PROGRESS REPORT: DAY 2 IN DC

Assalamu'alaikum....

Well here I am, day 2 of my mini-internship. Last night after work, Linda and I were really tired from our first day of work, so after watching CSI for about an hour, we were debating between walking around in the cold to the White House or just staying in for the night. Well, we decided that the White House might be too far to walk to in the cold, but we could go out for a while and get some hot drinks at Starbucks. Mind you, this was 9pm. When we arrived to the nearest Starbucks, which was 2 blocks away from the hotel, it was unfortunately closed (apparently DC residents don't drink coffeee after 6.30pm), but there was this huge white building right across the street from Starbucks that we decided to check out. It wasn't the White House, but the building next to it was. Score! The first building was actually the Treasury Department, which is pretty huge. The White House is sort of right next to it. Seeing the White House at night is pretty cool, the night wasn't too cold and the streets were very well lighted. We met up with a group of people who I think were from Australia and swapped taking pictures of each other, heheh.

On the way back, we decided to take scenic route and came very close to The Mall area. No, it's not a shopping strip, it's pretty much a garden area that's surrounded by museums and monuments. Oh, and of course a few memorials, as evident from the Washington memorial and a couple others me and Linda saw last night. Here's the Wikipedia link if you guys want more info on it. It's so near our hotel that walking around at night just to walk around The Mall is so not a big thing. Plus there were police officers all around us. Funnily enough, people were still jay-walking right in front of police vehicles. Huh. I guess it's the same mentality that brought us the "throw-thrash-under-the-No-Littering-sign" phenomenon.

Second day of work, I met with Cindy, who's survey I'm helping to proof-read and fact-check. Right now I've just came out of a 2-hour survey analysis marathon... and it's not over yet. Nyahahaha. Bengong. There's still the report to proof read, which I've already read but am gonna have to do it again because a lot of the terminology is very confusing to me. Oh well, I will prevail! Nyahah! I have to admit, as tedious as it is looking at people's responses and trying to figure out what they mean, I love doing real work. Sure, I had to buy 2 vanilla capuccinos to keep me awake, but the experience is priceless :) . Plus the cafeteria has pretty decent (if somewhat expensive) food.

Okay I better get on with work. Later!

Wassalam.