By Vahe Assarian

I guess the old saying is true, time flies by when you’re having fun. It felt like only yesterday that I interviewed to be an Executive Intern with the Armenian National Committee of America Western Region branch and now nine weeks have past by and only one week left, I look back and think of all the good memories that I have working at the ANCA. Since this will be my final blog with ANCA Western Region I felt that the best way to cap it off is by telling you some of the fun moments I had working here this past summer.

A fun and unique portion of our job was we had to go up to AYF camp every Friday. Every time we went to the camp there was a new group of kids and we played an educational game with them to teach them the importance of voting and how every vote does count. The way it worked was that thirty kids were selected at random and were split up into three groups of ten. In each of those groups the kids would nominate someone to represent them and run for AYF camp president. As the candidates were writing their speeches the rest of the group would return to the campers and start to lobby for their candidate. In the next part of this game the candidates were asked questions by the campers and then the candidates would give their speeches on why they would be great camp presidents and how, if they were elected, they would run the camp. The final part was the voting portion and for the most part the race was a close one! We would count up the votes and present to the camp their newly elected president.

Us interns also interacted outside the office after our shifts were over. We all enjoyed hanging out with each other in the office so we decide to go out to dinner a few times. We also went bowling and learned more about each other while having some friendly competition. This internship allowed me to build friendships with some really great people.

Other than gaining work experience, learning first hand how politics works and how challenging it is dealing with the American government, this internship has given me the opportunity to meet some great people, such as, the editor for the Asbarez newspaper, Ara Khachatourian; the editor for the Armenian Weekly newspaper Khatchig Mouradian; Congressmen Adam Schiff; and to top it all we spent a day with the author of the new hit novel “The Sandcastle Girls,” Chris Bohjalian.

Though my time here at the Armenian National Committee of America Western Region is almost over the memories I shared with my fellow interns will last forever.