Buzzwords and Acronyms

Well I made it.. sort of.

I'm in Washington D.C. for Staging, a sort of general weekend-long orientation session filled with icebreaker games and policy discussions. We speak about things like synergy and sustainability from the 15th floor conference room of our Arlington hotel. I've been making it though like I usually do... that is, with a healthy dose of sarcasm and a lack of taking myself seriously.

I have been meeting a lot of people, however, and the constant togetherness has been helping us get to know each other in a relatively short period of time. From what I can gather, it's a great group with a lot of fun and interesting people coming from all around the country, so I'm pretty excited about the next couple of years. I'm the only Floridian by the way...

Tonight a group of us walked around the National Mall for a bit after our sessions were over. I've been here in DC so many times, but this was a bit different. We got to see all the great monuments just after sunset, when the fading evening light hits the marble and granite just right, inspiring a sense of awe in anyone who happens to be standing there. Standing in the center of the WW2 Memorial at sunset was a memory I'll bring with me Bulgaria and cherish as a reminder of home. I feel like they send us away to Bulgaria from here for a reason...

Tomorrow is more meetings, more policy, more "getting to know you" activities, more of everything. It's grueling and tiring and overal pretty boring, but every meeting is one step closer to Bulgaria.

Random fact of the day: The Military Marching Band has a bigger budget than the Peace Corps. Now you know...

Until next time...