Feelin' My Way Through the Darkness

So Saturday was Halloween! I had a pretty good costume this year; I’m not going to lie. I tend to not like putting effort into dressing up, if I dress up at all (in years past I have written “book” on my face to be Facebook or worn a name tag that says "Bill"). However, this year, I had the ultimate Halloween costume idea: I would be James Dean! Everyone in DC, immediately after hearing my name, goes “Oh, that’s cool. Like the actor?” (Steer into the

"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as
if you'll die today -James Dean" -James Dean

skid, right?) So I went to the trouble of slicking my hair back, borrowing my roommate’s leather jacket, rolling up a paper towel into a fake cigarette, and rebelling against societal norms without a cause to be James Dean. It turned out to be a big hit with both TWC interns and Cato staff, but you can judge the costume for yourself. However, don’t expect this to be a new normal! Rest assured that next year I will return to finding the cheapest, laziest costume to skate through Halloween! To display this costume, I went with my roommates to Embassy Row, where many college-age kids can go door-to-door trick or treating without looking strange among many little kids. Better yet, many of these embassies invite the trick-or-treaters in to learn about the cultures of their countries and give native treats and goodies.

On a sadder note, time change was Sunday. Because I’m used to a Texas-style time change (when, instead of getting dark at 7:30, it does so at 6:30) I was in for a very rude awakening. In DC, it is now pitch-black at *wait for it* 5 o’clock! While this is bad when taken by itself, it gets worse when one finds out that I get off at 5:30. Thus, instead of walking home in the midst of a DC sunset, I am forced to walk home in what is essentially the dead of night (at 5:30). This inconvenience aside, poverty was still interesting this week! In a slight change of pace, I got to turn from domestic poverty to worldwide poverty. Through this, I got to look at the effects of foreign aid to poor countries. From this, it becomes clear how, often, a country stifles the development of a poor country with foreign aid by not allowing a market to grown. (Watch the preview for this documentary; it’s only 2 minutes and very interesting)

Story of the Week: Saturday, before becoming a rebel without a cause, some other interns and I watched the Texas A&M/South Carolina game on my laptop (we don’t get the channel on which it was aired). Because of the delay inherent with watching sports online, I would often get texts and scoring notifications before they had actually happened. In typical James fashion, I used this to freak out my fellow interns. Prior to big plays, after getting a text or notification, I would turn to my friends and say, “I’ll bet you anything he scores on this play.” Naturally, they didn’t believe me. However, after predicting every score correctly for the entire game, they were convinced that I was either all knowing about football or psychic. Maybe I should tell them…