I love days where I’m running around, attending different events and activities, without enough time to even sit down and eat a proper meal. Today was one of those days. 9:09am: Wake up. Wait, 9am?! Realize that I was supposed to be at work 9 minutes ago. Brush my teeth. Dress myself. Redress myself after reading my post-it reminder to wear “business casual yet formal” (we have a lot of events to go to today). 9:38am: Burst onto the 5th floor of 1413 K Street, slightly moist from the humidity that never fails to remind me how much better California weather is. Look through my purse-that-carries-the-world to find my massive bunch of keys. It’s harder than you think. One of them opens the SALDEF office. Found it! 9:41am: Start checking e-mails. Post a blog onto the website. Yell at the publishing website (no not a customer service agent, the actual page) for not having my pictures show up the way I want them to. Thank the website dearly when I finally figure it out. 10:30am: Jasjit comes in and tells us we’re leaving in 30 minutes. Great. Not enough time to post my other blog. Enough time to start working on the SALDEF posterboard I’ve wanted to get to for the past week. It’s to take with us to the Gurdwara, or any place where people might be interested in what SALDEF does. I have just enough time to print out the text. 11:40am: After some delay, we reach the Organization of Chinese Americans’ (OCA) Brown Bag Lunch location. SALDEF, along with two other organizations, is presenting on racial profiling today. These Brown Bag Lunches are just a way for interns from different organizations to come, mingle with other interns that are interested in similar issues, mostly to do with civil rights, and learn about a topic that is affecting the Asian-American community. Jasjit discussed how racial profiling, though it has recently come to the spotlight because of Arizona’s law SB1070, has always been around for Sikh Americans because of the distinct look the turban has. After the presentation we did some role playing in groups to get practice on how to effectively lobby (I mean advocate) with congressional staffers.
1:37pm: Leave the Brown Bag. Realize none of us have eaten, but we don’t have enough time to go back to the office. We have another meeting at 3:00pm. We’re near my apartment so I suggest a place. Enjoyed a decent Mediterranean lunch at Pasha Bistro on 17th. 2:54pm: Enter the meeting room for the Hate Crime National Coalition which to discuss school bullying. The coalition is trying to come to an agreement on a consensus document it should present at the Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Summit happening in August. This meeting was an amazing exposure to how behind-the-scenes Washington works, how people get things done, and how the name of a few well respected organizations on a document can go a long way to converting suggestions into concrete changes. It was a round table discussion of some very smart people who had a passion for creating a more humane society, starting at the school level. 4:11pm: Walk back to the SALDEF office. Time to really get started on this posterboard. 7:54pm: Printer stops working. By default my ambitions to finish the board today have to be stalled until tomorrow. I’m okay with that. I finished drawing in the background and laying the text down; all I need are pictures now. I’m getting hungry too. 8:25pm: Finally get home. True I was tired but the night was still young and in the life of a young intern that offered me a range of possibilities. Coming to you from 1413 K Street, Jasleen K. Singh
