You can shut down my government but you can’t shut down my fun!

Do not fear, blogg-readers, I was not furloughed from writing my blog, because my blog has been deemed necessary.

I don’t know how much this government shut down has affected people who don’t live in DC, but I’m personally finding it quite annoying.

Mary’s Center is the health clinic my school works in conjunction with. We could lose $525,000 this month if the government doesn’t get its act together. It super sucks because Mary’s Center serves a giant community of people in need of health services. And Mary’s Center and Briya rely heavily on government aid. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2013/10/08/shutdown-could-force-one-d-c-medical-provider-to-stop-serving-low-income-patients/ And the WIC program is losing funding! Literally taking food from babies! This is the stupidest thing ever.

But it’s not only the money problems, my house was pretty shaken up the first the first week of the shutdown. Mainly because of the unarmed lady that got shot in front of the capital on Thursday, with her one year old kid in the car. But then that Friday, a man lit himself on fire in the mall.  But we don’t even know why! Have people always been this crazy? Has life always been this crazy?

So to sum up the first month here:

Navy Yard Shooting

Government Shutdown

House get’s broken into

Police kill an unarmed women who rammed her car into the White House Gate and then drove to the capital, with her one year old in the car.

Person sets themselves on fire at the National Mall.

I’m trying to wrap my mind around this crazy city, and this crazy world. I don’t feel like I had enough time to get a sense of what DC was like before the shutdown to compare it to how it is now. I’m really curious as to how the shutdown has affected Kansas, or any place that isn’t here. I also wonder what the previous shutdown was like. Why wasn’t my 4 year old self paying more attention!!!

On the plus side, DC has a nice way of coping with the shut down. Some people don’t really take the government shut down too seriously. For instance, bars that say they are going to add an hour to “happy hour” for everyday the government is shut down, until all the hours the bar is open are “happy hours”. Or the fact that the wooden barricades to the parks (because we don’t have a state, all of our parks are federal parks and therefore closed) are knocked down and a TON of people are at the parks (probably because they are all furloughed). Or this store: 

Also on the plus side, after only a week, garbage men were deemed necessary. 

For the first time since I've been here I actually enjoyed being woken up by this crazy loud truck outside my window. 

Well goodbye good people. Maybe next time I'll actually write about what's happening in my life. Until then, here is a cute picture of me and Miriam pretending to be asleep on the metro.