Week Eight (Last Week)

Well these weeks at work seem to be getting better and better as they progress. Last Monday my boss asked me if I wanted to write in the supplemental update for our first report. So all of last week I was writing in the supplemental update.

Really what we are trying to do now is to continually update Allied contributions to the Afghan war as they come. We sent out reports to all the embassies and a fair amount have gotten back to us with some of their own numbers that we'll use in our supplement. What I did was add a "Recent Actions" update to every NATO country. The last week in February all I did was find news articles on allied contributions so I put all the updates I had into the report. Then I was able to write a little bit in the "political background" section which is really an analysis of a country's political situation. It was difficult writing on the Netherlands section as they have a big mess on their hands themselves.

I also completely wrote a new section on non-NATO ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) contributions to the conflict. So for Australia (non-NATO ISAF member) I wrote about their contributions and how they are planning a pull-out in 2011 (I think) and how their top general believes they could contribute an extra 6,000 troops when and if the Dutch leave.

Anyway, we've got the think mostly prepped we just need to fix the table of contents. However, for my efforts my name will get to go down in "Project Staff" instead of CSPC Interns in the "Thanks" section. So yeah, I'm going to get a report with my name on it. Yeah, yeah. This one will be strictly online and will be updated continuously as changes occur. So that was work last week for me; I was making a real solid contribution to the Center's efforts.

I was also busy last week for school. My friend Jeremy and I had to give a presentation on Friday over the humanitarian crisis in Burma (Myanmar), whatever. That took up a lot of my time at night last week as it is still really hard to get work done here. However, we got it done and my teacher said we gave a good presentation.

This weekend we had highs in the 60s so a lot of walking was in order. Saturday saw us going to the Jefferson and FDR memorials on the south side of the National Mall. Sunday we walked Massachusetts Ave to see all the embassies on Embassy Row. I'll try to get pictures of that up sometime soon. I was impressed with the Turkish embassy the most out of the ones we saw. I also had lunch with a good friend of mine from Moberly on Saturday morning, Mr. Sam Richardson. He was in town working and called me up so he took me to breakfast at the fancy Wardman Park Hotel. We had a great breakfast and a quick two hour conversation. It was nice to see a familiar face.

Ummm, we switched up our workouts at the gym so my body has been killing me, but it is paying off going to the gym pretty consistently. We should be going every day this week because its technically spring break so I don't have classes on Wednesday or Friday. Ironing is improving now that I discovered using even the little ironing boards make things easier. Cooking continues to be a plus, but I'm still only cooking the same thing: chicken, rice/pasta, and green beans/corn. It doesn't bother me though; I typically eat around 10:00 after I've worked out and ran so at that point I'll eat anything.

So the big news: five more days and then I turn 21. This is turning out to be the event of the semester for everyone as my friends really can't wait for me to be able to go out on the weekends or go out to happy hour. Also, many of my JMU friends are coming by to for dinner and for the "zero-hour" festivities. I honestly can't believe it's been eight weeks. Technically, I've only worked six and half weeks. First week was only half a week because I started on Wednesday and we had that snow week a month ago. Spring semester has always flown by and when your at work every day till 5 the days go even faster than at school.

Can't think of too much else to say. I'm excited baseball is starting soon as always. GO CUBS!!! I'll try to get one post in before Saturday but if I don't I promise I'll do one Sunday. Also, I'm really exhausted and it's almost bed time so I'm not going to read this over. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes. Thanks for reading again.