Letter From PEA Interns in Washington

Greetings from Washington D.C.,

Here, a group of Exeter seniors have been hard at work learning the ropes, surmounting the Hill and settling into our intern chairs.

"Fortunately, we were able to settle into the rhythm of our various internships during a lengthy silent note before the violent downbeat of this week’s return to session."

This past week was another week on recess, which means that the senators and representatives are all away and the offices remained quiet before the start of the next round of arguments. Fortunately, we were able to settle into the rhythm of our various internships during a lengthy silent note before the violent downbeat of this week’s return to session.

We are all doing different work here. Some in the group have spent the bulk of their time giving tours for visiting constituents around Capitol Hill. For example, John [Woodward] seems to give a tour at least once a day. Others in the bigger offices find their days full of breaks between assignments. Most of us have spent time answering phone calls and batching constituent letters into an internal database for each office called IQ (Intranet Quorum). Christian [Flores] spent a full day at the phones on Friday when the rest of his office took advantage of the recess to get a quiet day. The volumes (of the work, of the printing machines, of the staffers bustling to and fro around the Hill) ebb and flow, just as anything else, but the work is always great.

As for the extracurricular offerings, we had the pleasure of talking to Harlan Geer, the Senior Foreign Policy Adviser for New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan (and brother of Ms. Geer!), about a career on the Hill, experiences to take advantage of at Exeter to prepare for employment and the legislative process. On Thursday, several Exeter alumni who are currently students at Georgetown University (Brian Moriarty ’16 among others), came in to speak to us about life around D.C. (where the best brunch spots are) and academic life beyond Exeter—spoiler: life without Harkness stinks.

Fortunately, we were able to enjoy the best of D.C.’s cherry blossoms on Friday morning when many of us got up at the crack of dawn (actually, 5:47 a.m.) to Uber down to the Potomac River and take photos in the early morning sunlight, behind the beautiful, bright bloom of the blossoms, with the Washington and Jefferson Memorials as our backdrops. Juan, Dr. Lim’s dog and our unofficial group mascot, joined us. Later on, some of us found our way back at night to wander along the Potomac River and stroll through the Jefferson, the Washington, the Roosevelt, the King, the Lincoln, the Vietnam, the World War II and the Korean Memorials, mostly in silence. This, not New York, is the city of giants.

Finally, in our Sunday night English class, we discussed the substance and style behind good political writing and discussed, amongst other things, whether or not Trump is a good political writer. We talked about the relationship between thought and language, and last but certainly not least, the alternatively incendiary and subliminally mollifying power of the direct, common speech of Bobby Kennedy.

The recent Zuckerberg hearings have staffers busily walking the Hill. Being in this internship program is like sitting courtside at a basketball game: you cannot join the game, you cannot really step onto the court, but you can listen to the coaches in their huddles, observe the teams call the plays and see the game from up close. Two Senate committees and the House Energy and Commerce Committee will get a chance to question Zuckerberg, and there is a mad scramble to get all of the information and coordinate all of the questions before he arrives momentarily. This is the normal frenetic pace of this city and it buzzes. What a time to be alive.

In the next couple days, Zuckerberg will continue to take this city by storm (look out for your favorite interns on C-SPAN), we will get a chance to listen to more Exeter alumni in the D.C. area, some members of the group will head on college visits (best wishes to them all!), and the group will head on downtown for Saturday visits to museums and gardens. All in all, how lucky we are to be alive right now in the greatest city in the world.

Signing off for now,

Your favorite WIPers