Entries by Gartland, Neal

Week 2

Leadership Curriculum- Monday started off with a speech writing seminar with professional speech writers such as Kevin O’Sullivan. It was very informative and gave us some good pointers for the rest of us who have to undertake our leadership moments. We each split into task forces in which we will look at various aspects of the program. I’m involved in WIPAN which will encourage alumni of WIP to all stay together in contact, promote the ideas of the programme and not just sail off into the sunset for a quiet life….we will hunt you down!

Work Placement- There is something melodic about hearing the sound of your suit shoes click underneath you on the marble floor. Its similar to the feeling you have when you sit at the top of a table of a boardroom, sipping a latte and barking out orders….it says “I’ve arrived”!!!. As I started my work placement in the US Senate for democratic Senator Tom Harkin I was with the power brokers and policy makers of D.C, the leaders of huge NGO’s, the powerful and the influential….and amongst all this….and the sound of those clicking shoes, I realized!......I’m not one of them!  My internship got off to a fantastic start but you do realize that the more you learn, the less you knew. I realized it would take me a lot more experience in everything from legislation to committees, from networking to influencing people. I hope that my internship will sharpen all these skills. They are the nicest people in my office and I thank Cathy Wolf for organising such a good internship. I feel though, working in an Iowan Senators office, I will come out with more knowledge of the farm bill, of soybean exports and of ethanol than anyone could imagine possible.

Ice Cream Social- We met on the Friday evening on the roof top of WIP HQ and enjoyed vanilla ice cream with a wide range of toppings due to the demands of one Aileen Gittens. It was a lovely evening for all us “professional interns” to unwind after what was a hectic but exciting week as we watched the sunset over the gorgeous city of D.C.

Thursday 12th June----MY BIRTHDAY

J.O Elementary Wilson school was an amazing event, we all taught the children for an hour. Everyone did a fabulous job and the kids loved it. It humbles you to see these kids in what is a quite run down school just the day after our private tour of the library of congress with its Consul General. I believe this is very important as after all, the whole ethos of the program is about leadership AND service. As it was my birthday, which I possibly hinted about 324 times and sent 56 emails about, the group totally surprised me with a huge cake, card, presents and hair gel! Everyone sang me Happy Birthday and it was really special to me having been so far away from home on my 21st. They all made such a big effort and I thank then, the Management team and Megan for doing that all for me!!!..t'was Brilliant

We then hastily changed into our suits in the library of the school (although I was annoyed at the lack of mirrors to use my new gel) and headed to Capitol Hill to meet Senator Leahy on Capitol Hill. We stood for ageeessss in the heat and the only way to deal with it is to utter the words, what doesn't kill you will make you stronger!!! It was very kind of him to give up his time for 26 Irish kids and we all got that famous WIP photo on the Capitol steps!!! The tour guides were interns and I personally know more about the sheep farming techniques of Northern Finland than they did about their own US Capitol. It was funny to watch them stress and make up stuff and listen to their lack of knowledge about Europe, "Do they get American Movies in Ireland?"

NB: Ensure I use all the wikipedia resources I can find when I have to do Capitol tours on my internship

That night alot of us went out for a meal and a few drinks at Jury's, as it was my 21st I left a while later a bit more 'merry' than what I had been. It was soo much fun and we all had a good chat about everything that was going on. It feels like the time is passing soooo quickly here.....

Wednesday 11th June

Today Laurens host mother (the one with the pool......i withhold my scaving jealousy) showed us around the Library of Congress, with 1.3 million items covering everything from the first map ever made showing America as a whole to Churchill's report card to all the latest books published. I will never again utter the words I've nothing interesting to read (....well..no...i most likely will as I enjoy moaning) but to tour the building and see some private archived documents such as the telegram sent to the US from Pearl Harbour informing them of the attack really was a privilege. We also had to prepare a class to entertain the young kids of JO Wilson school the next day, Maria and I volunteered to be the teachers and so we had to work on that which was alot of fun as the rest of the group were planning to Irish sing, dance, play music and teach the kids some Irish words. Me, Judith, the gentleman that is Alan, Luke, Lauren and the "Buggy" headed to Georgetown for tea and some shopping. Such a gorgeous area and immediately I found a place where I could combine my two passions in life.....buying things...and drinking! I was very impressed with the area and with the team all mixing in outings to different places for lunch, dinner or a drink its great the way we are all getting to know each other and forge really firm friendships... :):):)

Tuesday 10th June

Today after a personality test where I discovered I was Green i.e have a need to be super organised at all times, we embarked on Oakleys Death Tour. Now I'll set the scene for you, we were in D.C, it was built on a swamp, it has some of the highest humidity found on earth (well.....maybe not but its my story and I can write what I like), we were in near 40 degrees heat and in day 3 of three consecutive days of temp at least in the 90s, a first since 1993. So where do we go......we could go to a pool and relax with a mojito or possibly a shopping Mall to enjoy the coffee with some wee deserved air conditioning ....no...no, what we do is we walk the whole way around Arlingotn Cemetary, Lincoln Memorial and FDR Memorial. Now I was told we would sweat in D.C, but I never expected this, we were all hot, sweaty and drudging our way through the memorials in the splitting heat. I believe it is here where true friendships are made as it did not matter what you did...everyone looked like they were suffeering from a lack of water, when we found a garden hose we all clambered round it to fill our bottles, it was like we'd found the holy grail!. We bonded so closely that we each shared the driest shirt to wipe our brows......friends for life! On a more serious note however Arlington was fantastic, we saw the funeral of what we assumed was a WW2 veteran and I believe it is the only correct way to honour the fallen men and women who have died or served in the armed forces, from the Civil War right up tot he War in Iraq and its a place where it drives home to you, more than anywhere else possibly, the commitment these people have made for our democracy. Lincoln Memorial was huge...and provided a welcome break from the sun, it is also where Judith found her artistic talent for taking pictures and where we learnt that the birds in Washington will literally attack you if you for your food should you take the risk of sitting on a veranda to drink your bucket of coke and ton of fries.

Monday 9th June 2008

Met everyone outside the Whitehouse this morning and we walked the two blocks to the WIP office. Was a bit of an experience getting my way into the city using the metro. The metro halls are so huge and are about 10 stories underneath the city which you go down into via huge, steep escalators (thos of you with a fear of heights need not apply). In the words of Karen Walker it really is like watching hundreds of little people all rushing about on tiny little trains shooting about underneath the subway in magical tunnels. Ok...the tunnels might not be that magical but the fact its clean and the trains come every few minutes make it all quite magical compared tot he shambles of Northern Ireland Railways. Went to the Newseum in the afternoon and for the aspiring journalists in our group it was totally their little piece of heaven. It had some amazing exhibits inclusing the top of Tower one from the WTC and the views over DC from its roof are fab. Elaine even commented that you would never get a view of the whitehouse like you can fromt he top of the Newseum, which is very true considering the fact she was looking at the US Capitol.

Sunday 8th June

Today involved me walking around Bethesda, the area I live in, with my oakleys and my ipod. Feeling like I had tons of "fake" money (American dollars don't feel like real money just yet, after all, my spending money just doubled from pounds to dollars) I had to go and buy frivolous things such as a journal and a krispy kreme. The town is lovely and the house is gorgeous. Everyone is being so kind and generous. We all went to a local BBQ and met the other interns in our local area. I got to know my family a good bit better and feel that I'll really get on well with them. The rest of the day was spent unpacking my 36 kg suitcase (take note: the limit was 23kg) Mine was the heaviest out of the whole WIP team...but what can I say....I had to bring my 5 tubs of hair gel, dvds, laptop, 4 pair of shoes (I've been accused of being high maintance...I disagree...ahem) and other things such as jumpers and hoodies, now what was I thinking bringing jumpers in thsi heat??????? Believe me when I say the less clothes the better, this is not for reasons you might think but actually with the humidity over here if I could get away with walking around D.C in my floral print swimming shorts instead of a suit.....I would!!!!

WEEK 1

Saturday 7th June

I slowly climbed upon the Bus Eireann at 4am and through hazy, sleep filled eyes I saw a few of my fellow “WIP" comrades at the back of thus bus, each stretched out over a few seats, half sleeping and taking full advantage of all the luxuries an airport coach affords…..this was the start of Phase Two of the Washington Ireland Program…our 8 weeks in D.C. After a nearly a day of travelling I arrived at Reagan airport. The heat hit us all immediately, it makes Spain’s climate look chilly day in Portrush!!! I excitedly ran and hugged my new host mom….only thing was…she wasn’t actually mine. I was driven to my host house by the fabulous Terry and settled in pretty quickly. The family which included Amy ,Rob, three kids, 2 dogs, fish, a hamster and two birds were so kind to open up their home to me. They are so laid back, kind and liberal (important to me as an affiliated Democrat. I was given two rules, 1, Lock the Gate and 2, Eat what I want. They also didn’t mind me going out as it was soon my 21st!!!!, this was very fortunate for me as I eat like a horse and am now commonly known as the group party animal!!!

Today was an enjoyable mix of both work and play. We went to the Northern Ireland Bureau for a luncheon where four of my fellow "Wippers" enjoyed their "leadership" moment. The lunch was a huge success which was a real credit to Rebecca Davis who had the primary responsibility for organisng it all. Elaine, Sarah, Gary and Andrew set the standard high with their speeches outlining their thoughts and feelings on Northern Ireland. It was brave of them to go first and speak in a professional manner to a room full of complete and semi complete strangers, a room full of exerts from the fields of politics, business, law; And of course a roomful of their fellow "Wippers" who were so proud that their fellow "ducklings" as Elaine put it, had done such an amazing job.

Tonight we all went to the home of host Mom Lenor who showed so much kindness opening up her home to a bunch of fancy dressed ( in my case cross dressed) foreign kids and their host families. It was a great night for us all to rewind and relax after a busy week. It was also an opportunity for us all on the team to get to know each other better beneath our blue body paint, tiger stripes, sparkles and feather boas..I of course was elated at winning "best dressed", check out the next edition of Hello magazine for all the shots!!!!