing America’s Youth’ the organization is an “all partisan” organization that focuses on encouraging those included in the Millennial Generation to become involved in political and civic engagement. I’m definitely a little partial, but I seriously think I have absolutely the best, coolest internship placement. Seriously, these people literally wrote the book on grassroots mobilizing, in which they outline the steps of rallying around an issue and ways in which Millennials can have impact on issues of importance to them.

I was expecting to work in a very conventional office, where everyone worked 9-5, with the girls in heels and business suits and guys wearing ties...so I was pleasantly surprised to find everyone in the office wears blue jeans, tank tops, flip-flops, and shorts. My day starts when I get to work at about ten and ends at five thirty or when I’m done with my work for the day...whichever comes first. So what is it that I actually do? Well, officially my title is Communications Program Associate, and that means that I am helping out with the communications of Mobilize.org--for instance, I compile information for the press list so that the organization can have an effective communication model, have spent a lot of time preparing for a Money In Politics Grant Summit that’s scheduled to happen here in DC during September.

Normally I spend time everyday browsing internet news sites and blogs to find out what kinds of research is being conducted on the Millennial Generation. My favorite thing to do at work is check Facebook, which I must do frequently because we use the site for a great deal of networking and event planning. I know a lot of people who sneak onto Facebook at work, but how many people can actually say that Facebook is included in their job description? And as if that’s not cool enough, in the next couple of weeks we are moving to share an office space with THE Facebook! I’m really looking forward to that.

On my way to DC for this internship, I was already really excited about the work of my organization, but the description I was given over the phone and from the website could not even begin to scratch the surface of everything the organization actually has a hand in. Almost weekly, I attend conferences of our partner organizations, during which I have opportunities to sit in on some amazing panel discussions with people who have led distinguished and successful lives and careers. These leaders talk about ways in which individuals can be effective in impacting policy and ways to hold people in power accountable. I’m really excited, because I think it’s so important that people our age wake up and realize that we are the future of our government. “We are the leaders we’ve been waiting for,” as a discussion panelist phrased it. Mobilize.org is incredibly innovative--any time they think of idea that hasn’t been thought of before and it has no name, they just make up their own.

Outside of the office building

About to go to work

At my desk working

One of our offices

Week 3: Washington, D.C. Art and Culture

DC is one city that everyone should consider visiting at least once. However, after coming once you’d certainly want to come back because the area has so much to offer. It seems as though there are literally millions of things to do and see. This place is absolutely oozing with culture. As I walk to and fro on the street, it amazes me that there are so many different types of people here--obviously from many different walks of life, and I’m astounded by the immense diversity and all that it brings. There is so much art here in so many different forms. It’s hardly fair that so much character is packed into one tiny corner of the world.

I went to Macy’s at Metro Center, which is an area in the District that has some great shopping, but as I got inside the store, I kept hearing something that sounded like drums. I walked to around to find out where the music was coming from, only to find that a high school drum line was performing right in the middle of Macy’s. The kids played beautifully and their sound kind of enveloped the entire shopping center because no matter where I went in the store I could hear them. I thought this was really cool because it’s not every day that you can walk past the makeup counter in a department store and find a drum line. That’s just one example, but instances of art are literally everywhere, it’s as if you can’t help but be overtaken with them. Any day of the week you can find somebody singing, dancing, or playing some kind of instrument in the Metro station. On my way to this week’s class session, I walked through McPherson Square anda band was set up performing on a stage, right there in the park in the middle of the week.

In my twenty-one years of life I can count on one hand (not using all fingers) how many art galleries I have visited. On Saturday, I went to a gallery that housed tons of art; I saw more art in one building than I have seen throughout the course of my life. It was called Artomatic and it housed in a fourteen floor building, chocked full of every type of art imaginable (and some not so imaginable). There were music performances, runway models, I even saw body art. There were photographs, paintings, portraits, and sculptures. There was so much happening underneath one roof that there was no way I could possibly look at every piece.

Spending time in this wonderful city has helped me to take note of the simplest and most obvious forms of art that I never before realized were important. There are musicians playing their hearts out in the Metro stations and in the parks. I’m excited and proud because I feel like this is a great step in becoming a more mature and well-rounded person. What I’ve come to realize is the beauty of the smallest and most simple things in life.

Week 2: The Fiery Furnace that is DC

When I got to DC, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the weather here was much milder than what I was used to in Kentucky. For about a week straight, I was constantly remarking about how good it felt outside, and then one day...it happened. The weather went from amazing to absolutely unbearable! I mean thunderstorms for like three days in a row, and when it wasn’t raining it seemed to be a hundred plus degrees outside. I had made the proclamation that Kentucky was most definitely hotter than DC. When I talked to family and friends I was telling them, “It’s hot here, but this is nothing. At home I would never be able to walk around like this.” Now that statement is completely and utterly false. The absolute truth is it’s ten times hotter here than in Kentucky… in fact I’m sure that it’s about five times hotter here than in hell! I have never in my life experienced this degree of heat outside of a sauna, not even in Florida. Reasonably, you’d think the ongoing rain showers would have the effect of making it cooler… but that’s so not the case because apparently the rain only makes it even steamier outside. This weather would certainly make me very grateful to have the car I left at home.

As if the battle I’m having with the weather this week wasn’t enough, I had to learn the hard way that my standby shoe of choice, the flip flop, may not be well-suited for the terrain of DC. Saturday after I spent most of the weekend in my apartment, I ventured out that night figuring there was fun to be had in the city and I needed to find it. Only I found that my plans were again threatened by this weirdo weather. It wasn’t raining yet, but it was thundering and lightening so I thought I better high tail it back to the Metro station. As I was racing the rain back to the Metro, my shoe broke…great! So now I’m walking on the Metro barefoot and trying not to think of the things that have been in contact with the same ground I am now walking on. Through being barefoot on the Metro and tiptoeing across streets, I'm praying that I don’t step on a piece of glass or anything else that might be just cause for a tetanus shot. With the odds stacked against me and on the verge of tears, I made it safely back to my apartment to talk over the night’s events with my roommates. It was then I decided it is going to be tennis shoes and umbrellas for me if I want my stay in this city to be a success.

If you don’t already have working relationship with any weather forecast websites. You should get one, I recommend weather.com or maybe even weather alerts on a google desktop. Even though the flip flop has become a shoe staple in America I would STRONGLY advise against them. Not only because I’ve broken a couple of them since I’ve been here, but also because I saw a young lady get her foot stepped on by another lady wearing stilettos on the Metro. I don’t think any further explanation is needed. That’s absolutely no way to start your morning commute.

Pictures are soon to come! When I’m going back and forth to work, I make a conscious effort to try and blend in, but at some point I will do the “tourist thing” and take some pictures. I’ll make that a goal for the week!

Week 1: Navigating the D.C. Metro

My name is Ameshia Elliott, and I am from the medium/large city of Bowling Green, Kentucky. This fact is very important to keep in mind, because public transportation is virtually non-existent. To get any and everywhere people must drive their own cars. Parking lots are aplenty. However, DC is a completely new world as far as transportation is concerned. Anyone who plans on spending a significant amount of time in DC without a car, must have a substantial working knowledge of the labyrinth that is the Metro. I thought I had the experience necessary to navigate the Metro since I previously visited DC and rode the Metro…but I was sadly mistaken! When it was actually time to take that plunge at the Metro stop I completely froze. I had no idea where I was going, or how to get there. I asked a man for directions and he pointed me in the direction of a Metro map and I just stood there feeling dazed and confused as the map meant absolutely nothing to me. I remember thinking, "is this the map that had earlier been described to me as a 'Fisher Price map?'"

I was terrified of trekking through the subway by myself. Every time I even got close to a Metro stop I felt overtaken with panic. When I stepped on the escalators that go to seemingly unknown depths, I felt nauseous. I could imagine people falling down the escalator to their demise after they missed a step in their haste to catch trains; these imaginations were normally interrupted by the people yelling behind me because I was standing on the wrong side of the escalator. I had to learn the hard way that if you actually want to calmly ride the escalator down; you MUST stand to the right so that people can freely hurry down the escalator. And when you finally get into the Metro platform, as the trains come by there is this “big swoosh,” or some kind of suction as the trains come and go that just heightens my anxiety.

So instead of going it alone, I had to regroup and come up with a new game plan. In an attempt to avoid making sense of all the different colored squiggly lines myself, I just thought I would mooch off someone who obviously seemed to grasp the idea of this subway business. So I spent the next few days tagging along with my roommate, and this worked out fine for me…I was certainly satisfied. But maybe she didn’t like it so much, and that’s possibly the reason she pushed me out of the nest and onto the subway by myself.

So, I was finally able to get over the fear and panic I was stricken with and jump on the Metro to go where I needed to go with little event. Then came the ultimate test… I was on my way home, waiting on the train at the Rosslyn station, and as I stepped on the train a lady asks, “Is this the green train?” Having become quite the expert on the metro over the last couple of days I was like, “No, this is the orange train.” So, it’s official… I know where I am going!