Weekend and Work Day 1

Okay, for not posting on the weekend, I had a difficult time trying to find an internet connection. But anyway, saturday after the SAT's at had a 4 hour drive with a 3 year old and a 9 year old. Not fun, considering my 9 year old bro suddenly yells "I have to throw up!" and we're on 95. I was sleeping on the seat in front of him and I nearly jumped out of my seat. When we got in to our holiday inn at like 3ish, we walked around. I have pics that i'll upload later. My 9 year old bro had a false alarm and nearly threw up on the steps of the Dept of the treasury which i'm pretty sure they wouldn't have appreciated. Anyway, move-in was at 8:30 am Sunday morning (while all of you were hopefully sleeping) and I had a fantastic Holiday Inn cinnamon bun/french toast that I would highly recommend. My roommates are Blair from louisiana, Darrell from South Carolina, and Cameron from Mississippi, and i'm just about the closest thing to a city-boy here, which is sad considering I live in the suburbs. Half of the kids and none of my roommates have never been on a metro, and i've used our septa rails plenty of times and the subways system when I was little. After unpacking it was basically orientation, and my mom got a free tour of the capitol and visited the house floor. We all were ushered with family members in full uniform (you'll see pics) to the House Cannon Office Building to a caucus room where we had to literally give an oath of office; the same one the congressmen take. After some usual orientation things, some friends and I walked to CVS, which we had much difficulty finding, and walked to the capitol to map our route for tomorrow morning. Okay so this is totally my luck. It about 9:30 and my roommates and I were all half asleep, completely exhausted. Then, we hear "pages, will room 112 [my room] come down for kitchen duty." It's basically a communal living style so we all have assign days to clean up certain areas by room. So, on the first night we had to clean the kitchen that was filthy from parents earlier in the day during orientation. But I guess it was good to get it out of the way. This morning was school. Yes, school. But the school is on the top floor of the library of congress which is a once in a lifetime experience. But the funny thing is that the elevator names it just the "attic." The first week is american gov't, then leadership, and international relations during the final week...and Brandon from tennessee says, "hello!" and has the giant tongue in the pics. We went to the new visitors center after school and were issued our highly official and highly high-tech government ID badges. After lunch it was our first work day. I'm not going to say too much because this is going through government servers so I don't want my blog to be erased from history. Let's just say part of my duties today was to deliver packages to Nancy Pelosi's office or the "Office of the Speaker." We helped the House recorders keep track of what the speakers say and collect items or documents that the speakers would like to contribute to the recordings of what goes on that day in the house for reference. We also run letters, packages, or really anything to either the capitol or the three office buildings by using the secret government subterranean tunnels whenever an office calls our desk on the house floor. To concluded my day I took a metro ride with some friends to hard rock cafe, but the wait was too long so we went to some random mexican place where one of the workers was completely passed out on one of the tables. Oh, and Karen says "hi"....shes from NJ which I think smells, especially Newark, but I'll put that aside for now. So, for my first day it was extremely interesting. Half of which I can't mention due to government restrictions. But my first work day as a Capitol staff member was better than I could have imagined.

"Proofread by Karen"