First day of Parliamnet

Today was the first day at Parliament. I called Mantas Mackevicius from the Parliamentary lobby, p. Simenas' assistant, and down came this tall big figure from the stairs. He limped over to me and we introduced ourselves. As we walked over to a meeting room, I asked him how he hurt his foot. He responded 'basketball', smiled, and kept walking. Once we got into a meeting room, he showed me a slideshow of how Lithuania's Parliament is set up. There are 141 seimo nariai, or 'Parliamentary officials'. Around 70 of the officials were elected, and the rest were selected separately. When a citizen votes, he or she votes for a representative of his or her district and then votes for a party. The winning party receives around 35 seats and the 2nd place party receives 30, and as I understand it, the 3rd place party receives several other seats. Somehow, a member of a party can still run to be a representative. I'm not exactly sure how the numbers play out to 141 or how the numbers change each year, I have theories, but I am not completely sure how it works. P. Simenas was not elected. There are many committees within the government and many departments, similar to how the United States works. Each Parliamentary official has to be part of a committee. Each Parliamentary official has his or her own staff to help run things. They ether gather information, help organize, or other jobs that may be too much for the official to handle. Mantas works with communicating with people like me and other people in government.

After the presentation, a happy lady named Rita walked into the room. She showed me the room where all of Parliament does their procedure. This room has some historical and symbolical meaning from the declaration of independence. Then we went into p. Simenas' large 3-room office. In the 3rd room was p. Rita's desk and a large table for meetings. She introduced me to the office, gave me a notebook, and gave me homework to learn about all the committees and have a general understanding of how Parliament works. Afterward, I was able to meet p. Simenas. He is a nice man, he asked me how I knew about him, and then proceeded to tell me a general schedule of what we'll be doing. He told me about a meeting about what to do about CO2. Next week, I'll be going to a committee meeting, and I'll be able to see a general Parliamentary meeting. Then, Rita led me to another office for the ethics committee. The ethics committee makes sure that people don't become too mean to eachother within Parliament. Some other Parliamentary official said something to p. Simenas. Everything was recorded, and p. Rita was sure the official would have to pay somehow. Since the other official phrased his insult brilliantly, he might get away. The idea of an ethics committee for me is genius. P. Rita then showed me around the building and where some of the important locations are such as the cafeteria. We then went to the meeting p. Simenas told me about which was on CO2. Since this was an ongoing discussion, it was a bit difficult for me to follow at first. Eventually I figured out what was happening. There is going to be a contest to see which company can respond first to an announcement. The announcement is that money will be awarded if a certain amount of CO2 is buried in the ground instead of into the atmosphere. The meeting was about how to word the several-paged proposal. Certain questions did arise such as whether or not the government had a responsibility in the economy and regulating emissions. These questions were posed by p. Simenas, one of Europe's leaders in environmentalism. After the meeting, I went off to the cafeteria, ate lunch, and came back to the office. P. Rita assigned more homework. She gave me p. Simenas' copy of the Constitution and how official Parliamentary procedure works. While it seems like a lot of work, it seems necessary and most of the assignment seems like a symbol of pride of Lithuania from p. Rita. I already started to read the Constitution, and even though it is in Lithuanian, it is much more easy to read than the United States' Constitution. Many of the provisions are interesting too, such as 'family is the populastion's and the country's base'. As I was doing my homework assignment, p. Rita gave a few suggestions. Since I'm interested in politics, she did not want me to only see the bad side to politics and all the bickering I was introduced to today at the ethics committee. Even though I enjoy the efficiency of the ethics committee and how Parliament can take care of itself, she still wanted to put Parliament's best foot forward. Part of politics is also going into the communities and working outside office hours. Tomorrow, I will be visiting the more traditional Lithuanian location of a 'kaimas' or a farm with Soviet Union.

I am realizing that I am really not shadowing p. Simenas, but I becoming a member of his office staff. The office staff is like a family, and it felt like they immediately accepted me into the 'family', even though I will only be here a short time. These two weeks will be incredible weeks to see how government works.

Last night I also met a few of the people staying down the hallway. The first one I met is Belgian and speaks fluent Lithuanian. The other was deaf, so it was difficult to communicate, but it didn't matter, we watched the Zalgiris-Lietuvos Rytas basketball game. These are the only good teams in the Lithuanian basketball league. I was interested for a little bit, but then I almost fell asleep in the chair. I went to sleep at 900 while it was still bright as day outside.  I fell asleep instantly.

I woke up the next morning to go to Parliament. I timed my walk to minutes, but the 40 minutes feel great. I came back and received a call that my suitcase finally arrived. Now I feel like I'm actually clean. Then I went to the kitchen to see what I I'd need to get from the store for food. Luckily, I met two people named Tomas and Linas on the way down. They were already cooking something called an 'experiment' and made extra. I ate a good meal. I'm just happy I didn't have to go shopping for food. He lent me this computer so I don't have to walk over to the internet cafe.

Fun post of the day: 'Seimo nario asmuo neliečiamas'. Literally: 'The parliamentary official personally is not to be touched'. While I know what it means, I thought it was funny to be worded that way in the Constitution. This computer can't upload pictures, but I'll hopefully be able to upload them soon.