Well, hello there!
My name is Rachel and I hail from the great state of New
Jersey by way of Berlin, Germany where I am currently finishing up my MA in
European Studies. After a
whirlwind weekend which involved an 8 hour flight, packing and a long drive down
to D.C. in 94 degree weather (how does ANYONE get used to the humidity here,
anyway?!), I finally settled into our amazing accommodations at GWU located in
the aptly-named Foggy Bottom.
Less than 36 hours later, we embarked on a non-stop week of
orientation-everything from Disability 101 lessons to meeting with some of the
foremost groundbreaking leaders in the disability movement. All in all, it has
been an eye-opening experience for me; from literary presentations to in-depth
discussions, I have had the opportunity to learn more about what it means to be
a disabled individual in 21st Century America.
My favorite part of last week was probably meeting the other new interns. We are geographically as diverse as our backgrounds are; there are people from New England to California to the Great Heartlands. Not only will we learn more about cultural and disability-sensitivity from each other, I will have the opportunity to become better acquainted with people who live thousands of miles away from me and—hopefully, make lifelong friends-- and have an excuse to visit them one day!
I am really looking forward to this week. Now that I have
oiled up my bicycle, I have been biking around the city. Not only is it more
fun that cramming together with other people in the Metro, the weather has been
beautiful and the city really blooms under the non-stop sunshine. So if you see
a girl with a blue helmet biking through the ‘mean streets’ of D.C., wave ‘hi’!
Although the summer has barely begun, I can already tell
this will be a promising and eventful season.
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