Half-Time in Washington
I'm sitting at Logan airport as I write this, headed back to Washington. A combination of meetings near home and the long holiday weekend kept me away from Congress for about a week. Somewhere during this time I realized that this is half-time for me. In about six months, I'll have completed my fellowship and I'll be getting ready to add another 500 miles to our Toyota Camry as I transition back to life on the Powwow River. (Is this where I point out that our 2007 Camry has more than 315,000 miles on it or should this information come later in this unstructured post?)
Half-time. How did I get here so quickly? And, what do I think I'm doing writing a post that is titled "Half-Time" anyway? Let's be clear, I'm not even sure what half-time is. I know that it is the halfway mark in a football game. It is also when entertainment is available for spectators. But, that's pretty much it. I don't think that other sports have half-times, do they? Baseball? Hockey? I'm at a total loss. I could look it up, but this is much more fun. But, clearly, I digress.
Half-time. That actually feels about right. It took me a long time to find my footing as a fellow. Each fellow's experience is 100% dependent on how the hosting office treats or uses fellows. I know fellows who have been integrated as full-fledged staffers into offices that are chronically short on person-power. Other fellows are covering for staffers who are out on maternity leave. Still others have been writing speeches for members of Congress. Most fellows act as additional staff in offices. They have a small "portfolio" (a nice Washington term), meaning that they might focus on health and education or immigration or human services and child abuse. In such instances, they work on legislation in their host offices that pertain to their portfolio and attend briefings that are related to their issue area. They are a set of extra hands.
That said, fellows are supposed to use their time on "the hill" to enrich themselves. This, I did not understand when I arrived in Washington. I got some sense of that during our two-week crash course, but it became much more apparent when I actually got settled into an office. I really struggled with having unstructured time without the crushing workload that academia brings me every [stop] single [stop] day. In academia, there is always something due tomorrow. As a fellow, I haven't been exposed to this kind of pressure. It is a luxury to have time to absorb this massive and fascinating place that runs that most powerful country in the world. In the world! On my runs around the Capitol Hill neighborhood and onto the National Mall, I still find myself pausing and staring at the massive infrastructure and I take comfort in feeling dwarfed by their presence. Oh, but I have digressed again. Back to being a fellow...
It took me a couple of months to realize that just sitting and reading the news while physically being in a Congressional office is useful. I read the emails that only come to those with Congressional email addresses. I look things up that I don't understand. I ask questions from the experienced staffers around me. I attend briefings that interest me and even better, I go to briefings and events "off hill" that are sponsored by the Urban Institute or Brookings and the like. The purpose of a fellowship is for it to be an educationally, culturally, and intellectually enriching time. And, I am doing my best to make sure that this is the case.
I've always maintained that part of what makes unique and time-limited experiences especially treasured is being mindful of the fact that they are both unique and time-limited and more. This was true for me when both my sister and I were in the same PhD program together - at the same university, with the same faculty, and the same curriculum. It was like being given a few extra years of our childhood together - an opportunity to forge even more common ground. Or, when I was a postdoc at the University of New Hampshire, which was where I met Murray Straus. Knowing that the experience was time-limited and that rarely would I ever again have the opportunity to focus exclusively on scholarship, free from the responsibilities of an all-consuming academic job made it even more special. (I was wrong about that - I had that opportunity two more times, brought about by a fellowship and a sabbatical.)
So, I try to be mindful of the opportunity that lay at my feet. I had no idea what I would learn when I came to Washington. My goal was to try to be as open as possible to whatever experience I was going to have. So far that has worked. We'll see what happens next.
That's it, folks. No half-time show. Only a very G-rated blog post from what is now 40,000 feet in the air. I'll keep everyone posted about the second half of this adventure.
Half-time. How did I get here so quickly? And, what do I think I'm doing writing a post that is titled "Half-Time" anyway? Let's be clear, I'm not even sure what half-time is. I know that it is the halfway mark in a football game. It is also when entertainment is available for spectators. But, that's pretty much it. I don't think that other sports have half-times, do they? Baseball? Hockey? I'm at a total loss. I could look it up, but this is much more fun. But, clearly, I digress.
Half-time. That actually feels about right. It took me a long time to find my footing as a fellow. Each fellow's experience is 100% dependent on how the hosting office treats or uses fellows. I know fellows who have been integrated as full-fledged staffers into offices that are chronically short on person-power. Other fellows are covering for staffers who are out on maternity leave. Still others have been writing speeches for members of Congress. Most fellows act as additional staff in offices. They have a small "portfolio" (a nice Washington term), meaning that they might focus on health and education or immigration or human services and child abuse. In such instances, they work on legislation in their host offices that pertain to their portfolio and attend briefings that are related to their issue area. They are a set of extra hands.
That said, fellows are supposed to use their time on "the hill" to enrich themselves. This, I did not understand when I arrived in Washington. I got some sense of that during our two-week crash course, but it became much more apparent when I actually got settled into an office. I really struggled with having unstructured time without the crushing workload that academia brings me every [stop] single [stop] day. In academia, there is always something due tomorrow. As a fellow, I haven't been exposed to this kind of pressure. It is a luxury to have time to absorb this massive and fascinating place that runs that most powerful country in the world. In the world! On my runs around the Capitol Hill neighborhood and onto the National Mall, I still find myself pausing and staring at the massive infrastructure and I take comfort in feeling dwarfed by their presence. Oh, but I have digressed again. Back to being a fellow...
It took me a couple of months to realize that just sitting and reading the news while physically being in a Congressional office is useful. I read the emails that only come to those with Congressional email addresses. I look things up that I don't understand. I ask questions from the experienced staffers around me. I attend briefings that interest me and even better, I go to briefings and events "off hill" that are sponsored by the Urban Institute or Brookings and the like. The purpose of a fellowship is for it to be an educationally, culturally, and intellectually enriching time. And, I am doing my best to make sure that this is the case.
For example, in this coming week I am attending a session hosted
by the Congressional Research Service, Congress:
An Introduction to Process and Resources. Other upcoming or recent events that I have attended have included:
- To P or not to P? Understanding Statistical Significance and its Role in Developing Evidence for Policy Making, hosted by the National Council on Family Relations
- Applying the Adverse Childhood ExperiencesFramework to Fatality Review and Prevention, hosted by the National Center for the Review & Prevention of Child Deaths
- Online Sex Trafficking of Children onBackpage, hosted by My Life My Choice, Shared Hoped International, and ECPAT-USA
- Reducing Wealth Inequalities andProtecting Consumers at Tax Time and Beyond, hosted by Tax Credits for Workers and their Families and the Corporation for Enterprise Development
- Punctuation Pointers, hosted by the folks who are in charge of professional development for federal employees (the name escapes me now!)
I've always maintained that part of what makes unique and time-limited experiences especially treasured is being mindful of the fact that they are both unique and time-limited and more. This was true for me when both my sister and I were in the same PhD program together - at the same university, with the same faculty, and the same curriculum. It was like being given a few extra years of our childhood together - an opportunity to forge even more common ground. Or, when I was a postdoc at the University of New Hampshire, which was where I met Murray Straus. Knowing that the experience was time-limited and that rarely would I ever again have the opportunity to focus exclusively on scholarship, free from the responsibilities of an all-consuming academic job made it even more special. (I was wrong about that - I had that opportunity two more times, brought about by a fellowship and a sabbatical.)
So, I try to be mindful of the opportunity that lay at my feet. I had no idea what I would learn when I came to Washington. My goal was to try to be as open as possible to whatever experience I was going to have. So far that has worked. We'll see what happens next.
That's it, folks. No half-time show. Only a very G-rated blog post from what is now 40,000 feet in the air. I'll keep everyone posted about the second half of this adventure.
Nice entry, Em!
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