Lobbying Internship

This semester I had the amazing opportunity to do a lobbying internship through Utah State. I joined the Government Relations Council in the fall and I was later selected to be one of about a dozen interns chosen to lobby on behalf of USU.

We met once a week to discuss the importance of lobbyists, to collaborate and share resources, and to come up with a plan of attack for persuading legislators. We were asked to focus our lobbying efforts on the proposed budget cuts for USU and all the colleges and universities in Utah.

Something I didn't realize is that state legislators rely on lobbyists for most of their information about specific issues. So it was up to us to provide state legislators with information about the consequences of budget cuts. I won't get into all the boring statistics and thing, but we found out some pretty interesting stuff.

So when the legislative session started, we lobbyists started going down to the capitol about once a week to meet with legislators and sit in on committee meetings. I felt so official wearing my professional clothes and nametag! We got to talk to a lot of pretty high-up people. It got discouraging at times. A lot of legislators were a bit condescending and hard to convince. However, there were several legislators who were extremely respectful and very helpful in furthering our cause. At the beginning of the session, the proposed budget cuts were a full 7% for all colleges and universities. By the end of the session, that was decreased to about 2%. Yay lobbyists!

One of my favorite experiences happened on Aggie Ice Cream Day. It was our last day at the capitol and most of the time we just handed out ice cream to everyone that worked there. While I was in the House kitchen, Tim Cosgrove, the representative for my home district, walked in. I'd never met him before, but we had spoken on the phone and emailed a few times. I decided to introduce myself and I asked to talk to him about a bill my parents were concerned with. He asked if I had a minute then to talk to him and I said sure. So I kind of abandoned my post in the kitchen (sorry, guys) and followed Rep. Cosgrove. He took me back through some super fancy lounge areas, which was pretty exciting. Then he stops in front of these big doors and says "I'm going to take you out onto the floor with me for a few minutes."** I was SO excited I could hardly contain myself. We walk in and one of the cute old men in the green coats (called "green coats") got out a folding chair for me (it was pretty much the fanciest folding chair I've ever seen) and I sat down next to Rep. Cosgrove. I got to chill there ON THE HOUSE FLOOR with Tim Cosgrove for at least 45 minutes. Meanwhile some of my lobbyist friends were up in the gallery and I could tell they were all going "Is that Natalie? What is she doing down there?" I felt super cool. :)

**For those of you who don't know, hardly anyone is allowed on the House Floor. The general public is allowed in the House Gallery during floor time, but no one except State Representatives are allowed down on the floor (where all the legislators sit), especially when floor time is in session.... Which makes the fact that I got to go on the floor during floor time way more impressive.

Here's the picture I got with Rep. Cosgrove on the floor :)

And now for some pretty pictures of the Capitol. I fell in love with this building.

The Rotunda

The House Floor

The back of the Capitol with the reflecting pool

The back of the Capitol

Spring Semester

Let's start out by saying that Spring Semester 2011 was one of the craziest I've ever had. I took 28 credits this semester, which might have been a stupid idea. Luckily it turned out okay.

I took 5 classes and an internship. I took Business Correspondence, which was basically an English class. We learned about grammar and stuff. I've always been pretty good with grammar, but it was interesting to learn all the technicalities behind where commas are placed and whatnot. Although it was at 7:30 a.m., it was pretty fun; my neighbor Kraig was in the class with me and I got to know him pretty well. I'm pretty sure he kept me sane this semester. I came out of that class with an A, no problem. :)

I also took Dress and Humanity. I needed to take it for my Depth Humanities requirement. Oh. My. Gosh. This class turned into a much bigger hassle than I expected. My professor was a way nice lady and I really liked her; I just didn't like how she taught the class. The first couple days of class, she gave us the information for ALL the projects we would do throughout the semester. Good idea in theory, but I feel like we never talked about the requirements for the projects again until they were due. It was super frustrating. Luckily most of the projects weren't that big of a deal. We had to get into groups and do a project on what people wear in other countries (we did Switzerland) and I made a couple of friends through that. Yay friends! We also had to make a portfolio and stuff, but the project that almost made me (and my mom) explode was for the Recycle Redesign fashion show. Everyone in class had to create a (wearable) look using recycled or recyclable material. Some people are super creative and their stuff turned out great. Mine, however, was a mediocre dress made from old bedsheets I found at Deseret Industries. Then I sewed on polka dots that I'd cut out from Capri Sun pouches. I don't know what I would've done without my mom! It all ended up okay and I came out of that class with another A.

I had to take a biology class for my Depth Science requirement. It was called Plagues, Pests, and People. I was a little apprehensive because although I used to be really great at biology, I haven't taken a biology class in years. It ended up being really interesting. My professor was hilarious--he had a very sarcastic, dry sense of humor. I learned a ton and ended up totally dominating my research paper and class presentation. Unfortunately I had to deal with a bunch of obnoxious hooligans that were super disrespectful and loud all the time. Immature people are my favorite... Anyway, I ended up with yet another A. Woot!

In addition to my three MWF classes, I had two night classes. I ended up liking both of them, but I'll say that I will never take another night class if I can help it. Both these classes were about 2 1/2 hours long and extremely difficult. The first, Law and Policy, was taught by one of my all-time-favorite professors, Tony Peacock, which was the main reason why I took it. The reading material was super difficult and a lot of the lectures didn't make sense. I didn't know if that was just because it was once a week and I was out of the class-mode or if it was because the class was a little more disorganized than some of the classes I've taken from Peacock before. I also found out a month or two into the class that it was actually a graduate-level course. Surprise! I ended up with a B+ in that class. All things considered, I'll take it!

The other night class was Preparing for Law School. This was probably my favorite class this semester. And yes, I'm pretty sure we've already established that I'm crazy. Three attorneys that currently practice in Salt Lake drove up to Logan once a week to teach us. It started out just as information about law school, the LSAT, what law school is like, etc. Then they started teaching us a torts class, very similar to what we would see our first year of law school. I learned so much and feel like I can make a much better-informed decision about whether or not I will actually go to law school. This class showed me that I can do very hard things. Weird. For our midterm, we were given two hypothetical scenarios. They were emailed to us at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday and by Thursday night at 9, we had to identify and analyze every potential legal issue. It was supposed to be 20 pages long. Yes, that is a 20-page midterm written in 48 hours. Our final was similar, only we had 20 multiple-choice questions in addition to two essays, which all had to be completed in three hours. Those were the absolute shortest three hours in my entire life. I ended up with a B+ in that class as well. But again, all things considered, I'm very happy with it.

In addition to all this, I was doing a lobbying internship. More on that later.

I know I had some divine intervention this semester. There's no way I could've done it all by myself. I couldn't believe I did it. 18 doesn't seem like too big a number, but when you compare it to some friends and roommates only taking maybe 6 to 12 credits (12 credits is considered full-time), it's a whole bunch. Yay me.

Cumulative GPA: 3.84

On the non-academic side of things, there wasn't much going on. Mostly because there wasn't time for anything else to go on. I didn't have much of a social life, partially because I was living in Logan... I feel like there's not much to do. I made several new friends this semester, but they're "school friends" -- I don't really see them outside of class. Plus, I was driving home once or twice a week for most of the semester, so I didn't interact much with the people of Cache Valley.

Despite my lack of social life, some interesting things did happen with my roommates. At the beginning of the semester, we had a few new girls move in. Three of our roommates moved out in December because they got married, were moving to a sorority house, or are preparing to go on a mission. The new girls that moved in were pretty cool. I got a new bathroom buddy, Megan, who is one of the sweetest people I've ever met. Apart from a little bit of drama near the end of the semester, our whole house -- all 9 of us -- got along pretty well. I'm so glad I got to know so many great girls. Here's a random fun story: the last Sunday of the semester, I was sitting amongst my roommates when one of them got up to bear her testimony. She proceeded to tell us that for the last month and a half of the semester, she had been raising ducks in her room. Ducks. Like, quacking, pooping ducks. How did I not notice DUCKS living in my house?! I have no effing idea. It's a good thing I didn't find out about it earlier, or I probably would have freaked out. Anyone who knows me knows how much I like ducks. Or how much I loathe them, if we're being honest. But when everything came out into the open, there were only about 5 days until I was moving, so at that point there was nothing I could do about it. Ah the joys of roommates. :)

Overall, the semester was a success. I almost went crazy. Okay, I DID go crazy. Thanks to everyone who put up with my psychotic tendencies. My mom probably had to deal with it the most, getting a couple of phone calls from me every day, being forced to listen to my whining and stress-induced freakouts. It's a good thing she loves me :)

Christmas Break!

Ok, it's time to play catch-up. This semester has been absolutely insane (as I will explain further in another post). So now it's time to bring cyberspace up to speed.

My Christmas Break was super great. It was so fun to hang out with my whole family. Scott and Ashley got to visit from Pennsylvania and Melinda, Ben, Emerson, and Sammi got to visit from Ohio. Since we probably won't all be in one place again before Brad leaves on his mission, we decided to get a family picture taken. It was so fun with everyone here! We went to Ocean City for our traditional Christmas Eve Chinese food, we watched a bunch of movies, played trains a whole bunch, and just soaked up each other's awesomeness.

One of my favorite activities (and one of the few I actually documented) was making a gingerbread choo-choo train with E.


One of the movies our family got for Christmas was Toy Story 3. E would ask to watch Toy Story 3 over and over and he'd usually cozy right up to Aunt Nat :)

The rest of the break was good. I hung out with my friends and we had a couple of movie marathons. We had a Heath Ledger marathon where we watched "10 Things I Hate About You," "A Knight's Tale," and "The Dark Knight." It was a hit and everyone had a great time. Of course we had our traditional gigantic pizza from The Pie. Unfortunately, a pretty awful blizzard hit that day and what was usually about a 5-10 minute drive to The Pie became a 45-minute venture in the snow.

My friend Lundy hosted a Matt Damon marathon where they watched a couple of Bourne movies and Oceans 11. Then on New Year's Eve, Lundy hosted a New Year's Party slash X-Men marathon. That one was super fun. We all had a good time and made some new friends. It was SO fun to hang out with my guy friends again! All my best friends in high school were guys, then when they all left on missions I felt like I didn't have any friends anymore! So now they're back (or will be back soon!) and it's been a blast.

This Christmas break was one of the best. It was a great combination of spending time with family and friends and needless to say I didn't want to go back to school. Luckily, I wasn't dreading it as much as I have in the past... usually by Christmas break I'm really sick of my roommates and want nothing to do with them. This year I was pretty lucky and didn't have to deal with too many crazies :)