Alright. I am the ultimate failure in blog updating. But, it has been an absolutely insane couple of weeks, and pretty much every spare moment I have had has gone toward working on my term paper, which was due Friday. But I am back to normal now (mostly), so hopefully here in my last week of being in DC I will keep you updated as much as I possibly can.
I have two papers to write tonight, so I'm not going to try and update you all from the very beginning of where I left off. But I will give you an update as to this weekend!
The term paper was due Friday at 5 p.m., so I was up literally all night with about 5-6 other WJCers in our classroom. It was actually a lot of fun, and we were probably much less productive than we should have been, but we covered the white board in quotes and ridiculous websites. It was a lot of fun. Although, definitely tiring.
I went to sleep around 8 a.m., and my paper wasn't done, but I felt like I had done enough in order to finish later that day. Woke up at 9:58 a.m. and went to class at 10 a.m., where we had a guest speaker who talked about our calling. He was very encouraging.
Then, during lunch I slaved away on my paper some more. Then we had another short class period. Then I finished up my paper, turned it in and headed out to Baltimore for the Orioles game at Camden Yards!
Our director, Terry, lives in Baltimore and is an Orioles fan, so he had invited us to come to the game with him. About 10 of us ended up going in two separate shifts. I was in the second shift, and we took the MARC train (commuter train) straight to the ballpark from Union Station, about an hour long ride - maybe a little longer. By the time we got there, Terry had already gotten our tickets, but he had left them at Will Call for Greg, but Greg wasn't with us, so we just kind of hung out while we waited for Greg to get there. Then when he finally got there, he picked up the tickets and didn't realize he had ours, so he went into the stadium with our tickets.
So we missed the first couple of innings, which I wasn't overly happy about, but it didn't really matter because nobody had scored by the time we got to our seats. So it wasn't too bad. Karin and I got buffalo chicken sandwiches with (totally crappy) garlic fries. They're just not garlic fries if there isn't real garlic on them. I'm spoiled by Gilroy.
Then we watched the game. It was a lot of fun. They were playing the Texas Rangers, and there was quite a bit of hitting and the music was fun. It was student night, so there were tons of really excited fans sitting around us. It was great. The park was nice, too - it reminded me quite a bit of AT&T Park, just with a brick wall where the ocean usually is.
We were exhausted, so that actually probably made the whole thing a lot more fun, because we were loopy the whole time. Good stuff.
Then we had to leave early, because we had to catch the lightrail to the bus to the metro to get home, and we had to make sure we caught the last bus. I was pretty bummed. But that's life, I guess. Life without a car, that is.
Got home and crashed. Hard.
Saturday, Danielle, Karin and I slept until noon, then woke up and went to Eastern Market to do some shopping, just for fun, and because we hadn't been there yet. It was nice, but it has been ridiculously hot here, so we were sweating bullets.
We got some tropical mango sorbet (to die for!) and I got some earrings, a little wristlet purse thing, and some fruit =)
Then we went back to the apartments and watched this week's episode of The Office (because we missed it while we were working on our papers) and then sat on the roof for a little while, and then I watched this week's Grey's.
And then a bunch of us went to dinner at the Banana Cafe. It decided to start pouring rain while we were in there, though it stopped before we left, but there was a huge lightning storm going on the whole walk back. It was fantastic.
That was pretty much it. Watched another episode of The Office and then I talked to a bunch of people from home and went to bed.
This morning, Danielle, Karin, and I woke up and went to the zoo!!! We saw all kinds of awesome animals. Elephants, hippos, PANDAS!, capybara, orangutans, gorillas, all kinds of stuff. It was sweet. Really hot, again, but really fun.
Then we found a frozen yogurt place and got some. Then we came back, where we attempted to work on our papers, but I just ended up falling asleep. Still trying to straighten my life out a bit...
Coco's sister is here for the weekend visiting, so they rented a car yesterday so they could go out to Virginia and go hiking, so we took advantage of the car and went to Target in Falls Church, Va., and then found a Red Robin for dinner. Yum!
Now we're back and I have to work. But there is a partial update!
And here is some updating from a really long time ago. I'd been working on this progressively. I'll try to fill in the holes later.
Thursday, April 9
Ended up heading home after work, made some pasta, and went down to Bible study - only to find that everyone forgot AND the first episode of The Office extravaganza was on at 8 p.m. So Jason, Jeremy, Karin, Kelsie (Karin's sister who was staying with us for the night) and I headed down to the WJC classroom (because the main lounge TV is still broken and we couldn't get in to the WJC lounge) and watched a whole lot of TV. The Office, the new Parks and Recreation show (which I don't think I like) another Office, 30 Rock, and then Coco and Phil and I watched the new Southland show. It's intense. Ryan from the OC is in it, and I just don't know if I can ever take him seriously as another character.
Anyways, we were down there until 11 p.m. and then I called my parents and talked to Karin and Kelsie a bit. And that was it.
Friday, April 10
Woke up for devotionals at 7 a.m., went back to bed. Got up and showered, and then went to Old Siam (the Thai place we love) for lunch with Karin and her whole family. Very fun - great family. Then they went off to Georgetown and I went in search of an Easter dress =)
I went to H&M off of Metro Center and had great success. They had a ton of cute stuff, perfect for Easter, and I got an adorable lavender, knee-length, half-sleeved dress with a great floral pattern around the bottom. I love it. I just want to wear it every day now.
Then I went to Target because I needed a couple of things. Then I went home, and Coco and I went to Ebenezers for the National Community Church's Good Friday service. It was really nice, and I enjoyed the time to reflect on what Good Friday really means.
We got drinks at Ebenezers, and stopped at 7/11 to get some ice cream on the way home (we were feeling needy) and then ate some real food in the apartment before attacking my ice cream. Coco found some extremely creative Peep dioramas on the Washington Post web site, so we enjoyed looking at those while we chowed down.
Then I watched "Signs" in the ASP classroom with a bunch of ASP people, and then ended up talking with Kate and one of her APU friends and Julia, then John, Jason, Geoff, Cole and David came back and we messed around for a while. Then Karin and I talked really late.
Saturday, April 11
Slept in. Woke up and went with Karin and family to the International Spy Museum. Her family finished before we did, so they went on ahead, and after we were done, Karin and I went to Chipotle before meeting up with them at the Air and Space Museum.
We didn't spend very long in the Air and Space because we were all pretty museum-ed out, so the two of us and her family walked down to the Capitol and stood on the front pavilion area and people-watched. It rained earlier in the day, but by this point it was absolutely gorgeous, sunny and warm. It was wonderful, and very fun.
Then, her family headed back to their hotel, and Karin and I headed back to the apartments, where we grabbed our grocery bags and caught the bus to Safeway. We were so fast. We were super paranoid about missing the bus on the way back that we sped quickly through our shopping and were at the bus stop about 15 minutes before the bus came. But, you know, I guess it's better to be safe than sorry.
Went back to the apartments, unloaded the groceries, checked in on Natalee Anderson (who hurt her back) and bummed around for a while before taking a shower and going to bed.
Sunday, April 12
Woke up at 5:45 a.m. to meet John, Jason, Phil, Sarah and Andrea downstairs at 6:20 a.m. so we could catch the 6:37 a.m. bus to the National Cathedral for church on Easter Sunday morning!!!
Oh man, it was early. But I generally feel much perkier on early mornings if they are holidays, so it wasn't too bad.
The National Cathedral has two services on Easter Sunday - one at 8 a.m., and one at 11 a.m. You have to have tickets if you are going to the 11 a.m. one, but we wanted to go, so we decided to brave the 8 a.m. service.
The bus dropped us off around 7:15 a.m., and we headed inside to grab awesome seats. We were in the very first section of the church. Prime seating. And we were there so early we had time to walk around and explore before the service started. Beautiful, beautiful building. Very political, though. So much for the separation of church and state.
The service was very formal. It's an Episcopalian church, so it was very liturgical. Lots of call and response stuff. Lots of prayers and hymns I'd never heard. Different words to "Christ the Lord is Risen Today."
A few key memories:
- We were standing, singing a hymn, when this boy swinging the ball on a chain walked by. The ball was clearly filled with incense of some sort, and I inhaled it while taking a breath between lines of the hymn. Coughing and choking ensued.
- I dropped my Bible at one point during the service - completely on accident. Everyone around me looked at me like I personally had put Jesus on that cross.
- The kids sitting in front of me were clearly from a family that did not attend church regularly. The youngest one was continuously poking his brother and looking around like he intentionally wanted to cause trouble. When his dad pointed out to him that we were singing our final song, the kid literally started jumping up and down and pumping his fists in the air.
- Communion w/wafer that I dipped in the "communal cup." Gross. Germs much? And Jason accidentally ate his wafer before getting to the cup, and he didn't want to drink from the cup because that's gross, so he just left the line. Skipped the whole "blood" part. Haha.
It was definitely a cool experience, though. There's an enormous gift shop downstairs, and we spent some time looking around, although, as Jason said, it felt a bit like Jesus should come and turn over all the tables and scold them for selling for profit in the house of God. But they really like their gargoyles over there, and they have a book all about the gargoyles, in addition to gargoyle puppets and stuffed animals - just what you've always needed.
Also, did you know that there is a Darth Vader gargoyle on the outside of the cathedral? It was actually intentionally carved to look like him for some contest, and it is actually on the cathedral. Nice to know that cathedral supports the Force.
We had a small misadventure on the way back, with John getting on the bus without the rest of us. But we found our way back just fine. Karin got off early to go see her family one more time before they left, and a guy got on the bus who looked exactly like what the political cartoon version of President Obama looks like.
Andrea went off to Eastern Market when we got off the bus, so the remaining four trekked back to the apartments and arrived back around 11:30 a.m. completely exhausted. But I had homework to do and potatoes to mash, so I read for a while and then began peeling the potatoes for the large Easter lunch/dinner we were having.
Everyone who was around for Easter signed up to bring some sort of food item (or two) and we created the Easter dinner of all Easter dinners. Never in my life have I been so impressed with the level of cooking college students can create. John made two 8-pound hams. With pineapple glaze. It was delicious. Phil made salmon. Kate brought chicken. We had two kinds of potatoes, garlic bread, biscuits, salad, fruit salad, green beans, some other sort of vegetable thing, fettucine, and I'm sure other things that I'm completely forgetting.
And then there was the dessert table. One apartment made a cheesecake from scratch. There were multiple types of brownies, cookies, and cakes. Holy cow.
There were about 25 of us who gathered in the ASP classroom to participate in the inhaling of this great meal. And it truly was great. Very fun. I like Easters that are celebrated in big groups like that. Feels like a big family.
After we had shoved all the food in that we could, I headed back to my apartment to read some more. About three pages in, I completely fell asleep. It was about 4:30 p.m., and I had been awake for 11 hours already and I had just filled my stomach with food. It was inevitable.
The rest of the evening consisted of me working on homework and microwaving Peeps with Coco. We were a little loopy.
Monday, April 13
Woke up not feeling very well again, so I spent most of the day in sweats and without makeup. It was nice.
Class in the morning, lunch break where I finished up my homework, class in the afternoon. Took a nap after class because I was exhausted. Then we had family dinner, which took the form of a picnic in front of the Capitol on the National Mall. It was really a lot of fun. It was kind of drizzling, but it was still cool to sit and eat pita sandwiches, pasta salad, oranges and chocolate chip cookies in front of the Capitol building.
Then I threw a frisbee with Christine, Sarah, Mandi, Jason, David, Phil, and Julia (all came and went intermittently). I like frisbee. Jason's pretty much a pro, so he was teaching me and Christine how to throw it "backhand." Harder than it looks.
Headed back to the apartments where I talked with Mandi and Sarah for a while, then we had a group WJC meeting about some weekend plans and then I went to bed.
Tuesday, April 14
Went to work. Keith was out sick, and I had two assignments: one, write an updated story about the tax day tea parties that were happening in DC the next day; two, help Freeman with the crime page, because Scott wasn't there and Freeman was writing the next day's cover story.
So I did just that. I wrote up the crime blotter with press releases he sent me, I did "this day in crime history" and I wrote a short "what's making news." I basically did half the crime page for the day. It was fun. Had Corner Bakery for lunch. Got all my work done and got an assignment for the next morning, then headed back to the apartments.
Ate some dinner, then watched "Roger and Me" by Michael Moore, and reread the chapter about that movie in my book that highly criticizes him. (My term paper I'm writing is about Michael Moore and whether he is a journalist or a propagandist.) Then I went to bed.
Wednesday, April 15
It was pouring rain, but I had been assigned to go to a press conference at the Tidal Basin, so I went anyways. There, looking straight at the Jefferson Memorial, a group of triathlon people were announcing a huge international championship triathlon that is going to be held in DC this June. I still went down to the very small conference and was treated like royalty, since I was one of three members of the press. But I got to personally interview DC Mayor Adrian Fenty and U.S. Olympian Jarrod Shoemaker, who was a member of the 2008 triathlon team. It was pretty awesome.
On my way back from the press conference, I talked with a kid named Darren who was there covering it for a triathlon magazine as we walked back to the metro. He was nice. Then I stopped at Au Bon Pain and got a cinnamon raisin bagel with honey pecan cream cheese (my new favorite food) and a chai latte, since I was cold, wet and hadn’t eaten anything yet. Then I went into the office and worked on my story for the rest of the day until around 4 p.m., when I headed out a bit early so I could stop by the grocery store on the way home.
We had decided to make sloppy joes for progressive dinner, and I had been nominated to pick up the groceries, so I did. Then, it took me an hour and a half to get home because I took the bus, but it was raining, so apparently everyone drives stupider in the rain. Bleh.
Then I got back to the apartments only to find out that we had decided to postpone progressive dinner until the following week because so many ASPers were still working on their projects. So I went up to Jason and John’s apartment to let them know we were postponing, and got looped into a big conversation with Zack, Chris, Mark, Yvette and Jason about weekend plans.
Made dinner, then spent the rest of the night on the couch with Coco reading our books for our research papers. And watching the Susan Boyle video on YouTube, haha.
I'll finish it progressively.
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