Intern attains positive reaction regarding letter at committee meeting

It is nice to see something you work on matter; to finally see what you do come full circle.

Last week I was given the task of writing a “Dear Colleague Letter.” This letter goes out to 500 people around the Capitol, including the offices of all the senators. Needless to say, I was a little nervous to write it, knowing it would get a larger audience than anything I have ever written.

The letter I wrote informed people about a project Purdue undertook to map carbon emissions throughout the United States. Project Vulcan, as it is called, allows anyone on the project’s Web site to look at a map of the United States and see the density of pollution across the country.

Not only did I feel pressure to perfect this letter because it was sent to 500 offices across the Hill, but I found out today some members of the media were getting it too.

Additionally, if I wasn’t feeling nervous already, it was my job to pass out the letters to the media who had assembled at the Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

Today is Earth Day and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had a hearing on global deforestation. There wasn’t a lot of media there but I passed out my letter and the remarks Sen. Lugar was making. I watched each person closely as they took my letter to see their reaction and realized we had won a victory of sorts.

All the other paperwork was black and white but ours had a nice colored map on the front and people were fascinated by seeing official paperwork in color. This is D.C., we don’t do color. As someone pointed out, all you would have to do to break out of the mold on the Hill is wear a gray suit.

Or you could wear open toed shoes. I found out the first week I was in D.C. from a girl in my dorm that women should not wear open toed shoes, because respectable interns just don’t do it. Apparently, open toed shoes are immoral, yet another sin to add to the list.

Move over conventional scandals, forget money laundering and Jack Abramoff or the now infamous Eliot Spitzer coming to D.C. for a dalliance at the Mayflower hotel (which I saw last week unexpectedly when I was wandering down a street corner), the next big scandal is open toed shoegate.

It doesn’t have quite the ring the name of a scandal should have. I will have to work on a new name for it.

What are other quirks of this city and the people who live in it? Well, they can’t drive on the snow and when it snows it is rather like the sky is falling. Hill people, as one popular blog has named them, are joined at the hip with Blackberries and I imagine they would feel naked without one. Also, it is amazing how many people are in their 20s and live off their salaries as well as money from the parents. And I guess I am not one to talk as I am here partially through the generosity of my parents.