Petitioning

Today they trained us on how to petition out on the streets. They wanted us to get some live practice for later on in the semester. I was a little anxious but thought it would be a good experience. But I was totally taken back by the fear and reaction of others in the group. Some were extremely nervous about it. Others didn't want to do it. I guess I forget that some people don't like talking to perfect strangers on the street. Something I really would like to get better at!

I'm not going to lie, it's hard to go out into a very busy intersection trying to get busy strangers to fill out post cards. I'm talking like downtown D.C. here, no joke, suit and tie's walking around in a hurry. I stood next to a busy metro entrance and did my thing. Of course I kicked ass and went beyond the goal set. I was very proud of myself. :-)

Plus I had a ton of fun, I can't wait until Delaware!

End of Week Two

It's Friday and I awoke to find a very cloudy and raining morning. I definitely didn't mind the rain since we mostly watched movies today. We watched An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gores movie. Today was actually my first time ever seeing the movie, which often surprises people.

Why haven't I seen it before?

Well to be honest I knew I would know all the information already. Yes, that is big headed of me. I knew the movie would just piss me off! It's no secret that the U.S. hasn't done enough to combat Global Warming and that's why I'm mad. Anyways, we watched it and I of course didn't learn anything new! However, it didn't make me that mad, and that's because I AM doing something about it. In fact, in two weeks I will be in Delaware working on a campaign called Project Hot Seat _info and working very directly towards fixing the problem.

What did make me mad was the complete bullshit film they made us watch afterwards!

An Inconvenient Truth or Convenient Fiction?

It was some Global Warming Denial film and honestly it was such crap. Very vague and nonsensical, using extremely non-convincing "claims". Point being, the film tries to make people think scientists don't really know what's going on with Global Warming, when the truth is they do! We are killing the planet and we're going to be totally screwed if we don't do anything about it and fast! Anyone can see for themselves here, thousands of scientist from around the world have compiled thousands of pages of text and books. What does it all say? That we are totally fucked if we don't do something to reverse or stop Global Warming. Honestly people. We NEED our government to act!

Ok back to the point. After we watched the movies are advisors let me determine how we should discus the movie. I broke everyone up into two groups and had everyone search online to see where this "organization", (Pacific Research Institute) and this idiot guy (Steve Hayward) in the film was getting it's money from. What do you know! ExxonMobile... hmm. What a shocker.

I just don't get it. Why would oil companies try to hide the severity of Global Warming from us? When trust me, in fact they have gone through great lengths to. Why don't oil companies spend all their money on investing into renewables right now. That way they can be the first and biggest in the game. People won't hate them, well after a name change, at least. They could dominate the energy world, just, with ultra-clean and renewable energy. I just don't get the strategy. They can be just as rich if they beat everyone to the race! Instead they play some kind of game with us (the public) and hurt the environment.

I'll tell you this, they will be making NO money if the planet is thrown into complete and utter chaos by environment damage that can't be reversed.

Big Oil = Horribly Flawed Business Plan

Money

I don't have enough and I don't know what to do. :-(

Big Cities = Slow Going

I find it odd that things seem to move faster back home in Fresno, California. See in D.C. I don't have a car, while this is very very green, it's annoying! I love walking places so that doesn't bother me most of the time, but riding and waiting for the damn bus does! At home, if I got the urge to go do something, I would be up and out of my seat in less than a minute and be down the road.

Here I have to walk down the street. Wait at the bus stop for 1 minute to 45 minutes! Then get off the bus and get onto the metro. Then get off the metro and either walk or get on another bus. It takes freaken forever to get anywhere or do anything. I am either late or too early. There area I live in (Cheverly, MD) has NOTHING near by besides a 7-Eleven and a supposed gas station. Sooo I have to walk VERY far or ride the damn bus somewhere. Still don't know how to ride the bus to the store and it sucks.

Monday

I needed to badly get my haircut and redyed. I dyed my hair from bright insane blue to black, and I didn't do a great job going to black. I made an appointment to get my hair at 5. So at 3 I left for the bus and the metro. I got off at the station and I had 55 minutes. I grabbed something to eat and chilled until 5. Then I had to wait 45 damn minutes tell the guy even got to me. I decided to get the color touched up, so another 30 minutes. While washing out my hair he soaked the entire back of my shirt!! Another 15 minutes. By the time I got home it was almost 9. :-|


My Hair


Why does everything take so long here....


I think I would kill for a bike, anyone want to buy me one!?

First GOT Weekend

After GROP (inside joke) we just couldn't get enough of each other. It was Saturday night, so myself and a few people from the group and other folks, headed for some clubs in a two trendy parts of town. Adams Morgan and some other area... I was very tired but way pumped up. I felt really excited for some reason. Anyways, after a lot of waiting and the night being so late, we only ended up in two places until we called it a night.

Things weren't totally crazy and I only had one beer all night but I still had fun. I spent a lot of time talking to one of my new friends from the group. Seems like we have a lot in common as we both live to travel.


Sunday

We still needed to hang out and keep the party alive! =p So two of the lovely girls from the group hosted a party at their apartment and most of the group was there. Very nice party but I wasn't in the best of moods. Issues with a certain woman in my life left me in a crappy mood. However, I did still have fun. Just didn't show it.

GROP I mean GORP!

So to wrap up our first week in GOT, Greenpeace sent us all on a retreat in Lexington, Virginia. a.k.a. the middle of nowhere in Virginia. We all crammed into a very nice modern cabin in a forestry area. The purpose of this retreat called GORP or Greenpeace Orientation Retreat in Pennsylvania (this year it was in Virginia but the name stuck), was to build team cohesion and basically make sure we're all friends.

The weekend was filled with some expected team building exercises like untying a "human not". That's where we all grab hands in the middle of a circle and try to straight out everyones arms. That night we made our way to a campfire and all had a merry time. (Maybe a little to good of a time!)

The next evening everyone was in a very good mood and really enjoying the trip. Then we all had to make "life maps", we had to draw and map out key events in our lives on a big sheet of paper, basically events that lead us to Greenpeace and on that very trip we were on. Everyone sat quietly for about 30 minutes and made their maps. Then came the evil part. We had to present them to the group. Doing so brought back some unpleasant experiences and events for a few, including myself. The mood went from giddy and happy to unpleasant and depressing. People didn't share as much as they wanted to, myself included, but it was enough to kill the mood.

Other than the life maps the weekend was very cool. It did bring us all closer together, so the mind tricks do work. By weeks end it had felt like we all knew each other for months. Very very odd.

The First Few Days of GOT

After all this time of waiting and saving, the GOT semester started. I finally was able to put a face to the names I've been seeing for several weeks.

I meet the group and they had us play a few name games to break the ice and help remember everyone. Then we went over all the beginning stuff for the program, put us on the Metro, and took us to Greenpeace's head office in downtownish DC. We got a personal tour of this very cool "Green" building and everyone seemed very cool. Apparently we will be spending a lot of time in the office which gives us "Student Activists" a chance to meet all the green peace folks.

Lucky for us, a live protest was going down that night, at the very nice DC Nationals Stadium. Exxon Mobile wants to name one of the greenest Stadiums ever built! So a few of us GOTers got to head out and help protest in front of the stadium while others petitioned for signatures to send management. I enjoyed helping out, and of course I couldn't turn down free tickets to a game! ;-)


Once again I'm very sorry I don't have pictures. I need to get a card reader for my camera. If anyone has one for a Sony Camera, by all means, let me know.




From BlackBerry


Yay an update!

First Day Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. After all these months of waiting, I finally start the GOT program. Just one thing, they are sending us on a protest after we are done. They said it should be a 12-13 hour day. That's going to suck with my blisters on my feet. Oh well it should be a good start the program and show us just what we're in for.

Not sure if what we are doing is on the dl so I will talk about it after. This is going to be our first real life protest! I'm a bit anxious as I don't know what to expect. Wish me luck!!

Getting Settled

I have been in DC for one week now. I'm getting settled in at my new place. My roommates are very nice and everything is great. Except, the heat! It's hot here, not as hot as Fresno, but really humid! Fresno, Ca is basically a desert in the summer. Very hot and dry, but here, it looks like the mountains but feels like the rain forest. (I've been to a rain forest before)

Today I finally went to the store and got some food. I've been on the starvation diet most of this week. I don't have a car so walking is my new form of transportation, that is, when there is no bus or metro. It was a very long two mile walk. Not too bad on the way there, warm but I was going down hill. The way back however, with 40 pounds of groceries, was NOT fun. There was one very steep hill. I've been wanting to go hiking for years now, never did and this is similar I imagine. Yet, I wanted to go to the nice cool Sierra Mountains, not a damn rain forest. Anyways, I have some food now and I don't want to do that grueling walk again!!

I found a place to live

Ok I still can't upload pictures I have taken. I left the cord to my camera at home. :-/ Sooo I will have to wait tell I get a package from home. However, I got a some good pictures, I promise. Real touristy stuff.

After meeting with several people; I found a place. It's a cool house very close to the place I will need to be everyday. I meet the last roommate today for lunch and she is very cool. I was very much pleased. I guess I'll be living with just two of them for a while. I move in tomorrow. Finally, I got a place.

Oh and going out in DC is way more fun than Fresno. :-)

I am here!

So I am in DC and I FINALLY have a decent internet connection. I've been at this hotel for 2 days now and the internet has barely worked half the time. I finally routed the connection to my person server and bam! Now it works great... Why I don't know. (Way more secure this way)

It has been a hectic few days. I landed in Dulles Airport and made the HUGE mistake of staying in the area. I had to take a rip-off-taxi ride to and from the way far away metro stop. Very bad idea. It would have been cheaper to check into a much nicer and better hotel near a metro and in the city.

Now I am in the city and close enough to the metro but this hotel is costing me a lot of money every night!! I can't afford to stay here any longer. I've meet and talked to a few cool people about moving into a few places, but it looks like I will have to wait a few more days. I should have booked a bed in a hostel. Looks like everything is booked until Thursday. Damn this blows, I feel like I am bleeding out money! Some one get me a damn band-aid.

More to come tomorrow. Stay here or try for a hostel?

It's Time

It's Wednesday September 3^rd and I will moving in just 4 days! The time has really flown by... Here is what I have going on in the next few days. :-)

Friday:

• Last day of work


• Dinner with family


• Night out on the town for drinks

Saturday:

• Finish packing


• Say goodbye to everyone


• Drive to San Fransisco for the night

Sunday:

• Fly out to D.C. in the morning


• Meet potential new roommates


• Sleep