To start my blog POST today, I would like to relay a short message to all of the interns in the office hating on myself, Ashley, and Aditi, and who are rooting for Chenwei as though she is a savior. “Change we can believe in,” Artair proudly repeats 27 times an hour. “She’s going to do it.” Well, not so fast kids. This party is just getting started.

My alarm set for the extra-early 6:45am, I awoke at 6:34 wide awake and ready to embark on a legendary journey. Today, my first stop was The National Academies building for the Federal Facilities Council’s conference entitled: “High-Performance Federal Buildings: Meeting EISA requirements through 2030.” Do I know what that means? Not at all and that was apparent upon my arrival to the continental breakfast. With the temperatures scorching today, I arrived at 21st and C drenched in sweat and desperately hoping to hit the breakfast jackpot. Because I only like to leave so much up to chance, I had registered the day before and I was confident and ready to eat. However, as I walked up to the security desk, I realized that, despite my foresight, I had no idea what this forum was called or what it really was about.

“What are you here for?” The security guard asked clearly skeptical of my intentions. “Uh, um, I’m here for the event,” I finally replied. “Which event sir,” she sharply retorted. Basically saying, “Don’t waste my time.” Realizing that I had no clue what the event was, I stammered, “you know, the one about buildings and things like that.” “The facilities event sir,” she murmured back clearly aware that I didn’t belong. “Yea, that one exactly.”

Behind me there was a registration table where I said hi to the hostess and grabbed a nametag. With the nametag I can do anything I thought and I followed the person in front of me into the breakfast. Immediately, I saw my sworn enemy: “Chenwei or the highway” as she ought to be referred based on all of this false hope our naïve class of interns has invested in her (and I will be more than happy to escort them all to the beltway tomorrow) After a cordial chat, I was all business. She was leaving to find “bigger and better things (my words not hers) and I was just getting started. “Oh, no,” I thought but this morning was far from over. After chomping on a bagel, eating some delicious blueberry cake, and having a couple of glasses of OJ, I headed back to the breakfast tables to grab some things to go. More cake and a bagel would do just fine I figured and it was back into the heat to try to find a second breakfast.

Pretending to answer a work call, I “stepped outside as to not disturb the other diners.” With that exit, I was off and I decided as I walked that I would check out the infamous J.W. Marriott. It was close to work and always had something going on. How could I fail?

I arrived to the Marriott and headed down to the famous conference rooms. Named after Senate buildings and governmental departments, it is a surefire place to find an important roster of events. To my delight, the entire bottom floor atrium was set up with more breakfast and drink items. Not as hungry this time around, I made my way over to the drink station first, nabbing a 20oz bottle of Dr. Pepper (for later…that is odd for breakfast, right?) and some more juice. I also made my way to the pastry table to snag a croissant and some butter. Stuffed to capacity, I headed back upstairs but not before first grabbing an areal shot of the drink buffet.

Clocking in at work at 9:04, I was impressed by my ability to enjoy two hearty breakfasts and also begin my workday the earliest time that I have in weeks (maybe a free foodathon every morning would increase productivity).

Then, after checking in with my fellow competitors, I got shocking news. Ashley had dropped out first thing this morning too weak to even find a free breakfast, Aditi had maneuvered her way into the World Bank only to find that breakfast for the event she hoped to attend was held at a neighboring hotel, and Chenwei’s “bigger and better plans” had fallen short.

Now, I’m not great at math (it’s called an open curriculum) but I’m pretty sure that that means that I have already had more meals combined than the sum of the meals of all of my competitors. In fact, you can multiply the number of meals that they have enjoyed today by two and we would still be tied. Ironically, after all that, I was alerted that there were free bagels this morning at a CAP event. No bother. I had packed enough free food in my bag for later that not even a convenient and free CAP bagel was going to pique my interest today.

Watch out for lunch and dinner. Things are heating up around here and tensions are ready to boil over. See you after lunch and stay tuned for what may turn out to be a legendary dinner…