My week started out in a fun way; Monday night the other TCU J-school students and I attended The Washington Center Gala. This year they celebrated fifty thousand alumni! Can you believe it?! That is a very encouraging number. We also got to meet with our director of the Schieffer School and talk with him about how our internships are going and how we are enjoying our overall experience in D.C. The host of the night was Cokie Roberts (ABC News Political Commentator and NPR Senior News Analyst) and she was so entertaining! I really enjoyed listening to what she had to say. We also heard from The Washington Center's President Michael Smith and Daniel Inouye, Democratic Senator from Hawaii. Several alumni who went on after their TWC internship to become very successful in their field of interest also spoke to us. This group included Nancy Jacobson, who is the co-founder of No Labels. It was pretty cool to get more insight into the company because one of my friends here is an intern at No Labels.

[Schieffer School Director Mr. Lumpkin, Mrs. Lumpkin, TCU J-school/TWC students and I.]

The dinner at the gala was delicious but my favorite part of the event was seeing just how many TWC graduates go on to do some pretty incredible things. From getting involved in politics to starting their own companies to being on the news, a lot of the alumni said that they attribute much of their success to the internship experience at TWC. I have to say, we are all very fortunate students to be here in a promising city just one step closer to achieving our career goals.

My First Overnight Shift

I am happy to say that I accomplished my first overnight shift in the newsroom! Exhausting is an understatement, but I would not have traded that experience for anything. Unless you live under a rock, I am sure that you watched or saw some type of coverage of the first presidential debate Wednesday night. I got into the newsroom around 5:30 p.m. and the debate started at 9 p.m. One of my main tasks for the night was to combine the rough log (with timecodes) and the actual log of everything said during the debate... including what Jim Lehrer said. We watched the debate and we had more than plenty of televisions to choose from... no better way to watch Romney and Obama face off than on multiple screens!

I left the newsroom around 3:30 a.m., hailed down a taxi and made it back to the RAF. My supervisor told me to sleep in which was very, very nice especially after a long night. Needless to say, I slept like a baby. Thursday I went to lunch before heading back to CBS. I went to lunch at Firehook over on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is a little coffee shop but they have really good food - turkey paninis and fresh salads. They also have lots of sweets, my favorite! In honor of the debates, or maybe just the campaign season in general, they had cookies... patriotic donkey and elephant cookies. I could not leave that place without a box for the office so I decided to get enough for everyone. It was a great little treat especially after everyone worked so hard on the debate coverage. I cannot believe that the first presidential debate is over. I already plan on working more overnight shifts before the semester is over.

[Delicious sugar cookies in honor of the first debate!]

The Power of Social Media

The last time I was in D.C. (before this semester) was in eighth grade for our class trip. One of the few things I remember from that trip was the National Air and Space Museum and more specifically the Wright brothers exhibit (with the original Wright 1903 flyer). Three of my friends and I went Saturday and discovered that they have free guided tours at certain hours of the day. So we went on one at two o'clock. I recommend checking to see what time they are because it was an awesome way to see everything in the museum. There is a ton of stuff to see and I think without the tour we would have been a little lost and not been able to see the important exhibits. Our tour guide also knew a lot of little details and interesting facts about each spot.

[Just part of the mural.]

When you first walk into the museum there is a huge mural that was created using all pastels. It is a pretty incredible piece of art. I instagramed a picture of part of the mural and put it on my Twitter. A couple seconds later and the museum's Twitter account had tweeted the photo. That happened to me once when I was at a restaurant, too. I think it is so cool and really shows the power of social media and its importance in the world today. The museum is definitely one of my favorites; it is really interesting to see the evolution of aviation and space flight.

3 more days till the VP debate!