Everyone in the Assembly has the last name of Davies

I started work at the Assembly yesterday and am quite pleased with my assignment. I am working for the Labour Party with Assemblyman Alun Davies (pronounced like Davis). I work alongside his full-time secretary Rhianydd (Rhi-an-the) and started out with a pile of letters and reports to respond to. I hope to get several pieces to put in my portfolio. I've been writing press releases for school progress reports, a new energy assistance program and a couple of other miscellaneous things.



Everyone at the Assembly is so nice. I'm absolutely stoked to be working here with them for the next few months. I think I'm going to fit in just fine.



Yesterday started with a quick run through security at the Assembly before obtaining our visitor passes and venturing through the rest of the building with our "program father", Mark Major. Mark is in charge of us while at the Assembly and basically takes care of all of our problems. He's quite a guy and has been nothing but nice to us. We met a few people up in the library where some of the others working for party press offices will be doing much of their research. A dapper young fellow gave us about a half hour spiel on his department and in which ways he could help us. I couldn't much concentrate on anything but his pretty blue eyes. Then we had a few of the librarians show us all the materials and resources in the library and on the computer that would be there for our use. Afterward, we met the people in the "tabling" department. They basically screen all questions that come in from constituents and prepare them for the Ministers and committees prior to the conference. Then we had lunch at a lovely (and cheap) Thai restaurant in the Quay before heading to our respective offices.



I met Rhianydd and knew immediately that we'd be friends. She's only 23 and we seem to have a lot of things in common. She took me to meet the people in the Labour Party office, including her boyfriend, and around to a couple other offices where we'd frequent. Then she sat me down and began explaining some of the work I'd be doing for the next couple of weeks. As I mentioned before, I've been doing a lot of press releases and letter writing. Then we chatted a bit and decided to call it a day around 5:00. I went home, made dinner and then went for a run and a quick workout before turning myself in to the TV the rest of the night.



Today, I worked on the pile of things given to me yesterday and finished before Rhi got back from lunch. I then chatted with Rhys, the part-timer, for a bit about soccer and rugby and whatnot. He speaks fluent Welsh and has quite an accent, but is adorable, nonetheless. I worked on some addresses for the constituency headquarters after Rhi got back from lunch and called it a day soon after. Tomorrow, I don't go in until 10 because it is a planning day where we'll set Alun's schedule and tabled questions for the next week. I will hopefully be meeting Alun on Thursday at the constituency office an hour or so drive away from the Assembly. I'm really excited to explore the constituency and get to know everyone.

I hope everyone is doing well. Sorry if this is a boring post, but I'm sure I'll have some more to report in a couple days. Miss you all!!!