Me, at the White House.

There is a nearly audible tone of power around Pennsylvania Ave and Capitol Hill, like the kind that hums under most large cities’ financial districts. Made up of the clicks of 1000s of stylish heels and the swish of 1000s of tailored jackets, it can be intoxicating or upsetting. But unlike visiting the Financial District in San Francisco, I always feel hopeful when I walk near or through the conduits of authority in Washington DC. I see people like me–my age, my gender, my obsessively direct walk, my cell-phone glare. Even though I could hear the compromises and aspiration policy positions, underlying it all I saw a true commitment from the senior policy advisors on the panel to try and make things better. That’s nearly enough for me.

I absolutely enjoyed my time at the White House TweetUp on Tuesday and felt honored to have been invited. If you want to see me there, here’s the video of the panel.

And here’s me, staring down the camera:

A view from my seat:

Strangely touching: look at how many bikes were locked up in the internal courtyard of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at 11pm at night:

I met some new people I look forward to getting to know better through their feeds, got to talk to some current White House interns about how they like the gig, and best of all, I realized that I now know three of the people in this photo from the Oval Office from listening to them speak in person.

Talk about feeling connected to my government.

Inspirational Quote:

“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”–Henry Miller

At the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB).

I’m at the #WHTweetUp in Washington DC today. I’ll be live-tweeting the State of the Union (#SOTU) and then participating in a Q&A with senior policy makers afterwards. Check me out!

Inspirational Quote:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.”–John Donne

Tomorrow, I’ll Be at the White House.

I applied for and then was honored to win a seat at tomorrow’s State of the Union TweetUp at the White House. I’ll be live-tweeting the entire State of the Union from the Executive Office Building (where most of the staff from the White House does their work) where I will also question and listen to a panel with these incredible folks.

In all the flutter and hustle of arranging for transport and a couch to sleep on with a few days notice, preparing myself in the big ways (researching what I can expect from the President tomorrow, what he’s said in the past, what folks want him to say, what dog whistles to listen for) and little ways (deciding which pants and jacket, which shoes, which hoes) I feel incredibly rooted. This is the kind of work I enjoy doing; this is the place I want to be.

Reading over the bios of the panelists, I can feel myself making a commitment, taking notes as to how they got there, how they scrambled their way to a place where they could make national policy. I could feel myself deciding to do those things. Giving myself a timeline, an end goal, a plan.

Tomorrow, I’ll be at the White House.

It’s where I want to be.

Inspirational Quote:

“You know that in nine hundred years of time and space and I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t important.”–The Doctor

A hopeful sign.

Today is Roe v Wade day, and I have hope. Yesterday, I woke up at 6:30am to go downtown to my local clinic to walk women past pro-life protesters who are usually invigorated by terrible weather and excited by the anniversary. I got my bagel, truly the real thing which gets me out of bed when it’s still dark out, I wrestled my headphones into my ears and yanked my hood up–I wanted to postpone the moment when I would have to listen to the protesters rarely varying tunes. I walked around the corner to the clinic. Before I left the warmth of the bagel shop where a vision of the future confronted me:

No protesters.

There was no one there. Usually there are half-a-dozen older men and women wandering around with hand-written or mass-market signs. My shoulders settled down, I pull my head out of my massive hood and looked around. No one in the alley. No one on the corner. No one to dodge or skirt or avoid as I walked into the clinic.

I waited inside the clinic while our fantastic security guard shoveled the inches of snow and salted around our part of the sidewalk. The other escorts showed up, fortified with multiple layers and coffee, but no protesters came. We waited over an hour, but only clients came to the doors.

I don’t think abortions in the future will be stress-free for all women. Any physical exam, any minor surgery, for me any visit to any doctor, is a little stressful. Stress keeps me awake, keeps me aware of my surroundings, keeps me tuned-in.

But for the first time in 5 years of escorting, none of the clients were terrified, or crying, or crouching, trying to hide their ears from the cries of “Mama, Mama, don’t kill me!” and “You’ll regret this.” and “Don’t kill your baby.” and “We see women come out of there, they hurt women in there!” and their faces from the cellphone and video cameras the protesters use to document who goes into the clinic.

The patients just had to hide their ears from the 20 degree weather and their eyes from the snow. Once inside, they don’t have to avoid the glares coming through the glass and can focus on our security guard’s instructions as they walked through the metal detector. They could focus on what they came here for, had external quiet to do their own internal thinking, were permitted to feel only what they were feeling and not react to screaming and crying and bloody signs and shoving.

It was perfect.

Inspirational Quote:

“The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.”–Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg

3 Tactics For Being a Good Mentee

One of the mentees in my Dietrich College Career Mentoring Program emailed me to ask what he could do to get the most out of this 15 week experience. He’s a student in the humanities with an additional degree in art, but I believe my reply works for other fields:

1. Show up. Not just physically, but mentally, to every interaction. Come with goals, come with questions, come with ideas.
2. Follow up. If your mentor gives you a contact, send the email that day. If someone helps you, send a thank you email. So few people in the world truly follow-up, you’ll be outstanding if you do.
3. Read up. My grandmother is a working artist and was a professor of art for 30 years, so I say from stolen memory that constantly researching your field, your colleagues, and your competitors is the name of the game for an artist who wants to get paid. Get in the habit of reading the blogs of other art students, reading the reviews of your professors’ shows, writing your own reviews on your own blog or tumblr or twitter account or for the Tartan or the Cut. [Both CMU student publications]

Anyone with more experience as a mentor or mentee have anything to add?

Inspirational Quote:

“Remember, if you’re headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns!”–Allison Gappa Bottke

Signs of Life in the Snow.

I took these on my way home today:

In case you get the wrong impression, I do not like snow. As a Californian, I neither understand, nor appreciate, weather. I believe snow is something you visit, not that visits you. And I will not enjoy wearing 5 layers of clothing to escort tomorrow.

But I like finding evidence of night-hopping bunnies, of dogs, of butt-sledding children. I treasure the idea that weather can hold static the impressions of our casually lead daily lives, storing them for the equally casual pleasure of strangers who pass by. Their marks in the show give me the shape of my neighborhood and the pattern of my co-residents’ days.

Inspirational Quote:

“When snow falls, nature listens.”–Antoinette van Kleeff

Yes, Cats.

I’ve been running mentoring trainings for the Dietrich College Career Mentoring Program this week, which is one of the projects I manage at Carnegie Mellon’s Career Center. We got 18 wonderful student and alum mentors (including 2 Teach For America corps members, 2 former Obama campaign staffers, a researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and some generous undergraduates) and 12 lucky mentees, including a student from our Qatar campus (yes, some of them get 2 mentors). For anyone keeping track, my college at Carnegie Mellon used to be named “The College of Humanities and Social Sciences” and got renamed last fall to “Dietrich College” because of a fantastic donation to the school.

Given the choice, I will be silly in public. Also, I will never use bullet points on a slide show. My presentation had 2 pictures: one of Dumbledore and one of Athena as Mentor. I took 45 minutes to cover the basics of mentoring, shamelessly plugging my Mom’s work running Sun Microsystem’s mentoring program for 10 years, introducing the mentors to their mentees’ resumes, and showing them the resources they can connect their mentees to. I used two slides and lots of web browsing.

At the very end of my presentation, I showed the mentors one last resource: the tumblr I’ve developed for the class I’m teaching for the second time, “How to Get a Job.” Here was the first image they saw:

First day of class—don’t be scared.

 I know it’s been depressing and scary in the news lately, and I’ve been doing a bit more than my fair share of digging into it here. But this week, over on the blog I’ve made for my new students, I’ve done a lot of posts on interviewing. “An Interview With A Chicken (Or: so you want to work in finance but hate suits.)” talking about the Motley Fool’s eccentric interviewing practices. Posting my favorite quote on how to dress for an interview from Coco Chanel:

“Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.” 

Comparing the lion in this video to how college applicants see their interviewers:

It’s not all drama and gloom. I may be putting all of my silly on my class’s blog and all of my serious here. I’ll try to mix it up in the future.

Inspirational Quote:

“A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It’s jolted by every pebble on the road.”–Henry Ward Beecher