In the Presence of History

Standing with history is always cool! Saturday afternoon we went to the National Archives. It is slightly amazing that they have a massive building, filled with dozens of exhibits when almost everyone that is there came to see three documents: the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. The documents were not what I had expected: the Constitution looks good, but the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights are faded far beyond any consistent readability. Nevertheless, it was obviously very amazing to be in the presence of such important pieces of history. Saturday night, we went out for Belgian food (apparently they eat more
 than waffles!). I had something called
 Vlaamse Stoverij, which is Dutch for Flemish stew, but it was essentially beef tips (with Belgian fries, obviously). However, it was fantastic! Very high quality meat covered in a very peculiar, but tasty, sauce. Sunday, the only early NFL game on was the Redskins, which essentially meant I would have to wait until that night to see any real football. How about them Cowboys, though?? My international roommates had no idea what was happening, believing the only logical explanation being that I had found a large sum of money in the couch.

This week the new interns started at Cato (the internship was supposed to start September 15, I just started early). It’s obviously nice to have new people, but even more nice (nicer?) to no longer work in the very large, nearly empty intern room. However, because the internship has officially started, we now have multiple lectures and discussions every week. As a result, the rest of my semester at Cato will consist of a steady diet of Frederic Bastiat, John Locke, and Adam Smith (not too bad, when you think about it). The work at Cato is still very interesting. While I did not have to write any emails in any foreign languages this week, I did get to work Constitution Day (a huge deal at a place like Cato, considering we give away/ sell pocket Constitutions like Tic Tacs) while also working with European income mobility and new poverty numbers from the Census Bureau. In fact, I was literally reading the report the minute it was released at 10:00 Wednesday (without question the first time I’ve ever waited for the release of a government report). Finally, Friday, we had Career Boot Camp, a full day event put on by TWC to prepare interns for the professionalism needed in the working world. It was very different, learning tips for interviews and how to properly negotiate a salary. Nevertheless, it was a good experience to prepare for the uncomfortable, yet necessary parts of life.