Work work all week long, punch in that clock from dusk till dawn...
Countin' the days till Friday night, thats when all the conditions are right for a good time...

These are lyrics to Alan Jackson's hit 'Good Time'. I felt it was necessary seeing as this has been my first official "job" I have had where I am in an office/warehouse (will get to that in a minute) working from 9-5....I can't stand it! I worked at Publix for 5+ years and we all know how the average teenager can use and abuse Publix, I would never really call my time there work but it gave me cash flow. Now I am actually stuck doing real work!

Heart of America is in the National Building Museum, a beautiful building. I get on the Red Line from AU and take it straight to Judiciary Square, making my morning metro right simple and convenient. My first day was great! I am working with a nice staff who were very welcoming. Overall, there is about 40 employees who work there and they always have about 3-5 interns working throughout the year; Fall, Spring and then Summer. On Monday there was only about 8 people in the office, which I though was crazy! Everyone else was out traveling for work. Wether it is "sighting" a school to see if we can remodel there, "Read Alouds" where we read to local schools with DC United, the DC soccer team, or on a "READesign" where we have our big library renovations. We have a team all the way out in Hawaii right now, as well as several other states.


We are a non-profit, which is why we are able to work where we work. It is in a museum which is a rather boring museum, but in a great location and an amazing building.

The National Building Museum

Minus admiring the building, the only fun fact I can tell you is it has 15,500,000 red bricks and is meant to be Fireproof. It served as the old Pension building. Currently they have concerts in there, the Navy holds annual ceremonies, individuals can rent it out, I was told Obama was in here a few weeks ago for a private party! Only employees and guests were allowed in the building, and that could have been me!!

So anyway, Monday was a good day. Then they informed me that I would be going to the warehouse about twice a week, most likely Tuesdays and Thursdays. I need to package up all the books we will be delivering to the schools, input Title's, ISBN Numbers and other information into spreadsheets, and label all the books HOA. So I go from that beautiful office, to my other office....the warehouse... 

Not so jaw-dropping.

I am headed back there tomorrow. I am going to try and bring my iPod, make this day somewhat entertaining. 

So Monday night one of my closest friends Sam who is also one of my roommates was staying with his family in VA, and he picked me up from the last metro stop and his family, very kindly, welcomed me for dinner and I got to spend some time with new faces, it was nice. Tuesday night, Sam came into the District. We went to Dupont Circle which is a popular area and grabbed dinner at a Mexican joint and walked around. I met two other Sigma Chis in this area, it was pretty neat, we are everywhere! 

Finally, today I got to do a little bit of exploring on my lunch hour, other than today I am sad to say I haven't really been downtown at all. I walked down a few blocks from where I intern, got a sandwich to go from this cafe and headed to Pennsylvania Avenue! I got there, had about two minutes to walk around, then had to head back before I would be late. I got to see the building for the National Archives, which was neat, and that was about it... I can not wait for the weekend to do some real exploring!

On my way back I took a different street hoping I wouldn't get lost, and saw that on the opposite side of my building was a Fire Station...thought that was pretty neat. Two of my potential careers right next to each other; firefighting and non-profits!

 

Some last bit of exciting news... I was working in the office on Monday, and John, a project Manager with HOA, came up and asked me if I would like to join them on a READesign next week. It is in Richmond, VA. So I am taking the Amtrack up on Monday morning and will be headed back to D.C. on Friday afternoon. We are doing a full library remodel in Greene Elementary School. I am pretty excited, my first READesign and it'll only be my second week there! 

Hope you're having a good week as well,

God Bless