Women’s Law Project

Over the last two days, we have been celebrating Lizzy’s birthday. Yesterday, we went out to Haverford and had dinner and ice cream with all of our friends. Today (Lizzy’s actual birthday) I made dinner and Kelley brought home flowers and some really nice chocolates.

It turned out quite nicely in the end, with only a few mishaps. Kelley improvised and made a flower vase out of an ice tea bottle. After a few technical difficulties whilst cooking tomato pasta and garlic bread, I felt a lot better after using some burn salve we luckily had on hand (it was bought last week after someone had an accident with an iron).

Lizzy with her birthday flowers and chocolate.

After receiving several disparaging comments about the cooking skills of myself and my roommates following my last post, I feel the need to reassure people that we will not starve this summer.

In fact, we’re starting to learn our way around our peculiarly stocked kitchen. We have two saucepans (one missing a handle) and three lids, none of which match the pans. Last night, convinced that the presence of three lids meant we had three pans, I spent 10 minutes rooting around for the hypothetical third pot, to no avail.

Health food.

The thermometer on the oven, as it turns out, bears no relation to the actual temperature in the appliance.  I haven’t worked out the exact difference yet, but I’m fairly convinced it’s about 100 degrees off. Nevertheless, I have managed to conjure up something in the oven.

We also do not own a rolling pin; a fact I discovered in the middle of trying to roll out dough today. Luckily, a Nalgene bottle appears to have fairly decent rolling pin functionality.

Fresh zucchinis from the Italian Market!

Thus, I feel like I can safely assure everybody that we will be able to sustain ourselves this summer.

Oh, and I will be posting more information about my internship soon. Since the WLP deals with a lot of confidential information I have to be extra careful that I don’t breach confidentiality and need to be attentive to this when drafting posts. I will, however, talk about my first exciting week soon!

Today  was my first day interning at the WLP. It is about 13 blocks from our apartment, which is an easy walk in the morning. (In the afternoon, it is a very hot walk back).

I met most of the staff today and one of the other summer interns. After receiving my schedule for the summer, I spent the day doing background reading on the various topics I will need to be familiar with as a Telephone Counselor. Digesting all the material about Family Law will certainly occupy me for a while –the binder the WLP gives to its trainees that briefly covers the topic is huge!

Meanwhile, on the apartment front, Lizzy and I are settling in. (We had much better luck with the Drain-O last night). Every day we’re learning a few new things about living by ourselves, mainly through trial and error.

During dinner tonight we made a few mistakes. I won’t name names, but I will say that one of us spent half an hour scrubbing the oven out after dropping her dinner upside down in it while it was hot. The other person had to scrub out her pot after burning her rice pilaf. She also irrevocably reshaped one of our brand-new measuring spoons.

At least we have 3 other spoons!

We now know, however,  how to get melted plastic off a metal pot.

It’s in the low 90s today in Philly and I’m very glad our apartment has A.C.

Yesterday, Lizzy and I met up with our friends who are living and working at Haverford this summer for dinner. We ate at a diner on South Street, which was very yummy but had gigantic portions.

Standing at Penn’s Landing.

Little did I know when I applied for this internship that I would also be learning practical life skills, such as unclogging a drain. Last night, Lizzy and I stood in our very small bathroom reading the Drain-O bottle and debating what the instructions intended for us to do. We had finally worked out the instructions and had successfully poured the liquid down the drain when Lizzy dropped her toothbrush in the sink. After confirming that Drain-O is indeed toxic to humans, I gave her a new one.

Today, I walked around Philly with some friends. As it is Memorial Day, the city was filled with tourists looking at all the sites.

After a hot, but fun, first weekend in Philly, I am excited to start my internship tomorrow.

Standing behind Independence Hall (which is unfortunately covered by scaffolding right now).

Scarcely two weeks after moving out of Haverford, I am back in Philadelphia. I’ve moved into our apartment in Queen Village (with the help of my ever-obliging parents) which I’m sharing with Lizzy Wingfield ’12 and Kelley Neil ’12. On Tuesday, I will be starting my internship.

First, a little bit about myself. My name is Lizzie Douglas and I am a rising junior at Haverford. Back in April, I declared a History major with a concentration in Peace, Justice, and Human Rights. I have been interested in the law since high school and I am looking forward to interning at a renowned Philly legal non-profit. The Women’s Law Project does amazing work which you can read all about on their website.

This is the first time I will have ever lived in a city and I am really excited. We’re living near the Italian Market and I will be working near Chinatown and Reading Terminal Market. I also plan to visit many of the museums and historical sites in Philly (always the history geek).

But before I can begin my summer adventure, I have to unpack…