summer(?)time

And so, the summer season rolls along, though it doesn't seem that it has yet arrived. Strange humid cool days follow other rainy cool days and we seem to be haunted by a pale gray sky that we just can't shake. It's nice to be home, I have to say. I'm a little of jealous of those that have had the chance to spend summers away from home and explore a new city and a new place on their own, but I figure I'll have plenty of time in the future to live outside of my parents' house, so I might as well bum off of them now :)

This summer, I'm back in New Jersey working at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) again, and I love it. For the first few weeks of the summer, I was an intern for the NEW Leadership program at CAWP which is a program for a diverse group of college 

women (many from non-traditional colleges or education programs) to get them interested, informed about and involved in gover

nment and politics. Some of the highlights included the opportunity to sit in on some legislative committee hearings in Trenton and a keynote address from LILLY LEDBETTER (left)! 

I knew I was going to learn a lot from the experience of helping to run the program, but I never thought it would have an impact of where I see myself in the future. I initially hoped to end up some day at a think tank or research institute, but it seems that my steps may lead me towards government and politics...and I'm excited about it! Here is a picture of myself and the three other AMAZING interns and new friends that I worked with to help run the program. 

For the rest of the summer, I'm volunteering at CAWP to help with a brand-new archiving project. We are working on locating and creating a database for the writings of political women. It's rather tedious, I must say, but so worth it. There isn't yet a comprehensive database for women's political papers...I'm sure that at least part of it is due to the fact that women's involvement in politics is rather limited. I was a little bummed by the massive amounts of Googling and search engine tasks that I knew I'd have to do at first, however, when I realized that what we are doing is more informative and comprehensive than the National Archives database and the Congressional Bioguide resources, I got excited. When/where else would I get a chance to work on a project this huge??

In addition to working at CAWP, I'm playing ultimate frisbee, of course. My summer league is in full force, and I'm playing on a draft league team called "Tidal Wave" and on an A-league competitive team (essentially a men's league. I think there's maybe 1 other woman who barely shows up in the league. lame.) called "Big Stick". In addition to this, I start my summer with the club women's team Havoc this weekend, which is exciting! I was a little reluctant to play club this summer just because I know that once I join a team, I adopt a responsibility to work out outside of practice and keep myself in optimal shape, but the closer I get to my first games with the team (tomorrow, a round robin in Philadelphia!), the more excited I get. And of course...there's WILDWOOD. 

Well, there's my summer update. More to come, I'll try to write more!