The Madness is All in the Head

March Madness has taken over my office. Almost the only thing anyone talks about, aside from the stories we work on, is basketball.

I have never participated in March Madness. I have never really had a desire to participate in March Madness. But here I go, and I'm actually kind of excited about it.

I've chosen Louisville and Syracuse for the final two teams, with Louisville winning the whole thing. Honestly, there wasn't a whole lot of strategy involved. It was a whole lot of guessing. I'll just have to wait and see.

Here is the link to my census story:

http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/Data-Loudoun-growth-finally-slowing-41443802.html

I was complimented on it this morning by one of the other reporters, Dave. Yay =)

Left the office yesterday around 5 p.m., took the Metro home, called Grandma Vera and talked to her a bit while I walked home. Then Danielle and I set to work in the kitchen, making french bread pizza.

It turned out awesome. we had way too much cheese, and I probably could have put a little more sauce on, but overall, it was really good. The bread was nice and crispy, everything melted together well. Yum. We made four loaves of french bread, so eight pizzas, essentially. A lot of it got eaten, but we had a decent amount left over. Probably not quite a whole loaf. It will be good for leftovers.

The boys made meatballs in barbecue sauce for the appetizer, and the girls next door made a chocolate banana peanut butter cake for dessert. Pretty much to die for. It was highly successful progressive dinner.

We also continued our now tradition of asking a question and having everyone answer it. We found out which law people would break if they could get away with it, and what color they would like their skin to be if it could be any color (blue, green, etc.). Then, before we ate dessert, we played telephone pictionary (where you have the packet of papers, you write a phrase on the first one, then the next person draws what you wrote, and the next person writes what the previous person drew, etc.). It was so great. I just adore that game. They always turn out so funny.

Karin and I had a very important Skype date with Erin and Juliette at 8:30 p.m., so we left right as the game was over, and we didn't get dessert - but they brought us some while we were talking. It was delicious. We ate it while we Skyped. And Erin and Juliette were jealous.

Then I started cleaning up the dishes from dinner. Then I got distracted and went next door and talked with Mandi for a while. Then I went back to my apartment and finished doing the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen (we had made quite a mess). Then I filled out my brackets, since they had to be done by noon today and I didn't know what this morning would hold, and then I went to bed.

Today I woke up on time and got to work on time and all good things like that. I don't have a story I'm working on today, but I have to have a 3-minute interview done by tomorrow, so I'm working on that. And I'm meeting up with Natalee for lunch at Subway, so that will be a nice break.

Also, I flat out CANNOT get Billy Joel out of my head. It's been like, 3 days. This is getting ridiculous.

Oh, and the people at work finally realized how old I am. The reporter who waves at me funny, Bill, was saying something about getting a pint with someone, and then he looked at me, and said something like, "I'll never make you get a pint with me, though, Rachelle."

I just kind of laughed and shook my head.

"You don't drink at all, though, right?" he said.

"Well, I'm not even 21 yet," I said.

He was in disbelief. "What?!? No. You're kidding me. How old are you then?"

I told him I was 20. "You wear it well," he said in response. That's encouraging. At least people don't think I'm super young. That's part of the goal. Not that I want to be older, it's just that people don't take me as seriously when they think I'm younger. If I want to get my job done, I need to look a bit older. So that means it's working.

Haha.

"That Hasn't Happened For the Longest Time"

Yesterday I wrote a story about the Maryland Senate passing a ban on texting while driving. That story can be viewed at the following link.

http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/Maryland-Senate-votes-to-ban-text-messaging-while-driving-41405357.html

I was happy to get this story assignment because it was pretty interesting. I liked doing the research and all, but I had major problems trying to get a hold of people to do interviews with. I was trying to talk to areas that already have a ban on texting while driving, so I contacted the police departments in both DC and LA (my editor wanted me to compare it to CA's law). But neither of them were very helpful at all. Too many hoops to jump through.

And then I was trying to contact some of the senators who sponsored this bill, but they were next to impossible to contact, too. They were all in committee meetings all day, and I finally had one call me back around 6 p.m. Fortunately, I was able to add his quotes to the story even though I had already sent it in.

But I was proud of that story. Despite the fact that pretty much no one was helping me very much, I still got it done. It felt good.

Went home. As I walked out of Union Station, a homeless man was singing "The Longest Time" by Billy Joel, which totally made my day, and I sang it basically the entire rest of the way home. Then as I passed by Armand's, a group of middle schoolers came out of the pizza place and one of their chaperones said, "Everybody! Look!!!" and pointed toward Union Station. "It's the SUN!!!"

I have no idea where these people were from. Alaska maybe? But they all clapped and cheered for the sun. So funny.

I got looped into a March Madness pool at work - I kept telling the guy next to me that I genuinely don't understand the whole thing and I probably shouldn't do it. It went like this:

Scott: "Hey, want to be a part of our March Madness pool?"
Me: "Um, to be honest, I super don't understand the whole thing so I don't think that would really make sense."
S: "Oh, come on, it will be fun! It's not a big deal. And it's really easy."
Me: "Yeah, I don't think it's a great idea. I seriously don't get it."
S: "All you have to do is....*tries to explain it to me*"
Me: *Stares blankly*
S: "I'll just send you an invite. It will be fun."

So I'm in. Coco was trying to help me last night. I've been trying to do my research and learn about the teams and everything, but I just do not have time for that. So I googled "March Madness for Dummies" and found some very helpful blogs that give all kinds of tips. We'll see how it goes.

I spent a chunk of time working on my brackets. Then John brought us St. Patrick's Day cupcakes with lime-flavored frosting and green Jelly Bellies on top. Then I talked to my parents. And that was it.

Today I overslept (which is never a good idea on early deadline day) and got into the office around 10:20 a.m. I had a story assignment already that I had been given yesterday, and I had hoped to get some work done on it yesterday afternoon, but since I had such issues with the texting story, I didn't get a chance to do any work on it. And my deadline was like, no later than 1 p.m. today. So, needless to say, I was a little stressed out when I got to work.

Fortunately, getting a hold of the people I needed to talk to today was MUCH easier than yesterday, and I immediately got a hold of two people who were very helpful and basically made my whole story a breeze. I had it written and filed by noon - that's 400 words in an hour and a half! Woot!

I was pretty proud. So I got lunch at Corner Bakery and have just been hanging out, doing little pieces of work and reading. I'm making french bread pizza for progressive dinner tonight. It's actually kind of nice that Wednesdays are early deadline days, because it means I can get home early and help with progressive dinner stuff. Yay!

And then we have a Skype date with Erin and Juel tonight. That's pretty much it. I'll post the link to my census story I wrote today as soon as it goes up!

Stories

Eastern Market story:

http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/EasternMarketvendorsforcedtorelocateduringrefurbishing.html

Traffic story:

http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/Capital-Beltway-crash-snarls-morning-traffic-in-NoVa-Md-Fairfax-Dulles-toll-road-41159117.html

Failed Karaoke, Hillary Clinton and the NEWSeum

Friday

Well, the 20/20 viewing party on Friday night was a bit of a flop. It was really crowded and pretty boring, so Karin, Alyssa and I hightailed it out of there pretty quickly. We stayed for about 45 minutes, I think. We met some people from the Heritage Foundation, which was alright.

After we left, we figured we were in Dupont, so we might as well hang out for a little while. So we got ice cream at Larry's Homemade Ice Cream and Cupcake Shop and talked and had fun. Then we went over to Chad's house and watched a movie with him and some guys that live in his house.

Saturday

I slept until 1 p.m., woke up, realized my bread was moldy, my milk was sour and I had no fresh anything left. But I managed to find two pieces of bread that weren't moldy and make some toast. I also had cereal, but that was how I discovered the milk was sour. So, clearly I didn't finish it.

Took a shower and went to the American History Museum with Sarah and Christine from next door (both ASP). There were pretty much a million people there (spring break, jr. high trips, etc.), and we had to literally stand in lines to get into each exhibit we wanted to look at. But it was still fun. We got to see the ruby slippers, Kermit, Oscar the Grouch, the speed skates of Apollo Anton Ohno, the First Ladies' Exhibit, a bunch of old musical instruments, a bunch of Abraham Lincoln stuff, presidents' stuff, etc. It was fun.

We went back to the apartments and relaxed a bit. Then, we had girl's night.

A return trip to the now familar area of Alexandria and King Street was made, and we headed to the Rock It Grill for a night of karaoke...that didn't happen. Unfortunately, you have to be 21 to get into this karoake night, and at least half of our group of nine girls were not 21. So, the karaoke-ing didn't happen. But we ended up at a Tex-Mex place down the street that was really good. We demolished six baskets of chips with salsa. Then I ordered the Hangover Burger, which was a burger with chili, a fried egg, cheese, and bacon. It was pretty good. Better than Tommy's - sorry Dad!

Came back to the apartments only to find that John had purchased a life-size, cardboard Hillary Clinton. He had her propped up against the door to the lounge with her back to the entrance, so we thought she was a real person at first. When we got closer, she just genuinely scared the crap out of us.

Then Karin, Christine, Ryan and David and I watched "Extreme Days," that old Christian movie they made about eight years ago and released in theaters about the group of guys that take a roadtrip up the California coast. Totally cheesy and corny, but a fun throwback.

Sunday

Went to church at Capitol Hill Baptist. They're talking about Revelation right now, and this is most definitely expositional, straight from the Bible preaching. He taught for a solid hour on Revelation 1:9-20.

Free intern/college lunch afterward, where we had a pasta bake sort of thing wth rolls, salad, and peach cobbler. Yum.

Then it was time to go grocery shopping. It was just time. It was raining (it rained all weekend, pretty much), so Karin, Christine, and I took the bus down to Safeway. We got there, did our shopping as quickly as possible, and checked out, only to miss our bus just barely again. This time, though, it was due to the extremely slow woman at the register who was taking her sweet time talking to the bagger.

The next bus wasn't supposed to come for another 35 minutes, so we stood in debate of what to do. We couldn't walk back, because we had bought WAY too much food, and also, it was raining. We obviously couldn't take the bus at the moment, and we had no car. So, we decided to try and catch a cab, since it's only about a mile away.

We headed down to the street with our cart FULL of groceries, only to find out about halfway there that this Safeway has their carts on that automatic-lock thing when you go too far away. The cart wouldn't move. We thought, "Well, if we just get back into the good part, the lock will go away." WRONG. They do not unlock. So we were literally stuck in the middle of the Safeway parking lot in the rain with a shopping cart that won't move and no way to get home.

After a long time of unsuccessful pushing and pulling on the cart on our part, a nice man sitting in his truck outside of Safeway helped us carry it back to the curb, telling us we could just drive our car up to the curb. Too bad we didn't have a car.

So I was sent as the delegate to go catch a cab on the street. Unfortunately, there are not many cabs that go by this Safeway. I saw none. So I called a cab, only to find out it would be about a half hour before the cab got there - we could just wait for the bus at that rate. I headed back up to the Safeway overhang where Karin and Christine were waiting to tell them the bad news.

As we discussed what our next move would be, the man who had helped us carry the locked shopping cart came over to talk to us again. He was very nice, and explained that he wasn't a creeper, he wasn't trying to pick us up or anything, he just wanted to help. He told us that there are courtesy drivers for Safeway that have their own cars, but they are hired by Safeway and have ID and are totally legit, and they will drive you where you need to go for whatever amount of money you give them.

We had no other option at this point, and so we trusted him and took a van home with "Cowboy," whose real name was John something, and who had some sort of speaking impairment so he was extremely hard to understand. But that didn't stop him from talking.

He took us right home, we gave him some money and a big thank you and finally headed up the stairs with our many bags.

Then I talked to Juel for a while. And then Mandi's parents, who were here for the weekend, made us dinner - chicken parmigiana, spaghetti, salad, french bread, and Italian pastries for dessert. A real meal!!! Her parents are great and told us all kinds of stories about Mandi as a child, which was fantastic. We hung out for a while after dinner, just talking and enjoying being with good company.

We also got to watch a video of Andrea and John having a cheer-off. Andrea was a cheerleader, and John is the farthest thing from, but he's hilarious. It's pretty close to being the best video I've seen in a long time.

Then I cleaned the kitchen. It was my chore for the week, and let me tell you, the kitchen sure needed it. I spent a solid hour and a half cleaning, then Zack and I took a walk around the general area around the apartments, catching up since we haven't talked in a while.

Came back, mopped the floor in the kitchen, and then drank hot chocolate with my apartment-mates and we went crazy decorating our apartment (finally) with famous pieces of art defaced with pigs and pictures and name word things and all kinds of ridiculous junk. It's fantastic. Haha.

Monday (Today)

Newseum day! It was awesome. All of WJC went together to the Newseum instead of class, and spent the whole day looking around. The program paid for us to get in (and paid for lunch!) and let us be free in the building.

It was genuinely really cool. The place is six levels of pure journalism. There are exhibits on all kinds of stuff: The role that newspapers played in the assassination of Lincoln, a huge room containing tons of newspapers dating back to the 1500s that showed the progression of newspapers and simultaneously the way they portrayed the major historic events that have taken place, all the Pulitzer prize winning photos of the past 60 years, a whole thing on 9/11, lots of interactive exhibits, movies, just tons of journalism everything.

It was pretty fantastic.

Karin and I stayed until the museum closed with a couple other WJCers, and headed back to the apartments. Family dinner was tonight, and in honor of St. Patrick's Day, we had all green food. Chicken pesto pasta, salad, veggies, and mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert. Delicious as usual.

We had our bi-weekly worship night, and then I've just been hanging out with my apartmentmates. It's been good. I'm reallllllllly tired and I really don't feel like going to work in the morning, so I think I'm going to head to bed early. Beautiful.

Music and Passion Were Always the Fashion

At the Copacabana! Of course! This song has been stuck in my head all week. Just fyi.

Today has been a really chill day so far. We had to go to class this morning, even though we were initially told we wouldn't have to. So in a mini-rebellion, several of us decided to just climb out of bed and go to class in sweats and without getting ready at all. It only lasted about an hour, and then I went back to bed. For about two hours. Got up at 1 p.m. and showered and then we had another joint class with ASP where we had two women guest speakers who talked about gender discrimination in the work place.

Then WJC went to Ebenezers. Tonight I'm going with some of the WJC girls to a 20/20 viewing party that is dealing with some hot topics - medical marijuana, universal preschool, immigration, etc. Should be really interesting. I'm excited.

A bit of a rewind:

Wednesday

Work was not so good. I literally did nothing all day. It was kind of a bummer. But I got my cover letter for class done. And I took a nice lunch break and walked down to Potbelly and ate by myself. It was actually really fun.

Then at the end of the day, I was asked to cover a trial the next day. Turns out it was a rape trial, and I had to do a bunch of background reading and it wasn't very nice at all. At all. So after I had done all the reading, it turned out that the trial was delayed and I wouldn't have to cover it. So I put all of that horrendous stuff into my had for no reason, and it wasn't overly encouraging.

So I went home early, and went up to the roof and watched the sun set over the Capitol. It was really overcast and so the light over the Capitol was absolutely gorgeous. It kind of started sprinkling, too. It was perfect. Just what I needed.

We had progressive dinner. Jason and John made dessert this week, so we didn't have to do anything since it was our dessert week! It was beautiful. The girls next door did chips and carrots and cucmbers for appetizer, the boys did tacos for dinner, and then the dessert was African donuts (that I'm totally forgetting the name of) with vanilla ice cream. It was really good.

After we ate, we went around the whole group and did the "happies and the crappies." Basically, the worst and best part of our day. And then we all said who our favorite cousin was and why. Random, but funny.

Then Karin and I talked for a while in our room and I finished a last load of laundry and cleaned up my stuff. Then we watched last week's episode of The Office that we hadn't seen because we were at Watchmen. And then we just went to bed.

Thursday

Work. Better this time - I wrote two stories, one about a car accident that had majorly backed up traffic and one about the street closures near Eastern Market that were going to be happening soon. I met Alyssa for lunch at Cosi and it was lovely. We were there for far too long, but we had a really good time taking a break and talking to a real person.

On the way home from work, I called Erin, and we ended up talking my entire way home and then for like, two and half more hours once I got home. It was most excellent to hear her voice. And her advice and logic.

Then it was time for this week's episode of The Office. Watched it downstairs with everyone and then we watched 30 Rock, too. I like that show. It is genuinely funny.

Called my family afterward, and made some pasta because I had been too busy talking to Erin to eat dinner.

That was pretty much it.

In other news, I get to do another Personal Best profile - this time a fencer! Yay! I really like doing these.

Links to My Recent Stories

Spring Break story:

http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/Travel-advisory-affects-area-students-plans-0306-40822727.html

Abe Lincoln story:

http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/Expert-Im-positive-1865-photo-is-of-Lincoln_03_11-41063732.html

3-minute Interview:

http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/3-minute-interview---Martin-Wilder-Jr-40998237.html

The Blog of All Blogs

It has been a full week since I updated. A week is a very long time, and I have done a whole stinkin’ lot in that period of time. Therefore, this is going to be very long, and I am sorry.

But it was a pretty darn excellent week, so you should really enjoy this.

Today, I got into work and was sent on an errand by the crime guys. I had to go to the circuit court in Alexandria, Va., to pick up an indictment. Alexandria’s pretty far away, so it took me an hour to get out there, and then I had to go in and get the paper. The man behind the counter was extremely helpful in showing me how to work the system so if I have to go back I could do it myself.

It was fun, though. The court is located in Old Town Alexandria, which is a really cute area with tons of restaurants and shops and all kinds of stuff. I really wanted to hang out and shop, but considering I was there for work, I figured this wouldn’t be the best time. I did stop at the Pentagon City Mall on the way back, though, to grab some lunch in the food court.

All of this is just so very ironic, though. The court was located ON King Street. To understand why this is all so ironic, please see the “Saturday” section in this blogpost.

Then I was given a story about this really old picture that they think has Lincoln in it, standing in front of the White House. My editor gave it to me, saying it would probably be pretty hard to get a hold of the right people for this, but to give it a whirl and I did it! I got a hold of the man who owns the photograph and talked to him about it and then talked to another curator.

I love Lincoln. So this has been a good day. Between getting to be out and about for the morning and then spending the afternoon doing a fun story about something I think is interesting – I can’t complain.

Ok. I’ll start updating.

Tuesday

Nothing super exciting that evening. I got home and had a package from Grandma Marty! Thanks Grandma =) I like it a lot, and I definitely keep snacking on the chocolates. Delicious!

Talked to Lisa and Juliette (separately) for a while, and then talked the parents.

Wednesday

Spring break story extravaganza! I worked my butt off on that thing, trying to contact everyone and their mom, looking for “one tree” (to quote Tmatt) that I could focus my story on. Finally I got a hold of someone at American University who told me there was a group going to Oaxaca, Mexico, and were supposed to do a service project and it didn’t work out. I called people all over the place to try and get a hold of students, and finally talked to the main student leader for the Oaxaca trip at like, 8 p.m. Fortunately, I didn’t have to have the story done until Thursday morning, so I had still gone home at a normal time, but yeah.

I wrote up a basic draft of the story that night at home (after progressive dinner), but it wasn’t turning out the way I wanted it to, so I decided to take a break from it and just finish my own edits in the morning.

So for progressive dinner, my apartment made quesadillas (appetizer), the girls next door made a pasta bake (dinner) and the boys bought ice cream bars (a variety from 7-11’s freezer). A bunch of people were sick, and ASP had just finally finished a huge project that day, so we had a non-progressive dinner in just one apartment that didn’t last super long.

After I had done my article work, Danielle and I went down to the student lobby to hang out because we were tired of our apartment. Some people were watching Terminator 3, so we watched for a while. It was kind of dumb.

That was pretty much it.

Thursday

I wasn’t supposed to work on Thursday – it was supposed to be the first day of our so-called “spring break.” However, my editor needed me to finish the story and all, so I went in for about two hours. I did my own edits, sent it in, he edited it with me and then I was done.

I met Karin at Chipotle and we had lunch. Then we went to the Air and Space Museum and spent the whole afternoon there. We were there for three-and-a-half hours, and we only got through half of the top floor. We are really intense about museums.

And we saw the Red Baron plane, and it made me remember the last time I went to the Air and Space Museum with my family, like 5-6 years ago. My dad has always loved that old Snoopy vs. the Red Baron song, and I very clearly remember listening to his old record of it plenty of times when I was young. It was a Brown family tradition to pull out all his old records every once in a while and play them all. Generally it was a summer night, but they were always great – those nights are also where my great appreciation for The Beatles came from. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer is a favorite – blame my father.

Anyways, the last time we were at this museum, my dad went crazy when we saw the Red Baron plane. He was like a child who was just told ice cream would be free for the rest of his life. He didn’t stop singing Snoopy vs. the Red Baron for days. So naturally, I had to let him know that I was there, and he got excited and posted the link to the YouTube version on Facebook. That link I provide now for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxzg_iM-T4E

Karin and I returned the apartments, and ended up ordering dinner with Yvette from this place called “Panda.” We ate dinner and then the three of us ended up dancing with Ren. We learned the Cupid Shuffle, taught Yvette the Electric Slide, and then all learned the Souljha Boy dance.

A whole lot of people left Thursday, because it was spring break weekend. And Friday was Chad’s birthday, and he really wanted to see “Watchmen,” so in celebration of his birthday, pretty much the rest of us who were left went with him to the midnight showing of the movie.

I really didn’t like the movie, to be perfectly honest. I mean, I was interested the whole time, but it was far too bloody, violent, graphic and then some. Watching some guy get his hands sawed off just really isn’t my cup of tea. But the experience as a whole was fun. We had a lot of fun while we were waiting for it to start. We traveled to several different fast food places around the theater getting everyone different food, and then went into the building and played cards. I taught Jason how to play Speed, and then he taught a group of us to play Yuker (?).

We watched the movie. Bleh. And then, considering that it was practically 3 a.m. and the Metro wasn’t running anymore, the entire group of us proceeded to walk back from the theater in Chinatown. There really wasn’t any safety issue, considering there were at least 15 of us, if not more. But it was really late and I was really tired and I really didn’t want to walk practically two miles home. But I had to. Mandi and I eventually ended up arm in arm singing old Christian songs.

We finally arrived back at the apartments around 3:45 a.m., and passed out around 4:30 a.m.

Friday

Karin and I slept until 2 p.m. It was beautiful. We went to Target, then came back and showered and then met up with a bunch of the boys to go celebrate Chad’s birthday at the ESPN Zone.

It was Karin and I, then Chad, Cole, Jason, John, Jeremy, Zack, and Mark, and then we met David there. Chad wanted to go there because he wanted to play arcade games, and this was the only place you could bring people who are under 21, I guess. We put our name in and then went down to pay games.

It is expensive to play arcade games, and I really didn’t feel like that was the best use of my funds, so I didn’t buy any credits to play the games. However, that just meant that the guys offered to pay for the games for me. I honestly didn’t see this coming and didn’t ask for it in any way – but I did accept them. So we played multiple games of air hockey, basketball, a hockey version of foosball, racing, all kinds of stuff. Let’s just say it paid for Karin and I to be the only girls there =)

We didn’t get called for two hours. Fortunately, that wasn’t too bad, because we had the games to entertain us, but we were starving – we weren’t seated until 9:45 p.m. There were a lot of us and we were at a long table, so the people I really conversed with were Jason, John, David, and Karin. Cole hopped in sometimes. I ordered a chicken sandwich. It was really just a total blast. I love hanging out with those guys. We had so much fun talking and just hanging out, and Jason and I finally finished our conversation about “Kite Runner,” and John told us about his little sister and we talked philosophy. It was just great.

Finally around 11:30 p.m., we headed out of the restaurant and went over to Chad’s house (Chad was the one who was dismissed from the program. The director of ASP helped him find housing in the area so he could keep his internship. We can still hang out with him, he just can’t be on the grounds of the program). We were supposed to play Wii, but the TV was occupied, so we just hung out and talked and told stories until we were tired, and then headed back to the apartments. Finally got to bed around 3 a.m., I think?

Saturday

Karin and I decided to go to Arlington. We woke up around 11 a.m. and got ready, and invited the girls next door (Mandi, Andrea, and Christine). It turned into a much bigger party than we had anticipated, but it ended up being really fun with all those people. We ended up with me and Karin, Andrea, Mandi, Christina, Jason, Jeremy, Zack, Mark, and then Cole met us there.

We walked around the cemetery for a couple of hours and saw JFK’s gravesite, Robert Kennedy’s memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (where we got to see the changing of the guard), lots and lots and lots of graves, and then we went over to Iwo Jima.

The cemetery closed at 5 p.m., so we eventually got kicked out, but Eli was going to a concert in Alexandria that was supposed to be really cool, so we all decided to go. We decided to meet Eli at the Pentagon City mall. We got to the mall way before her, so we hit the food court and got dinner. After we had shoved our faces, we still had time, and Jason really wanted to go to FAO Schwartz that was apparently in the mall, so we went in search of it.

Well, the FAO Schwartz wasn’t a whole store – it was a small corner in Macy’s. We were all disappointed, to say the least, but it still proved highly entertaining. Within moments, we had all chosen different stuffed animals and were hugging them, petting them, throwing them, telling stories about our own stuffed animals, taking pictures – everything.

We eventually moved on to Brookstone, which is always fun, and then landed in Sweet Factory so Jason could get his atomic fireballs. Finally Eli and her friend showed up, and we went to meet them at the bus stop.

After waiting for the bus for about 20 minutes, Eli called the bus stop number and we found out we still had at least 20 minutes until the bus came. There was a park across the street, so we went in search of a playground.

We found one, but it sadly had no swings. Swings are the best part. But the group of us still enjoyed reliving our childhood by using the monkey bars and sliding down the slides and all that kind of fun stuff.

Finally the bus came, and we took it to the next place, where we had to catch another bus. But the next bus wasn’t coming for like another 40 minutes (apparently the buses in Virginia run much less frequently than in DC), and this bus station had no park nearby. So we were bored for a long time. But the bus finally came, and dropped us off in a residential area that wasn’t where we were supposed to be. After walking around for at least 15 minutes and asking someone in a car for directions, we finally found the concert venue.

We were an hour late, so we missed the entire first act, but we arrived during an intermission sort of time, so we went in and got seats and water because we were tired and thirsty, and enjoyed the concert.

First off, the venue was awesome. It was a small building, really cozy feeling. Second, the guy we saw was fantastic. His name was Will Gray, and he was an R&B artist. There was another guy who did the hip-hop thing with him, but then he was backed up by an acoustic guitar, a banjo, a cello, and the turntables guy. It was really sweet. Very interesting group, and I loved the sounds it produced.

The concert lasted about an hour after we got there, and then we headed back to the bus stop. It was about 10:45 p.m., and after we had been sitting at the bus stop for at least 15 minutes, we remembered seeing a sign that had told us the bus stopped running at 9:30 p.m.

So, since we couldn’t take the bus home, we had no idea where the nearest Metro was, and we were in the middle of very residential Alexandria, we started trying to figure out what to do. A couple people decided to call a cab. The rest of us decided to try to walk to the Pentagon Metro stop, which was were the second bus had picked us up.

We walked a long ways and finally ran into the main road and found a gas station. Chad asked the guy working there how to get to the Pentagon, and apparently the guy just laughed at him. He told us the nearest Metro was two miles down on King Street. So we started walking.

Fortunately, the weather had been beautiful – muggy and humid, but beautiful and warm. It was nowhere near cold, and we couldn’t have asked for a much better night to be stuck walking two miles to the Metro.

It was a fairly uneventful walk, with the exception of quite a few yells from cars passing us by. I walked mostly with Jason, talking about camps we went to in high school and natural disasters. We finally made it to the Metro – on King Street – and made it back alive (though very tired and sweaty) to the apartments around 1 a.m.

This is the irony of today. The court I had to go to was literally off the exact same Metro stop – King Street – that we walked to the other night. Everything was very familiar. When I found out that’s where I had to go, I just started laughing.

Sunday

Went to Union Station theater church at 11:30 a.m. Got back, ate, went with Karin, Ren, and Yvette to the Capitol because Yvette wanted me to take some pictures of her to send to her school. So we did a photo shoot. It was quite fun.

Then Yvette and I talked for a while. Then I did the reading for class and fell asleep. Then I did some laundry. Ate dinner. Played speed with Karin. Then Yvette came in and invited us to come see the monuments at night with a bunch of people.

I headed downstairs to see if everyone was ready to go, and a bunch of people were congregated in the alleyway next to the Dellenback Center, looking up. I joined the group and got the scoop: apparently, a bunch of the guys had found a huge stuffed dog in dumpster and thought it was too great to leave there. So, they pulled it out and were trying to drop it from the roof onto the light post below and get it to stay there.

After several attempts, they finally succeeded. The dog stayed on that light post for a full day before the wind knocked it down.

There were some upset neighbors, though. But it wasn’t even 9:30 p.m.

After the dog thing was over, we headed out to the monuments. We went to the White House first, then to the Washington Monument, the WWII and ended at the Lincoln. The Reflecting Pool is completely empty right now. So we walked in it.

The Metro stopped running at midnight, so we had to walk home. Fortunately, once again it was gorgeous outside. Absolutely gorgeous. Even more beautiful than Saturday night. I was in a tanktop, jeans, and flip-flops at 1 a.m. outside and I wasn’t even cold. Love it.
Monday

Class in the morning. Lunch with everyone together, so sort of family lunch? We had soup and crackers and dips and salad and a mixture of things. This week is the middle week of the whole semester, also the middle week of our Foundations class that has two weeks at the beginning of the semester, one week in the middle, and two weeks at the end. That means, apparently, that we do more stuff with ASP. Fun. I’m not complaining.

We had a guest speaker all together for the afternoon session. He was late, though, so we got some extra free time. Alyssa and I went to Jacob’s and got caffeine. Then we went back and listened to him. Steve Garber, I think it was? I drew a picture of him in my notes. I’m pretty proud of it. Except his eyes and his nose should be closer together than I drew him. I listened, too.

Then Alyssa, Mandi, Andrea, Karin, and I took our vocational tests that we have to take for class. It was an online thing that tells you what you should be.

My two defining traits are: 1. Artistic (like a whole lot) and 2. Social (kind of a lot too)

I pretty much agreed with everything it told me. It seemed to get me pretty well. My number one career option was elementary school teacher. Could have told you that one. Also high were musician, child care assistant, photographer, caterer and restaurant manager. I’ve considered all of these.

Surprised? No, not really. A little surprised that newspaper reporter didn’t show up higher, but I don’t really want to be a newspaper reporter for the rest of my life. I want to do something journalistic, but I don’t think newspaper (at least not big newspaper like right now) is my calling. Community newspaper? I could totally do that. I think this survey shows my disillusionment with newspaper writing at the moment. And probably the lack of child interaction.

Yep. That’s me in a nutshell.

Then we had family dinner, also. We had quiche. Yum. I love quiche. And there were strawberries and brownies. Delicious. I sat with a bunch of girls, mostly talked with Mandi and Alyssa. It was a blast. Mandi spilled her water. But we don’t talk about it.

Then I talked to Mandi and Andrea for a while. Then couldn’t find anyone, so went downstairs. Christine was watching TV so I joined. She and I and Jason watched the Daily Show. Then Geoff came in and we all decided to watch Robin Hood. It started out with 4 of us and grew to like, 12. I haven’t watched that movie in so long. Haha.

And that was pretty much it. Went to bed. Then did today! And you know about today. I promise I won’t go that long without updating again. It’s not a good way to go.