Work and Justice Thomas

Another fascinating update for you all... especially those of you back home reading. Please don't be afraid to leave me comments or shoot me an e-mail. I try my best to stay in touch and/or respond. I am sorry if this post seems like a much of unorganized rambling. It probably sounds like it, because it is going to be. Agh... my writing just goes down the tube when I am not in school.

Exciting news first-- I got to meet Justice Clarence Thomas this morning. Myself and the 30 or so other Hillsdale students interning in D.C. arrived by 7:45am at the Supreme Court building this morning. After Justice Thomas gave a few introductory remarks, he let us ask him a number of questions. He gave a lot of good advice and some of his ideas behind helping restore proper constitutional government. I might blog later on about some of the more specific ideas he shared with us. I want a few days to let it all digest and my mind to process and think about his words.

It was nice to see more Hillsdale people today. After work yesterday, I walked around the mall and visited ole Abe at his memorial. Emily and I grabbed a quick bite to eat at a delicious sandwhich shop before I came home. Today I saw a lot of good friends for the first time in d.c.-- Will, Zach, Liz, and others. It is nice to see familiar faces!

I have begun to settle in at my internship. Keal the friendly staff assistant has been walking me around the tunnels and showing me how to get to places. All the office buildings are connected both to each other and to the Capitol. It is a confusing mess of tunnels and floors which I am still learning how to navigate to get from place to place. Most of it is not accessible to the public which is where my awesome Capitol Hill ID helps me out. I also ate lunch in the Rayburn cafeteria on Monday and it was surprisingly good. The food looks and smells tasty... I wish Hillsdale cafetaria (aka Saga) would learn something from the government.... (that is supposed to be ironic)...

I am also learning how to answer phones, deal with constituent issues, and learning basic office functions like how to make coffee and scanning/making copies. I also get to sit in on staff meetings... including the ones with Congressman Hoekstra. I assume that some meetings are probably off limits but thus far, I have been invited in. I have been assigned to work with our legislative counsel person named Zak on Congressman Hoekstra's Constitutional amendment on parental rights. You can check it out at http://hoekstra.house.gov/parentsrights/. Currently I am compiling a database of names and organizations that might be interested in supporting this bill on a grassroots level. There is little chance of it going anywhere with the Democratic congress and president who all seem to believe an 18 member panel in Geneva is better qualified than you are when it comes to raising your children. But we need to lay the groundwork to fight this nonesense and Congressman Hoekstra is taking the initiative by leading the charge on this legislation.

I think that's about all I've got for now. Tomorrow I will be attending this day long seminar for conservative interns in Arlington. Not sure what to expect, but I get a free lunch and a free dinner :D