Things That Please Me

Always enjoyable posts by a fellow law student

allwhowonderarenotlost:

I’ve been in DC for almost two weeks now,and the time is flying by like it’s never flown before.  Now that I’ve got a firm grasp on my living and work situations, I thought it would be helpful to fill you in on both.  

I’m living on Capitol Hill, in the awesome brownstone house pictured above, with two good family friends, Mr. Andy and Ms. Peg.  Long story short, they used to live in my hometown and have a daughter my age, and moved to DC when we were sophomores in high school.  Mr. Andy is a Presbyterian minister and now preaches at Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church, so I guess you could say I’m an honorary preacher’s kid for the next couple of months.  And when I say I live on Capitol Hill, I mean that quite literally; the US Capitol building is less than a five minute walk from my front door, and I do my daily runs around the National Mall, passing many of the famous monuments and the Smithsonian museums.  Mr. Andy and Ms. Peg have welcomed me into their home as though I was one of their own, and I truly feel like I can call DC home even though I’ve been here for such a short time.  I have my own key, can come and go as I please, their dog Baloo is finally starting to trust me (I think), and if I’m not home in time for supper they always leave a plate out for me to heat up when I get in.  To say I’ve been very lucky in my living arrangements would be a vast understatement, and I can’t begin to thank them enough.  

The positive reviews continue with my internship.  In case I haven’t explained this already, I’m working 35 hours a week in addition to taking two classes at night three nights a week, which will add up to a full semester worth of credit.  This makes for some pretty long days, which I’ll get into more detail on later, but so far it’s been great.  My internship is with the General Services Administration, in the Office of General Counsel to their Inspector General.  I’ve finally learned to decode the bureaucracy-speak, so I’ll break that down a bit.  

The GSA is the federal agency in charge of managing every other federal agency.  This includes serving as the central purchasing body for the entire federal government, purchasing/constructing/maintaining property and buildings used by agencies, handling any employment or labor issues, and any other administrative task that is needed to help the federal government function.  Within the GSA, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) serves as the internal auditing body, finding and dealing with both internal issues (mismanagement, waste, bribery of government officials, etc.) and external issues (breach of contract by companies the government purchases from, primarily.)  The General Counsel to the OIG, which is the office that I work in, is made up of 9 attorneys who handle all of the legal issues surrounding the cases and investigations pursued by the OIG.  

That might still not make much sense, but suffice to say that there is some extremely interesting and challenging work going on in that office, and they’ve thrown me headfirst into a number of great assignments.  Since I can’t go into much detail about the work I’m doing, you’ll just have to take my word for it.  Not only is the work very engaging, but the office is also extremely supportive; the attorneys have all been very nice and helpful as I worked to get my footing with the type of work they do, the regulations and laws they deal with, and the way they work internally.  Not to jinx things too early, but it looks like this really was the perfect placement for me, as it will allow me to get some very practical hands-on experience with a number of different issues and areas of the law, under the direction and supervision of some extremely high-caliber attorneys.        

When I was picking out crappy iPhone pictures to share with this post, I was struck by the contrast between the two buildings where I’ll be spending most of my time for the next couple of months.  On the one hand, a charming and beautiful historic house, and on the other a large, imposing, and extremely federal building.  Though the appearance of these two buildings would imply very different attitudes toward each, I already feel at home in both of them, and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead in the next couple of months.

Until next time,

Your faithful (and happy) cog in the government machine