Get Comfy, Folks

This is going to be a long one. I'll start with today so far, so you can be immediately updated before I launch into an overly detailed description of my last couple days. I realize I write a whole lot and it's very detailed, but it's because my parents really like knowing what's going on, and I like to make them happy =)

So this morning Karin and I woke up late, got ready in about 20 minutes and met Zack, David, Yvette, Chris and sort of Mark (he was late, too, and met us there) to go to Capitol Hill Baptist for church this morning. Mark Dever is back, and since I read "9 Marks of a Healthy Church," which he wrote, I very much wanted to hear him preach. Also, despite the extremely traditional style of the church, I really like the preaching, I enjoy singing hymns, and I think the community aspect is fantastic. And it was free lunch day again.

The service was great - very traditional, and I was expecting the constant "stand up, sit down" so I didn't get so irritated by it this time. Anyways, we sang a whole lot of hymns and they prayed a ton, and then Dever came up and preached about the church - which was essentially everything I read in "9 Marks." It was in a different format (he did it through seven questions about the church), but it was basically the same information. He spent more time on certain points than others, and definitely spent a considerable amount of time on the sacraments.

It was great. This guy is extremely intelligent, and has a very engaging manner of speaking. I thought the message today was very solid, especially since I've read the long version, haha. But now I want to go and hear him actually do expositional preaching on a passage, since it is the first mark of a healthy church, after all.

The college/intern lunch was delicious. There were three types of soup: corn chowder, 15-bean, and chicken & rice. Corn chowder is one of my new favorite things (Progresso sells a great one) so I went straight for the corn chowder, and then there were little turkey, cheese and apple sandwiches on rolls and a spinach salad with fruit in it. For dessert there were fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. It was just incredibly awesome.

Mark Dever did a Q&A with us during the lunch, and people raised some interesting questions. He proved his intelligence and poise, and I was overall impressed. He actually used to be an agnostic until he became a Christian at the end of high school, and looking at where he is now, I have a whole lot of respect for him.

That's pretty much all we've done so far today. We got back about an hour ago and I was frustrated with myself for leaving my copy of "9 Marks" at home, so Karin suggested I look at the paper I wrote about it. Best idea I'd heard all day. So, I just spent a while reminding myself of the 9 marks and what I liked and disliked. I felt much better.

We have a Skype date with Juliette and Erin tonight at 5 p.m., because we found out the other day that we are first in line to get the off-campus house we've been wanting for like, two years back at Biola, and so we need to talk logistics. Then Karin and I are going to make chicken marsala. Don't worry, we're pros now - we shouldn't hav any more scary videos.

So, I suppose I should update.

Wednesday

I know what you're thinking - but she's written since Wednesday! Well, I never wrote about Wednesday night, so here it goes.

This last week was "Sex Positive" week at Georgetown University, and Shanley was writing about it for her internship. They were having an event on Wednesday night concerning celibacy, abstinence, and virginity, and she wanted to go, but she didn't want to go by herself. It sounded interesting, so Karin and I decided to go with her.

It was indeed extremely interesting. We didn't really participate in the conversation, but we were definitely active listeners. In a group of about 20-25 students sitting in a roundtable discussion, there were all types of sexual orientations and experiences. It wasn't graphic, it wasn't crude, it was just a respectful conversation being held. These students were very open with the group, and they were asking intelligent questions. There was no judgement, there was no shunning. Everyone was accepted for who they were.

I don't agree necessarily with sex positivity. I would love to. I would love to be able to say I'm a tolerant person, and whatever you do, you do - it doesn't affect me. But that's not what the Bible tells me. That's not the person that God wants me to be. However, that doesn't mean I'm not supposed to love these people. Jesus loves these people and spent his time on earth with some of the most base sinners. But loving them doesn't mean being tolerant. There is a difference. And it doesn't allow me to be judgemental either.

After the event, the three of us started heading back toward the bus and decided to go see if there was anywhere we could grab a little bit of dessert. We found a cute café called Café Bonaparte that sold crepes, and ordered sweet crepes and talked for a while. Got back to the apartments around midnight, and decided to call the Chimes office to see how production night was going and say thank you for the package I'd gotten earlier that week.

It was really nice to talk to them! I was on the phone for almost an hour and a half and got to talk to...four different people? It's nice to know you haven't been forgotten. And Kyle told me to call back again next week. We'll see =)

But I didn't go to bed until after 2 a.m., which isn't generally the best decision the night before work.

Thursday

Went to work (on time, thank you). I was pretty sleepy, but I was functioning. However, when two of the reporters I sit with asked me if I wanted to go get some caffeine with them, I was all for it.

This wasn't the first time I'd been invited to go with them, but it was the first time I had accepted, and I'm very glad I did. I think they've been wondering if I'm any fun at all, because I'm not very talkative at work due to just not being quite as comfortable as they are. Either way, I was glad I went. These two guys, Bill and Dave, are probably two of my favorites that I work with, both very funny and personable, and they asked me all kinds of questions about myself and Bill even bought my drink for me. Just nice guys.

Back to the office and I was assigned a story (after the bathroom episode) about property value assessments in the District. There was a sort of press conference at 3:30 p.m. that I needed to attend and get the info from, and until then I was supposed to do research learning about property values and taxes and all that.

Oy. I had no clue about anything about property value and taxes. So I started reading like crazy. I still didn't feel too great about it, but I headed out to the conference and arrived quite early (which I was happy about). I went into the room and there was only one guy there already, a man named Eugene from Channel 16. He was very friendly and we talked for a while about how I'm just an intern and shouldn't be too worried. Very encouraging guy.

Finally the conference started and everything went great. I didn't ask any questions because the only questions I had thought of were addressed, but it was a good experience. And everyone was just so gosh darn helpful! I walked out with a couple of business cards and a good idea of what I was going to write about.

I formulated a lede on the way back to the office, sat down, did a little transcripting, wrote my story, and sent it in to my editor before deadline. He went through the story with me, and was very positive about it. He loved my lede, we just clarified a couple of things, and then we found out some new information from one of the other reporters and added that in. But when we were done, he told me that I had been doing a great job. He told me they had been throwing me a lot of stories that I probably had no idea what I was writing about, but I was doing a good job of writing about it and he was impressed.

It felt good. Very encouraging.

Then he announced to the entire newsroom: "I just wanted to let all of you know, one of the interns just turned her story in, and not only was it within 4 words of her word limit, but it was before her deadline. You should all be ashamed."

I'm pretty sure they all wanted to slaughter me. But you know, it still felt good. Haha. So, despite a rough beginning to the week, it ended really nicely.

Headed home, made dinner, talked with Karin and Alyssa for a while, and then Karin and I climbed into the fort and watched "When Harry Met Sally" because it's awesome and Karin had never seen it.

Friday

Class in the morning, extra long lunch break, in which we had an ongoing fight with Safeway. We had ordered paper goods - paper towels, toilet paper - and a couple other odds and ends for the apartment and they were supposed to be delivered on Friday, which was a REALLY good thing because we were entirely out of both. They came, delivered, and didn't bring the TP or the paper towels. Big problem. It turned into a huge, frustrating fiasco that took three return trips from the delivery driver to get straightened out, but it eventually did get straightened out. Bleh.

We went to Ebenezers to have afternoon class, which mainly consisted of Chris Moody telling the guys (all two of them, since Chris was at CPAC) how to dress and to never wear their dress shoes right out of the store because those store people only put on one coat of shoe polish. It was a little ridiculous, and it kind made it hard to take him seriously the rest of the time.

We went to the Press Club for taco night for dinner with Alyssa, Natalee, Zack, and then Chris met us there. We were ordering drinks, and Karin ordered a Roy Rogers. It sounded good, so I ordered one too. Apparently, a Roy Rogers is not a drink that people really know about on the East Coast, because instead of receiving a tall glass filled with Coke and cherry syrup, we got short glasses that were suspiciously light-colored. I took a small test sip, realized it was definitely not what I had ordered, asked Karin if she had tried it yet, because I was pretty sure there was alcohol in it, and I was indeed correct. I have no idea what they gave us, because we didn't touch it after that first sip (there was NO covenant-breaking at all), but eventually I caught the waiter's attention and told him that these were not what we had ordered, and asked for two cherry cokes instead. He took the short glasses away and brought us our sodas. We just couldn't believe we hadn't gotten carded. Neither of us are even 21.

But the food was good, and we had a great time. After dinner, we had no plans, and the weather was gorgeous (low 60s), so we decided to just walk around and slowly make our way back to the apartments. We went to the White House, the Washington Monument (where we laid in the grass and just enjoyed the beautiful weather), and eventually the Capitol. We stopped at many points along the way, and just leisurely enjoyed the city.

Then Zack, me and Karin went to meet Mark at Union Station and we saw "Taken." I hadn't heard much about it, but Karin wanted to see it really bad and I had nothing better to do. It was really intense and I was completely taken into the story, but I really didn't like it all that much. I thought it was pretty unrealistic, and I felt like the sex trafficking part got really underplayed by Liam Neeson trying to look cool. The action parts were awesome, but it just didn't feel like it fit - the two genres weren't really intended to mix, I don't think.

Headed back to the apartments, watched Flight of the Conchords with Danielle, made cookies, and went to bed.

Saturday

Slept in. Showered. Bummed around. Then, Karin, me, Zack, Mark, and Chris went out to dinner with Christina, who was back to pick up her stuff. We went to Old Siam in Eastern Market (Thai food), and just chatted and said goodbye to her.

Came back and were going to watch "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," but it was Jason's birthday and he didn't want to watch that movie. So he chose "3:10 to Yuma," which we watched for a while, until it was interrupted by birthday cake for him (which no one really ate) and eventually order was restored enough to finish the movie, but by that time, a bunch of people were preparing to leave to go to IHOP at midnight, because ASP had a big paper due at midnight, so they were celebrating the end of the paper and Jason's birthday at IHOP. We thought about going, but it was a bit late in our opinion, and IHOP is really far away. So we just finished the movie without everyone else, watched some Arrested Development and then headed to bed.

Update complete.

P.S. Mom and Dad - I'm going to attempt to call Tuesday night this week. So don't expect me tonight. Love you!