Amanda joins the soup line at the FDR Memorial In Washington, DC.

Senior student Amanda Gokee took learning into her own hands this year, developing an internship at a small newspaper operating out of Georgetown in Washington, DC. Arranging her coursework at RHS to fit this semester experience, Amanda kept up with her studies while learning the ropes and writing for The Georgetowner. Below is one of her contributions to the paper. Amanda will be attending Harvard University in the fall.

A Capital Experience

Where I come from, you’re just as likely to make a bovine acquaintance as a human one, and if you’re trying to get to a gala, you’re probably in the wrong state.  But Vermont’s claims to fame don’t end there; the home of Ben and Jerry’s, great eastern skiing and real maple syrup, this small state has one big personality.  Growing up in the rural countryside of Vermont, I decided that my senior year was the time to explore.  I packed up my trusty Subaru and hit the road, heading down I95 towards Washington, to write and work for the Georgetowner Newspaper, living and breathing the culture, people, sights and essence of D.C.

My first day on the job, I was immediately swept up in the craziness that defines deadline.  Proofing, copy editing, and finding pictures like there was no tomorrow, by the end of the day I was already right at home in the second story converted house office.  But it wasn’t until my second day that I started to realize exactly what I had gotten myself into.  Expecting a call for coffee, I sat down at an editorial meeting (my first) and got my assignment.  Cover story.  Research classes that are offered in the area; cooking, art, language. Talk about jumping in with both feet; there really was no turning back, and so with an excited apprehension I started researching right away, finding local classes and weeding through the information to pick out the best and brightest.

But those first two weeks were just the beginning.  Taken under the wing of all the GMG staffers, soon I was attending my first event, a book signing in Bethesda.  The book, The Overnight Socialite, certainly drew an interesting crowd.  I weaved my way through a maze of legs clad in leather pants, encountering the blonde, buxom and botoxed, all the while taking pictures and recording names for the paper.  “Champagne? Cheese?” the hostess offered.  Certainly a contrast from the granola-crunchers we love Vermont.

Cultural differences aside, DC presented to me a mecca for all things artistic and theatrical and best of all, affordable on my nonexistent student/intern’s budget.  Perusing a free publication at a metro stop, I was soon overwhelmed with the variety of local free events. Ah, the choices!  With a pocketbook that was light at best, the free events and performances held a special place in my heart.  I selected one, a dance group that was performing at Sydney Harman Hall for one of my first ventures to the downtown area.   Feeling quite independent, I walked down the street in my new Steve Madden boots, hopped on a bus and then took the red line metro to the Verizon center, all the while inwardly extolling the virtues of public transportation.

Speaking of public transportation, I must admit that I have fallen hard, first figuratively and then literally.  Head over heels, I admired Washington’s bikers from afar at first, from my safe vantage point on the curb, with an expression of awe. Then, gaining confidence on my own bike, I proceeded to attempt a curb-hop that ended in disaster (and a dazed phone call home that scared my mother more than she would admit), but also to the detriment of a certain unsuspecting med student who had the misfortune to jump out from behind a parked car, right into my projected trajectory.  Given these biking fiascos, I have adopted a more cautious stance, banishing my dare-devil biker to the back seat.  Now I play it safe on the C&O Canal, the Capital Crescent Trail and wide, wide sidewalks (plenty of room for walkers to pass unharmed).

But working for the paper, I have gotten to know the city not only from the seat of a bike, but the seat of a delivery van.  “Oh no?” you may be thinking, ohh yes.  With the publisher behind the wheel, we set out in our Rent-a-Van with two palet-fuls of papers, in the process of “revamping” the paper route.  No street corner was left unturned, no coffee shop without its allotted bundle of Georgetowners or Downtowners.  With papers quite literally hot off the press, every other week delivery time came; I laced up my running shoes, and proceeded to help deliver a distribution of over 40,000 papers.  Many a surprised business owner gave me a quizzical glance, remarking “You don’t look like the usual delivery man!”  Far from it.  With close scrapes with the rental van, to delivering the up and coming South west waterfront, to exploring the haunts of Bethesda, we have done and seen it all. Oh, and expect us again in two weeks.

Delivery incidents aside, through my semester at the Georgetowner Newspaper I have gotten to know Washington inside and out (Sonya, the publisher, is a self proclaimed “alley queen” after all), learned the innermost workings of a newspaper and found half a dozen of the most devoted, inspiring people that make the paper what it is.  Call them crazy for working at a paper in this day and age (internet, blogs, Kindle, oh my!), but they love what they do and they do it like no one else can, 26 times a year with fresh content and a devoted following.  Recently, Siobhan, the publisher’s assistant (and all around Georgetowner guru) smiled at me, laughing as she told me “Amanda, I feel just like a proud parent!”  But just because I’ll be leaving them next year for college, doesn’t mean I won’t consider the Georgetowner a sort of home, the birthplace of my involvement in the publishing world, a place unlike any other.