white house

sitting in a starbucks down the street from the white house, trying to write and complete personal statements for two graduate programs I hope to apply to by the end of today. not the easiest task after the morning I've had. 

this morning, I was honored to speak at the white house in front of the national task force about my experience with FEMA corps. I greeted mr. serino, the deputy administrator of FEMA, to begin the morning and it just went from there. halfway through the morning, I followed rich serino's talk and was introduced by wendy spencer, the ceo of the corporation for national and communitiy service. I basically went over everything I have written about in this blog. in two minutes. and left out the fact that I'm keeping a blog (to sound maybe a bit more professional than just a duffel-living, van-traveling, blog-writing, boot-wearing corps member). I think it went well. 

I was approached by several members of the task force later on and thanked for both my time to speak this morning and for my service to disaster survivors. which I responded by profusely thanking them for letting me be there to speak in front of them. 

after talking with asim mishra, the deputy chief of staff at cncs, about our common experiences during our years of service and the impact it had on both our lives, I think his comment about sums it up: at 24, did you ever think you'd be casually walking by the white house after speaking in front of members from obama's administration? 

no, no I did not. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. 

needless to say, this morning was an incredible start to my 24th year (as I officially became another year older this past monday) and I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to represent national service members across the country.