What Whitney has been doing for inauguration...

Starting at 2pm on Saturday, I started working a one week program for my old nonprofit the Close Up Foundation. Basically, I'm in charge of 240 kids and ten instructors. Some highlights:

• A false fire alarm at 2am on Sunday morning which forced my kids to evacuate the hotel.
• Helping herd 3,000 kids amongst 500,000 people during the Sunday inauguration concert using only...glow sticks.
• Seeing Sheryl Crow jog along the National Mall.
• Navigating five charter buses around the city when they closed the bridges 12 hours earlier than they said they would!
• Metroing a student back to the hotel due to "female problems"
• A former Close Up coworker coming up to me and SCREAMING, "IN YOUR FACE!" (rubbing in Obama's win).

But what makes it all worth it are moments like last night. We conduct a mock election activity for the students to elect a president. The winner was an intelligent, but socially awkward kid who you could tell really cared. He won by one vote. Everyone was shocked. The person who came in second seemed to have been a shoe-in. Who did the runner up vote for? The socially awkward kid! How heart-warming is that!?