Me aka "The New Girl"

Today was my first day as an intern! Overall I think it went pretty well. I managed the commute just fine, even finding the right shuttle on the first try. :) I got to the USDA building with about 8 mins to spare and called up like I was instructed. The security people were pretty helpful - they knew I was a newbie cause I tried to open the main door and if you work there you have an ID that opens it, otherwise it's locked. Go figure...definitely threw me off my game for a few minutes.

I met another intern, in Emergency Management, while I was waiting for Joyce to come down and get me. It was nice to find out that I'm not alone in being the new girl.

Joyce came downstairs to get me, took me on a tour of the offices, and then showed me to Dr. Hogue's office. Dr. Hogue and I discussed a few things, but spent most of our time going over possible projects I could get involved in - it's going to be hard to pick just one or two to work on!

Dr. Hogue introduced me to a few more people and then left for a meeting. I found my cubicle and Joyce gave me some info on USDA APHIS AC (Animal Care) and so I spent the morning reading up on the unit and the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).

At 11:30am Joyce came to get me and we went down to get my ID badge (yay I'm official!) and tour the cafeteria and some of the rest of USDA Center. I returned to my desk, read some more, and went to lunch a bit later.

I headed to the lunchroom where I met two women (don't know their names lol); we talked for a bit about all sorts of stuff and then split off to our respective offices after lunch.

The afternoon was spent reading more and proofreading a manual on non human primate care. 4:30pm came pretty quickly and I was off to the Metro.

I decided to forgo the shuttle because I wasn't sure where it picked up people and I missed the 4:30pm one, so I walked to the station from USDA Center - about a 10 min walk. The commute home was uneventful even if I did have to put up with some annoying tourist kids. Hopefully I wasn't that obnoxious when I was in DC at age 12.

Got back to the dorm around 5:15 pm or so and chilled for a bit before heading off to the bookstore in Union Station to get a book to tide me over until I get to the library and pay the $12 to get a card. I picked up 'Pride and Prejudice' for $5...we'll see how I like reading a classic. :)

That's pretty much it for now. Will write more tomorrow of course!