hello dc

we got into dc on saturday afternoon and it's been a little bit crazy ever since. saturday night I was able to meet up with a friend from diabetes camp who's living and working/researching/schooling in virginia for a bit. it was incredibly nice to see a friendly familiar face from my pre-FEMA corps life (not that I don't love all my FEMA corps friends' faces that I see every day). sunday was a day to sleep (which I had forgotten about for a while...especially since sleep didn't exist for me all last week because I acquired a severe tick paranoia while living in st. louis...but that's behind us now...for now...). 

our first day of work began monday (which turned out to be an orientation day so I guess, technically, today, tuesday, would be considered our first day of work). my team of eight people (including my team leader) got separated into various jobs/departments within external affairs at FEMA. within external affairs are different areas, such as public affairs (dealing with reporters/media, press releases, etc), private sector (dealing with all of the businesses, etc. that FEMA works alongside with when a disaster occurs. for example, if a tornado wipes out a city then FEMA would see if there was a large store nearby, ie. target or walmart, to help bring in large amounts of water or other form of sustenance), and strategic communications (which do a lot of writing for the weekly/monthly FEMA newsletter and really anything else that needs to be written and published). those are a few areas among several others.

I work at the front desk on the floor and work directly with the director of external affairs as well as assisting with communication between him and all of the departments within EA (external affairs). I work alongside my wonderful POC (point of contact) in arranging and scheduling meetings, agendas for meetings, taking notes at meetings and passing those notes along to everyone else within the department (sometimes the higher up people including the us secretary of homeland security, janet napolitano, as well as the administrator of FEMA, craig fugate). we know what everyone's doing within EA and work to coordinate all departments and assist with having them all communicate effectively and efficiently among themselves. 

more about the job later (maybe once I have my second day at work?) in the meantime, I can't wait to celebrate america's birthday in dc complete with 4th of july attire generously donated by TG Ter (aka team guardian terri....thanks moms!)