I am not exactly sure how to start this because The Capitol is much as it has been the entire time. 

I find it odd sometimes that it is now so normal for me to be working in the building that I do. I walk past murals, marble columns and legislators every day and now I think nothing of it. In such a short time, the most famous building in Iowa seems as familiar to me as the back of my hand.

I can not help but think that it will all fade away soon. 

I only have about a month left as a page and I worry that soon I will forget what it was like to work among such influential and lovely people. There are pages that have become legislators and there are pages that get office jobs, live in the suburbs and have four kids. I took this internship as an opportunity to expand my knowledge of the government and form valuable connections. While I think that I have made connections, in some ways I value the people I have met more than the opportunities I may take away from this job. I can not help but wonder, and am impatient to find out, if I will be the page that visits The Capitol with my children 15 years from now saying what my life used to be like, or will I be at The Capitol reporting on breaking legislation or with a desk that displays my name? 

I have a lot of time to consider ideas such as these due to the fact that I spend most of my time listening to debates in The House or waiting for the debate to start. With the first funnel being over, there are not as many committee meetings so I have a lot more time to myself during work. 

All this empty time to fill is probably a bad thing because that means that the pages have a lot more time to make poor decisions. The House Pages have our own, made-up government that we operate, and with all this free time we have become a little hostile with our personal political dealings. We only have two bills passed: one banning socks with babies on them in the House Chamber and the other banning representatives from wearing patterned ties with patterned shirts. Our spare time has led to multiple coups against our speaker, the majority leaders page, and his totalitarian ways (we did not even vote him into office). Many of these arguments over our government’s power have led to intervention from clerks and representatives, it seems that we can not even escape politics when we joke around, which is probably why we got the job in the first place. 

It would probably be in everyone’s best interest if we had less free time.