On arriving in Washington at an interesting time.

"It's always going to be the POTUS when you see three helicopters coming in toward the WAMO", the nice park ranger told us, "They always come in threes". They love acronyms in Washington; POTUS is "President of the United States" and WAMO is "Washington Monument". I've been here a week, and seen it twice already, when he came back from Camp David and when he came back from Cincinnati. There is a lot of activity going on around me, and yet the life of DC just keeps on flowing. My mattress arrived today, signaling the completion of the furnishing of the apartment.

My Fellowship starts tomorrow, 9 o'clock, at the Institute of Medicine, where we will be filling out forms and learning more about what we will be doing for the next couple of months. A few of us who were in the District for Labor Day Weekend got together for a picnic near Constitution Garden on the Mall, amid some subtle rainfall. We are all nervous, excited, thrilled and hopeful that we can make a difference in this time of change. This is not just an academic exercise. We definitely have some work to do. I'll keep blogging, but probably not as frequently.