A drum roll, please.

p-u-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r…. The beginning of a drum roll is always the best part, that knee-jerk gleeful reaction of knowing that something is going to happen…. really soon! By the middle it sinks in that this raw excitement might not culminate in what I want to hear, so to avoid stressing I submit myself to excessively philosophical rationalizations of life until I’ve either a) made peace with either outcome or b) lost my train of thought and started the process again. That’s the thing about drum rolls- they’re all exclamation points and no text. Such went the last 7 days.

At work, the bulk of my time was spent finalizing preparations for a barrage of “Hill Briefings” next week. As a government entity, we are not allowed to directly ask politicians for money as that is the larger agency’s (in my case, NOAA’s) role. This rule is part of a checks-and-balances system to avoid excessive earmarking, targeted spending for a representative’s pet projects, of government funds. To keep our foot in the pond (without splashing perceptibly) we can legally ‘brief’ members of Congress on our sanctuaries and programs, especially the ones that are or could be in their district. I applied for the Knauss Fellowship in part to learn how messages pass up the chain from constituents and researchers to politicians, so this was an interesting week for me although the day-to-day preparations of briefing materials involved more paper-clipping than politicking. Next week’s trainings and meetings will be truncated for me, however, due to a more pressing demand for my presence in Alaska. By my next entry I will have defended my masters thesis! I will stick around Anchorage for another week to attend and present in a scientific conference on crab biology, so my next two updates will come from the Last Frontier.

Yesterday, in an effort to experience the political diversity of DC I wandered over to a nearby political conference. It was certainly something new, and if you find yourself in DC it is worth the effort to gaze upon the exposed roots of ideology and activism for any party.  On the opposite side of town, a couchsurfer staying with me this weekend attended an 11,000 strong youth conference on reforming energy policy in the US. She told me that last night a few thousand of them got bored and decided to storm the White House chanting ‘Wake Up, Obama!” and “What does democracy look like?/ This is what democracy looks like!”. Apparently the secret service was surprisingly benign, although snipers were in prominent display. I’m planning to check out their rally on the national mall tomorrow morning, but not the mass arrest staged at the Capitol Hill coal-fired power plant. No thanks, I have a job and a plane to catch in 3 days!

As I wait for meetings with Senators, a DC protest rally, and my thesis defense the drums roll on at a feverish pitch…. r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-at!