Day 1

The first day of my internship is over. It was both fabulous and overwhelming. It's weird to be living alone in a completely strange city, but I think this kind of experience will be a good thing for me, even if I do miss Austin and home and Texas and everyone there. I'll be plenty busy. And I'm going to try to make sure I keep this thing up while I'm here.

I'll have so much to work on at the office, from new global health initiatives in Africa, to helping fact-check/edit Rosalynn Carter's new book, to planning a mental health symposium for the Fall, to working on White House initiatives for mental health insurance (apparently Bush has promised to veto the bill that my office is trying to get passed that provides more equity in mental health care. Ted Kennedy's newly discovered glioma is a huge problem because he was originally the Democrat in the Senate spearheading the effort to get that bill passed, and now he's going to be MIA. And even though Rosalynn Carter got Pelosi to get the bill on the ground, it hasn't gotten very far....politics is always like that. I remember back when literally a majority of the bills I worked on in Shapleigh's office in Austin didn't even make it to the freakin floor...).

I spent most of the day after my orientation reading applications for a Journalism Fellowship/grant that the program provides to journalists and freelance writers to cover mental health issues and reduce stigma. It was interesting.

I feel like I've learned a ton in just one day.

The Carter Center and the Presidential Library/Museum that joins it are absolutely beautiful. The Carters' offices are stunning. The artwork is ridiculously awesome (President Carter was bff with Andy Warhol!) The gardens are magnificent. The foreign dignitary meeting room is probably my favorite room. The staff I work for is wonderful. The director of my program (former assistant surgeon general might I add) is my new hero, I met with him for something like an hour today and we just talked. The other interns seem amazing, so much more well-travelled and culturally literate than I am... seriously. I have a ton of respect of Rosalynn Carter. I learned today that Jimmy Carter won a Grammy (what!), which is on display in one of the halls, among a hodgepodge of numerous other random Carter memorabilia. Holla.