Well, we finally know who Deep Throat is…Mark Felt, former associate director of the FBI. Honestly, the whole thing feels kind of anti-climatic. I don’t know why…it’s just like “OMG, we know who Deep Throat is now!”

“Who is it?”

“Mark Felt!”

“Oh, OK. So, how about those Nats, eh?”

So, how did Bob Woodward and Mark Felt meet? It seems that in 1970, when young Woodward was a dashing lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, he was sent to the White House to drop off a package. Upon meeting Felt, he discovered that they had something in common:
During that year in Washington, I expended a great deal of energy trying to find things or people who were interesting. I had a college classmate who was going to clerk for Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, and I made an effort to develop a friendship with that classmate. To quell my angst and sense of drift, I was taking graduate courses at George Washington University. One course was in Shakespeare, another in international relations.

So we had two connections — graduate work at GW and work with elected representatives from our home states.

And through these connections, they developed a friendship…and the rest is history. I expect that in the next few days GW Public Relations will issue a press release claiming some credit for bringing down the Nixon Presidency.

Ah, that reminds me, another GW-Watergate link that GW loves to talk about: The Hall on Virginia Avenue dorm.

I was one of the lucky freshman that scored a room at 2601 Virginia Avenue, the former Howard Johnson hotel right across the street from the Watergate (yes, my dorm was a former hotel, and yes, it was awesome…not many college freshman can say they were “neighbours” with Bob Dole, Condoleezza Rice, and Paul O’Neill…uhh wait, is that a good thing?).

On the 7th floor of HOVA, in room 723, you could find the former surveillance post of the Watergate burglary team. From this room, they monitored conversations between DNC officials, and, on the night of June 16, 1972, a lookout watched from the balcony while the rest of the group broke into the Democratic Party’s headquarters to fix the wiretaps. And what a great job that lookout did, eh?

But there is a lesser known room that was rented by the Watergate burglar James McCord (also a GW alum, haha) as a meeting place for McCord, Howard Hunt, and G. Gordon Liddy before they moved up to the 7th floor. It was room 419:

GW finally has a facebook (It’s kind of like Friendster). Check it out at gwu.thefacebook.com. It’s growing rather quickly…

GW named “Hottest School for Political Junkies” by Newsweek:
With a campus next door to the World Bank and down the street from the White House, GW is a poli-sci major’s dream. Professors often consult for the government, which gives their classroom perspective a practical edge. The school also encourages internships at government agencies, think tanks and advocacy organizations. And for a study break, students can check out CNN’s political-affairs show “Crossfire,” which is telecast live from the campus. Another plus: the fixed-tuition plan, which keeps rates flat until graduation. You don’t need to be a policy wonk to appreciate that.

DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I once had a professor say that GW was the only college he’s ever been to that showed CNN on all the TVs in the food court and gym…apparently other schools show sports. Sports? What the hell is that??? (Oh, and GW has a fixed tuition plan? Huh?)

One of the funniest Onion articles I’ve read lately, Online University Cracks Down on Rowdy Online Fraternity:
More serious infractions involved illegal activities. In 2002, several Alpha Sigma Sigma members were arrested for purchasing alcohol from Wine.com with falsified driver’s licenses and credit-card numbers. Then, in the spring of 2003, fraternity members hacked into the web site of rival University of Phoenix Online, erased its mascot, and placed a downloaded version on their own web site. Although no one was ever charged with the theft of the copyrighted clip art, the online fraternity was warned that further misbehavior would result in serious disciplinary action.

Hmmm…but Alpha Sigma Sigma was the GW College Dems frat! I still have my letters they gave me when I was a freshman…

Interesting article from The Desert Sun. Apparently the Cabazon Band of Missions Indians, a tribe based in Indio, is prepared to enter into an agreement with The George Washington University to establish a program that teaches Native American students the finer points of political management:

The Cabazon Band of Mission Indians is working to establish a center at George Washington University to teach Indian students how to lobby, run campaigns and work with the media.

A year’s tuition at the George Washington runs about $34,000.

Seems like a great program…glad the tribe is working with GW…really, they couldn’t have picked a better place to send their future politicians, lobbyists, and campaign managers.

My Earthlink DSL has been down since last night and was just recently fixed. Apparently, the entire Southern California area was affected. How annoying.

Anyways, I uploaded all my photos from graduation week in DC. You can find them here.

I’m back in Palm Desert…unfortunately. I wish I was still in DC…I told that to a few of my friends and they laughed because all past semester, and the year before that, I complained about DC. Well, it turns out that I really like being in DC when I’m not in school…you don’t get to enjoy the city when term papers and massive amounts of reading take up a majority of your time. When you’ve got some time on your hands, though, it’s a pretty nice place to be. I think I’ll be moving back there after grad school. I love California, but not as much as I used to…

Laura, Cindy, and I visited our old freshman dorm, the Hall on Virginia Avenue (HOVA). I haven’t been back there since the day I moved out at the end of freshman year. It felt very odd to visit HOVA…not much has changed…we got to see our old room, #419…had the same sagging ceiling, chipped paint, and wonderful view of the Watergate.

On Saturday I attended the Columbian College graduation ceremony (since I was a PoliSci major…and yeah, we were definitely the rowdiest of the majors there). When I started at GW I was originally in the Engineering School as a Computer Science major, but my first programming class made me realize how much I hated CS (I also failed the course, which added to my frustration with the major I had chosen). I thought that I wanted to major in business with a concentration in information systems, so I took business classes for a semester, and what a mistake that turned out to be. The subject matter was boring and absolutely useless, and our assignments consisted of group papers and multiple choice tests (yes, I felt like I was back in the 5th grade). So I switched to Political Science and loved every minute of it. Maybe I should be thankful that I failed that computer programming course…

Graduation on the Ellipse was nice. (For those who have no idea what the Ellipse is, it is the “backyard” of the White House where various Presidential events are held). It rained in the morning, but by the time the Commencement started, the sky cleared up and we had a good amount of sun. Some might say too much sun, but don’t mind them – they are just whiny New Yorkers. One of our speakers was General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He remarked that studying in Washington DC at this time would be similar to studying in Rome at the height of the Roman empire, which I thought was an interesting observation. There were a lot of students with anti-Bush and pro-Kerry slogans taped onto their graduation caps…gotta love that. Trachtenberg also threw in an amusing statement at the end of his “Charge to Graduates”: “And you may now turn your tassels from right to left, as I hope happened to your politics in the last four years.” My mom said that some parents sitting behind her were a bit angry over that statement…leave it to SJT to stir up some controversy.

Overall, this past week was great…won some $ in Atlantic City, got to see all my friends, had a few rounds at Lindy’s, ate at Old Ebbitt, met up with one of my favorite professors, and finally graduated on the Ellipse. Pictures will be up soon…

My flight back to Palm Springs was delayed for a few hours…typical America West (aka America Worst). Another thing the really annoys me is when people bring those mini-rolling suitcases into the plane…oh, excuse me, you can’t wait 10 minutes for your luggage to come out of the carousel? I sat next to a lady today on the Phoenix to PS flight that had one of those bags. We were on a small plane, so the bag wouldn’t fit in the overhead compartment and of course she didn’t want to check it, so she put it under the seats in front of us but she took up my space too and told me I’d have to put my backpack in the overhead compartment…what the hell…well maybe I don’t want too! Ugh, those people piss me off so much.
Tomorrow I go back to work…not looking forward to it. Volume IV of Adventures in Customer Service is on the way…got quite a few complements this past week in regards to my previous entries…good to hear people are actually reading this blog.

Last night we went to Atlantic City…left the GW campus at 4pm and returned at 6:30 this morning. The trip was organized by GW and it was $32, but when we got to AC they gave us a voucher for $17 in chips to gamble with. I went to the slot machines and put $5 and the first time I pulled the bar I got three 7s…wooo $50 on my first pull. So I cashed out and took my $50, thank you very much. At Trump’s Taj Mahal I put $5 on the Jeopardy slots and worked my way up to $19, so I came home from AC with some cash.

Oh, and I got funnel cake…awesome. AC can’t come close to Vegas, but wasn’t as ghetto as I was expecting.

Today we are going to visit our old freshman dorm, HOVA! Oh, and also attempt to pickup our cap and gowns.

Well, my flight was 2 hours late into DC, so I got into National (NOT REAGAN) Airport around 12:30 at night. We skirted the Potomac when we were coming into land and had an awesome view of the monuments at night. We were landing and were literally 10 feet above the runway when the pilot decided not to land and instead climb to a few thousand feet and give us another scenic flight of the DC area…must have been a pilot in training. When I finally got to campus, Cindy, Rian, and I went to Lindy’s.

This morning we went to get Cindy some boxes and UPS Store was out so we went to the next nearest supply store…guess which one….OFFICE DEPOT. Well, I at least had a chance to put my employee discount to use. Tonight all of us are going to Atlantic City…never been there, but I know there is no way in hell it can top Vegas.

Hey, look what GW finally sent me! Yeah, that’s right…after graduating in December, I finally received my diploma.

So now I have proof that I actually graduated from GW. It occurred to me that I’ve never posted anything about what I’m doing in the future. No, I will not be working at Office Depot forever…in late September I will be moving to the United Kingdom to attend graduate school at the London School of Economics.

By now you’re thinking “Economics? What?” The full name of the university is The London School of Economics and Political Science, but that is quite possibly the longest university name in existence, so from now on I shall refer to it as LSE.

I will be pursuing a Master’s in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies. School starts in October, but I’ll probably be leaving the U.S. around September 27th…I can’t wait.

Maybe I’ll post some more stuff about LSE later (for instance, how I even came to pick that school) but for now I need to get some sleep.

I’ve only been out of GW for a few months and they’re already hitting me up for some money:

Each year, gifts from annual donors make it possible for students to attend GW, and to experience top-notch facilities, technology, and instruction. Your gift, which you can designate to any area of the University, makes this possible for current students. Your gift also strengthens the quality of your own education; each year GW rises higher in the national rankings and makes great progress toward becoming the first-tier university you and I know it to be.

HAHAHAHAHA…hey, GW, how about I pay off my student loans first?

Or will you guys at least send me my diploma? Please?

Try sending me another e-mail in 10 or so years…

Georgia’s new President: Mikhail Saakashvili

He’s only 36 years old. Wow…he led a revolution and was elected President at the young age of 36….I’m slacking.

Congrats to Mikhail, a fellow Colonial.