Welcome to Independence Gay, Bryan Blanchard's weekly blog about his experience being a summer intern for BRAVO!. We love our intern blogs and hope you enjoy following Bryan!
Week 8
July 20 -July 25, 2015
Hey guys, and welcome back to my blog! I feel like I always start off my posts with an exclamation of how “crazy” the week has been, but I'm serious this time. It’s been insane... insanely fun, I should say. Can you believe that it’s already my ninth week here in D.C.? The summer has flown by, but in that time I have learned so much about myself and about my professional ambitions.
The team has been busy this week working on events for Whitman-Walker Health, Smithsonian and couple of other non-profits in and out of D.C. Our conference calls have me filling my notebook pages with tons and tons of notes, ideas and goals to follow up on throughout the week. Jess and I have also had the opportunity to speak with several of the fall intern candidates to answer all of their questions about the BRAVO! Intern experience as our own experience draws to a close. Mini shoutout to the interns that we spoke to who are reading this, and you better be because our blogs are obviously too amazing to overlook. The events we are working on now mostly have fall dates, which means it’s going to be quite a busy semester for the new team members, and I hope they are all excited for what’s to come.
Back to me though. I'm loving it here at BRAVO! and have tried to get in on almost every project the office has open. Nancy and I just attended the kickoff meeting for the Legal Community Campaign for the Walk to End HIV. It’s always a fun time when I get to do work with Amy and Lee from Whitman-Walker Legal Services, and this meeting was no exception. However, there was a surprise for me going into this legal team meeting at Alston & Bird; Nancy asked me to take the lead on the legal outreach for the Walk. I'm really excited to work with lawyers from firms all over the city, and I can’t believe what an awesome opportunity this is.
While my excitement for these projects and events are through the roof, I am a little sad as it is Kristin’s last day in the office. Kristin is my desk neighbor, my media guru and one of the many great mentors I have at BRAVO! I'm going to miss seeing her every day, but I know Kristin is going to keep on being fabulous and will always be a part of the BRAVO! family.
Before this posts starts sounding too much like Les Mis, I’ll tell you a little bit about the amazing weekend I had. My best friend, Cassie, decided she wanted to spend her 23rd birthday with me here in the city. I was so excited to see her and to get to show her a little sliver of my life in D.C. We had a blast, and definitely made our mark on the town during her stay. Shoutout to El Centro for killing it with the high-powered fan/fog machine combo and to Nellie’s for being the perfect place to take a friend who is a self-proclaimed gay magnet.
This upcoming weekend should be interesting as my parents come to visit and actually see where and what I’ve been up to this summer. But let’s get real for a minute, it’s going to be so nice to not have to pay for food for a couple days. Side note: if you have any suggestions for restaurants to take my family to, feel free to send them to me! I'm going to wrap this up though because I'm making myself hungry talking about food. Until my next post, stay fab!