A few weeks ago, I found myself with the ultimate first-world problem: I had to figure a way around the White House, so I could get to work.

I was annoyed as I stared at the D.C. bike map on my standing desk — the roads around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue get extremely funky and hard to navigate. My life would be so much easier if that essential symbol of America and the District wasn’t there, so I could make fewer turns.

And then I realized how ridiculous I sounded.

I’m sure if I told anyone who didn’t live in D.C. that I was annoyed about having to pass the White House, this famously gorgeous and critical building, they’d be extremely confused. Isn’t passing the White House on the way to work near Eastern Market something I would’ve wanted when I was eagerly awaiting to go to GW?

With so many symbols of American politics and history all around in the District, it can be all too easy to become totally desensitized and lose an appreciation for everything that makes D.C. noteworthy. As I enter my senior year, I don’t want to take anything else about this city for granted.

I sometimes feel like I’ve become “Mr. D.C.” to friends of mine not in the area. On one level, my constant political and historical nerdiness predisposes me to be interested in what the District has to offer. Last month, I legally registered as a voter and registrant of the District. Until the Department of Motor Vehicles moves a little faster, I’ve got a massive paper print-out driver’s license in my wallet that, while not always amusing to bartenders, says that I live in D.C. I even edit the culture section of this very D.C. newspaper, meaning it is quite literally my job to think about this city and what’s happening in it constantly.

And yet, there’s almost no chance I’ll be a District resident a year from now. I worked on a campaign this summer thousands of miles away and completely fell in love with the job. The energy around the office every day was infectious. For my own campaign obsessiveness, it was simply wonderful to spend time around people who knew what I’d be talking about when I’d reference the mismanagement of a Maine Senate race from four years ago.

Because campaigns need to be close to specific voters, they are basically the only jobs in politics that are hard to do in D.C. The whole appeal — to me at least — is getting to live in and learn about the politics of everywhere from Juneau, Alaska, to Atlanta, Georgia, to be on the ground with a bunch of fellow underpaid twenty-somethings working long hours for something everyone really cares about. It’s a lot harder to find that, say, in a national D.C. based organization or, on a small-scale, a local primary. 

I also just found it extremely interesting this past summer to live in a smaller city with a much different culture than I was used to, having lived along the Acela corridor my whole life. It made me curious what living day-to-day life is like all over the country, a fascination campaigns seem hand-designed to satiate.

Maybe I could move back here some day, but I always talk about how everyone should spend a year in New York City when you’re young because of all the opportunities and classic writing about late nights in the city. I entered into love affairs with the cities of San Francisco and Chicago after I visited them this year. Life can take so many turns, so I’m not gonna bank on living in D.C. forever or maybe ever again after I graduate.

There’s 289 days from when I’m writing this article to when my lease, which validates my legal D.C. residency, expires. I don’t want to fill those 289 days thinking about what a hassle it is that my daily commute passes the White House, something that people organize entire years of their lives around for a visit that lasts less than an hour.

Instead, I want to take advantage of everything the District has to offer before my time here is up. I used to go down to the National Mall every night on a walk while listening to the evening’s New York Mets game on the radio, but at some point I stopped, too consumed at my desk with all of life’s business and readings.

I want to get back into that habit, back into seeing the glimmer of the spotlights on the Washington Monument, back into passing gawking tourists who can’t believe they’re here in America’s capital.

After many hours wandering, and many more hours editing culture pieces about the District, I feel like I’ve experienced a lot of what Northwest D.C. has to offer. But I have yet to complete my exploration of other quadrants. There’s classic D.C. events like the H Street Festival and Ben Stiller-style late night museum programming I’ve still never been to. I don’t want to miss my chance to experience those and every other little bit of culture I can squeeze out of the District.

This past week, when I was swerving to avoid getting hit by a bus while biking past the White House on H Street, I saw a guide leading a group of tourists into the White House, and I realized another D.C. essential I’d never done.

Despite getting myself worked up into a tiff about the placement of the White House in the middle of my route to work, I haven’t actually taken a tour of it, whereas millions of people — who had way fewer links to the District — had.

I’ve got 288 afternoons to fill now, after I spent this one writing this story. I know I’ll have to fill one of them traipsing through the White House, and I want to use the others to soak in my beloved college town while I’m still here.

Nick Perkins, a senior majoring in political science, is the culture editor.