I live!
Hello everyone!! Sorry I've been dead for a while as far as communication goes. I don't even have that great of an excuse other than that I found out my cousin has World of Warcraft on his computer. It was sitting there, collecting internet dust (he's more of a first person shooter guy), so I'm giving it a good workout before the subscription runs out :D
Work is still going well. Yesterday was a little rough just because I was exhausted and we were doing a project that required approval on each step before we could move on. So, we would do a part hten wait for the (busy) lawyer to look it over which translated to more waiting than working and I wasn't at my desk so there wasn't really anything to do in the downtime. I was trying to stay awake most of the time, which was hard. Today was much better, though, mostly because I didn't stay up till 2 last night.
I finshed the project that I was working on yesterday which resulted in a large spiffy map of all the coal plants currently being contested. I'll take a pic of it tomorrow to post because I'm pretty proud of it and it looks cool. It's also cool that everyone was calling it "my project" and complimenting me which made me very happy.
This was all for this donor lunch we're having today to educate our donors on the coal plant problem. I did a lot of research on it for some of the other visuals they had and learned some scary things. For example: did you know that one coal plant emits more CO2 than an average country in Africa? And did you know that coal-fired plants are the single largest human-caused source of mercury in the environment? And there have been a bunch of deaths from particulate matter (SO2) in the air, and coal plants produce a TON. The Sierra Club Law Program is fighting 3 proposed coal-plants in Florida, too, and got one of them nixed that was going to be built near the Everglades! Go us!
At work, they're also doing these things called "Brown Bag Lunches" where the interns bring their lunch to the conference room and one of the lawyers gives a mini lecture on a certain topic that will help us when we become lawyers. Today was the first one and I was very happy that I could go since most of the topics are geared toward the law-school interns. It was very interesting, even more so because it was done by the head of the entire Law Program, who was always a very intimidating man to me from the time I met him. He was always very professional and serious, especially when compared to the other lawyers who are all big goofs, cracking jokes and stopping to talk to anyone they feel like. But I had been working with him on the above project and I found out that he was a lot nicer than I thought, if still a little serious. At the Brown Bag, though, I was really surprised because he was making jokes about his age and even cursing a time or two. Then we got to go into his office, which was covered wall to wall in pictures drawn by his 5 year old son. I'm not really intimidated by him anymore, which is good :D
Anyway, I had a very happy b-day. Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, it was much appreciated and made me feel loved. April and Brian took me to a vegan, raw restaurant called Cafe Gratitude that was really interesting and totally hippie which I loved! All the food had these crazy names like "I am terrific" and "I am beautiful" which felt a little silly to say, but was strangely fun at the same time. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed having an ENTIRE menu to choose from rather tan one or two things. The food was FANTASTIC, too, even Brian and April liked it and said they'd go back. April told hte waitress it was my birthday, and I got the best (and most embarrassing) birthday song. They put the Karaoke version of The Beatle's "Birthday" song on the restaurant speakers and ALL the employees came out and sang it to me at the top of their lungs. This one guy cracked me up, too, because he was really getting into it, jumping up and down and clapping like a goof.
I've decided that when (thinking positively now) I get into UC Berkeley, I'm working at Cafe Gratitude. Cool people, cool atmosphere, and there wasn't a single customer in there that looked uptight or cranky. Who could be when they're saying things like "I am cheerful?" Also, the employee discount would be a big plus.
Work is still going well. Yesterday was a little rough just because I was exhausted and we were doing a project that required approval on each step before we could move on. So, we would do a part hten wait for the (busy) lawyer to look it over which translated to more waiting than working and I wasn't at my desk so there wasn't really anything to do in the downtime. I was trying to stay awake most of the time, which was hard. Today was much better, though, mostly because I didn't stay up till 2 last night.
I finshed the project that I was working on yesterday which resulted in a large spiffy map of all the coal plants currently being contested. I'll take a pic of it tomorrow to post because I'm pretty proud of it and it looks cool. It's also cool that everyone was calling it "my project" and complimenting me which made me very happy.
This was all for this donor lunch we're having today to educate our donors on the coal plant problem. I did a lot of research on it for some of the other visuals they had and learned some scary things. For example: did you know that one coal plant emits more CO2 than an average country in Africa? And did you know that coal-fired plants are the single largest human-caused source of mercury in the environment? And there have been a bunch of deaths from particulate matter (SO2) in the air, and coal plants produce a TON. The Sierra Club Law Program is fighting 3 proposed coal-plants in Florida, too, and got one of them nixed that was going to be built near the Everglades! Go us!
At work, they're also doing these things called "Brown Bag Lunches" where the interns bring their lunch to the conference room and one of the lawyers gives a mini lecture on a certain topic that will help us when we become lawyers. Today was the first one and I was very happy that I could go since most of the topics are geared toward the law-school interns. It was very interesting, even more so because it was done by the head of the entire Law Program, who was always a very intimidating man to me from the time I met him. He was always very professional and serious, especially when compared to the other lawyers who are all big goofs, cracking jokes and stopping to talk to anyone they feel like. But I had been working with him on the above project and I found out that he was a lot nicer than I thought, if still a little serious. At the Brown Bag, though, I was really surprised because he was making jokes about his age and even cursing a time or two. Then we got to go into his office, which was covered wall to wall in pictures drawn by his 5 year old son. I'm not really intimidated by him anymore, which is good :D
Anyway, I had a very happy b-day. Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, it was much appreciated and made me feel loved. April and Brian took me to a vegan, raw restaurant called Cafe Gratitude that was really interesting and totally hippie which I loved! All the food had these crazy names like "I am terrific" and "I am beautiful" which felt a little silly to say, but was strangely fun at the same time. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed having an ENTIRE menu to choose from rather tan one or two things. The food was FANTASTIC, too, even Brian and April liked it and said they'd go back. April told hte waitress it was my birthday, and I got the best (and most embarrassing) birthday song. They put the Karaoke version of The Beatle's "Birthday" song on the restaurant speakers and ALL the employees came out and sang it to me at the top of their lungs. This one guy cracked me up, too, because he was really getting into it, jumping up and down and clapping like a goof.
I've decided that when (thinking positively now) I get into UC Berkeley, I'm working at Cafe Gratitude. Cool people, cool atmosphere, and there wasn't a single customer in there that looked uptight or cranky. Who could be when they're saying things like "I am cheerful?" Also, the employee discount would be a big plus.