Orientations are always about introductions, and these introductions tend to flatter my amazing ability to be the most awkward person in the world. Thankfully, orientation is over, but I suppose I owe all my newly faithful readers a brief introduction of myself. I have lived most of my life on a farm in Kentucky, but I promise I wear shoes and don't have an accent, save for the occasional "y'all." I incessantly dream about retiring to a street corner in Paris to paint the Seine and the Left Bank all day long, surviving solely off of euro baguettes with a smattering of Nutella and French butter. I have unbelievably huge crushes on Ron Weasley and Jim Halpert, and subsequently insane jealousy of Hermione Granger and Pam Beasley. This will be my second semester away from school; the first of which I spent studying in Paris. Speaking of school, I am a junior Political Science major at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. I hope to attend law school after graduation, mainly to one day get involved in the political world, but slightly because I want to delay real life for a few more years.

That is probably way too much about me already, and I would guess you are more interested in the actual internship component of The Washington Center. My story begins last spring when I got an email from Wake Forest telling me about the program. It sparked my interest, but I was worried that spending a full year away from school would be a bit much. It stayed in the back of my mind, and that little spark of interest was piqued with each follow-up email I read throughout the summer and early fall. I finally committed myself to the idea that spending a semester in my other favorite city in the world, Washington, D.C., would lead to opportunities and learning experiences far greater than basketball games, spring break, and a laundry list of expensive textbooks would give me. Over the course of mid-September through mid-December, I was transatlantically applying and interviewing for the program, and today I find myself as an intern for Rock the Vote.

The past two weeks have gone by incredibly quickly, with a brief orientation, lots of exploring, frequent programming, and forty-hour work weeks, but it is already turning out to be my favorite semester yet. To give you a quick rundown, the first two and a half days were spent in orientation meetings in the Residential and Academic Facility and around D.C. Put that way, it sounds kind of boring, but it was interspersed with visits to the First Ladies' inaugural gowns collection, Dorothy's ruby red slippers, the original Kermit the Frog puppet, the real Star-Spangled Banner, and a discussion by Justice Stephen Breyer. The following Monday, I began my internship with first-day-of-school jitters, but have comfortably grown into a routine schedule in just the last week.

Besides interning, I've been going to museums like nobody's business. I saw every room in the east and west wings of the National Gallery of Art, the sculpture garden, most of the Natural History museum, a little too much of the Air and Space museum, not nearly enough of the American History museum, and a perfect amount of the Newseum. The National Gallery has an amazing collection up right now called the Chester Dale collection. Whoever that man is, he should have considered willing his art to me instead of museums. It is a progression of works from Impressionism to Modernism and it is so, so wonderful. The Natural History Museum has updated a lot of its collections since I'd last been there, taking out a lot of the creepy taxidermied animals. Sadly, the Hope Diamond is in a temporary modern setting for its 50th anniversary that isn't as pretty as its traditional setting, but trust me, I won't be too mad at you if you plan to buy it for my birthday. The Air and Space Museum still hasn't won me over, but since it's the only place I've found to satisfy my weird obsession with freeze-dried ice cream, it's a necessary visit for me.

Oh, and possibly most importantly, I've begun my quest to find D.C.'s best cupcakes. My first was from Chinatown's Red Velvet, and it was beyond delicious: dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate chunks, decadent peanut butter icing, French salt flakes, and a salted peanut on top. I ate it for dinner (perks of being a college student...I mean really, who needs vegetables?). I've already been back and have recruited numerous friend to the cause. Next stops? Georgetown Cupcakes, Sprinkles Cupcakes, and Crumbs Bakeshop. Sorry if I'm morbidly obese the next time you see me.