Life update

Well … here’s my first update since I moved here; three weeks have passed since I left the sunny shores of Southern California. I suppose it’s a measure of how busy things have been, or how disorienting being in a new place, making new friends, and settling into a new job have been, or just how bone-tired I am after shifting straight from Fuller to a full-time job. Or all of the above.

But in spite of the tiredness and the busyness, it’s been awesome. I was saying to a friend that those three adjectives have characterized my life for the better part of the last few years, and I’m not overly surprised that this new chapter isn’t too different in that sense.

Where it is different is in its context: I’m now in the District as opposed to California; I’m living in a house with five other Sojo interns (all great people) as opposed to living in a studio on my own; I’m working a full-time job like a normal person as opposed to working part-time on top of full-time studying.

And the job is a busy one: as Policy & Outreach Assistant, I help out with a multitude of things, and so far, no day has looked the same. Which on one level is good—variety, they say, is the spice of life, and I agree with them. But on another level, I need to keep track of all the things I need to do, so I don’t let anything slip through the cracks!

So what do I do? Well, in the last week, just of the few of things I’ve done include:

• Helping to draft and edit Sojo’s weekly action alert emails—y’know, send an email to so-and-so, or call your member of Congress.
• Researching and reading up on various topics: health-care reform, immigration, finance reform, to name but a few.
• Listening in on an interfaith call-in on immigration reform, and attending the subsequent prayer vigil to counter hateful anti-immigrant discourse on the east lawn of the Capitol.
• Attending a briefing hosted by an NGO on climate change adaptation in Bangladesh.

Let’s just say, it hasn’t been boring!

But that gives you a vague idea of working life as it looks right now; I’ll update again on life in general when I get the chance. In the meantime, enjoy these pics: