Move-in Day

Today I officially began my DC experience, and the first thing I experienced was the traffic. I know DC traffic is bad, but I wasn’t expecting to hit it around 2 in the afternoon. Where is everyone going at 2 in the afternoon? Well, I followed my garmin off the tangled and twisted highways surrounding DC and ended up lost in suburbia. I “arrived at my destination,” in front of a nice single family home. Nothing close to the massive apartment building I was looking for. Turns out I typed in the wrong number in the address, so I ended up at the complete opposite end of the street where I wanted to be. So far, so good right? I reprogrammed the garmin with the ‘right’ address and continued on. I finally found my apartment and proceeded to lug my stuff out of the car. If anyone ever should get an award for overpacking, I think I would be a strong contender. Every time I start packing to go anywhere, I can always justify filling every square inch of space I have. My car was no exception. I think at some point it became a challenge to see how much I could fit in it. Well, challenge accepted and conquered.

After unloading, attempting to unpack and realizing how futile that effort was, focusing on getting some vegetables from the store (you would be so proud mom!), I finally got to sit down to focus on what I was going to be doing this summer, studying national security. This meant doing the reading and journal articles for class the next morning. That’s when I realized how excited I was for the program to start. My homework consisted of a two page article about the how the US goes to war and the current US National Security Strategy, which was roughly 60 pages. This might sound like something you would read to help you fall asleep, but I was siked to read it! Nervous about how my journal’s would be critiqued, but excited nonetheless. Tomorrow classes start and it’s a bit terrifying, surreal, and exciting. I know it will be one of my most challenging experiences, but it could also be one of my most rewarding. I’m also still a little in disbelief that tomorrow I will be studying U.S. national security in our nation’s capital. There’s just something about that that gives me goosebumps.

Day one complete, day two about to begin.