Another Day. Nothing Too Exciting.

It’s been a slower day at work for me. I did my 3-minute interview, which is exactly what it sounds like. You find someone that can somehow relate to anything going on in the world, and you do a short interview with them and then write it up in Q&A form.

That was the first thing this morning. Now I’ve been working on something about spring break and how local universities are handling the advisory that students not head down to Mexico for spring break due to all the narcotics nastiness that’s been going on.

It’s not due until Thursday morning, so unfortunately I haven’t felt the pressure. But I’ve been emailing and researching and at this point it’s a bit of a waiting game. It’s an interesting story, so I’m enjoying it.

Went to Corner Bakery for lunch. The chicken salad sandwich is just really stinkin’ good.

Now I’m almost done. No plans tonight, just going back. Who knows what will happen?

Yesterday was fun. After our guest speaker, Karin, Coco and me walked to the National Mall to play in the snow. It was really cold, but it was absolutely beautiful. Nobody else was very excited about the snow, but that didn’t affect our attitudes about it.

Came back, thawed out, and had family dinner. Sat with a lot of people, mainly talked with Danielle and Micaela. We had corned beef and cabbage. Never in my life have I had corned beef and cabbage, and this shocked Danielle. Apparently, in her house they eat it all the time.

Then we went up to the apartment and watched some Arrested Development and painted our toenails. At 9 p.m., we went downstairs for the worship night. Afterward, I walked around with Yvette for a while, then talked to Natalee, and then went with Alyssa, Micaela and Jenny to 7-11. I wore my flip-flops, haha.

Came back from 7-11 and hung out in the parlor for a while with a bunch of people. Alyssa’s grandparents are flying her out to Palm Springs for our so-called “spring break,” and I’m completely jealous. I’m kind of tired of being cold and would love to be home for a little while. But it’s cool. We’re gonna have a ton of fun being here. Doing something.

Went to bed after showering. That was pretty much it.

I Get To Use My Boots!!!

It SNOWED. Like, intense snow. Real snow. Lots and lots of snow. Karin, me, and Coco (Point Loma) are just really super excited. We went up on the roof last night when it first started and ran around in it and threw snow balls and wrote our names in it. It was pretty much awesome. Mandi was up there too, and she's from Minnesota, so she just laughed at us. But it was still fun.

Here is the link to my property tax story that I'm so proud of! Sorry it took me so long to put it up - I completely forgot.

http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/DCs-residential-property-values-drop-less-than-4-percent_02_27-40391037.html

Last night was fun. We had a video conference with Erin and Juliette about the house, and then made chicken marsala (perfectly this time). Then we played in the snow. Then Mandi and I played the piano and had a sing-a-long with old musical songs. And Yvette played for a while and she's really good. Then we ran around doing nothing (the three of us). Then Danielle, Karin, me and Jason watched Arrested Development for a while, and then I talked to Jeffrey on the phone for like an hour.

And then this morning was SNOW! We were supposed to have a guest speaker, but the snow makes everything crazy, so he couldn't make it. He's coming this afternoon instead. So class this morning was short, and so Karin, Coco and I went up to the roof again and played in what now is a couple feet of snow. And took fun pictures. Haha.

Ok. Off to class.

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!

Bathroom Adventures in the Newsroom

I’ve been posting a lot lately. This is my effort to make my blogs shorter – just means you get more of them. Haha.

So, I had an extremely potentially awkward moment in the bathroom just now. I washed my hands and then realized there were no paper towels. Normally, this would not bother me, and I wasn’t going to let it bother me, but then I saw a small piece of a paper towel sticking out of the cabinet door where they put the paper towels in.

Of course I tugged gently on the rogue towel, just to see what would happen. To my shock and dismay, the small metal door opened, displaying a plethora of paper towels that had been stacked inside – we weren’t out at all!

This was the moment they chose to fall on me.

The wobbling was extremely noticeable. My first instinct was to close the door, naturally. The door, of course, would hold up the precarious paper towel tower. However, this was the kind of door that doesn’t have a latch because it’s supposed to be locked with a key, because apparently we are overly concerned about paper towel theft here. So the moment I stopped pushing on the door, it opened right back up, only to have the towels start cascading down on me.

Now, this whole situation was worsened by the fact that there was someone else in a bathroom stall behind me. If I had been alone, there would have been no embarrassment, no awkwardness. But I really didn’t want to experience that moment when the other woman walked out of the stall only to find the newest intern standing in the midst of a paper towel explosion.

Thinking quickly, I grabbed at the falling paper towels and got a stack in one hand, while holding the tower up with the other hand. This still wouldn’t do – what would the woman think if she came out to find the newest intern caught red-handed in the act of what definitely appeared to be paper towel thieving, the very act that the usually locked door was trying to attempt!!!

I set down the stack on the counter, in an effort to save other women from the very predicament I was in, managed to gather all the falling towels and set them securely on the pile, and get the cursed door to shut without reopening. I finally dried off my dripping hands, and escaped the traps of the bathroom before the other woman came out of her stall.

Success. But I will never drink another chai in the morning at work. Those things run right through you. Although, that’s probably a lie.

Check it Out.

Virginia driver's licenses story:

http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/Va-drivers-licenses-get-makeover_02_06-40313277.html

Also, just a side note. The Giants definitely WON their first spring training game yesterday. And who lost? Oh yeah. The Dodgers. Losing your first spring training game? That doesn't bode well. Not that I expect much from that team anyway...

=)

Links Links Links!

Because I have been requested to do so and have totally forgotten to post links to my stories lately, here are a plethora of links for you to enjoy.

Here's my bullying story that I wrote yesterday:
http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/Md-board-of-education-OKs-anti-bullying-policy-40259887.html

This is the fire hydrant story from last week:
http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/City-lacks-data-on-private-fire-hydrants_02_22-40005477.html

I can't find my profile of the triathlete online. I also haven't been able to find a copy of Sunday's paper to visibly see the profile. So I can't give you any information about that one at all, which sucks, because I'm pretty proud of that one.

But, here's one just for kicks: Oakland A's possibly coming to San Jose? Who knows if it will really happen, of course, but it's an interesting idea. As a die-hard San Francisco Giants fan, I have no idea where my alliance would lie if the A's came. It could present an extreme dilemma, especially since I don't really like the American league in general. I don't think I could give up the black and orange. But my hometown!?
http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_11778531

I just wrote a piece about Virginia redesigning their driver's licenses. So I'll post that link soon.

Last night I didn't get home until after 8 p.m. I was in the office waiting for a call back until 7 p.m., but it never came, so by the time my editor was done with my story and I left, I had JUST missed the bus and the next one wasn't coming for a half hour, so I had to take the metro back. As I was walking to the metro, I saw my bus drive by. It was quite late. I should have caught it, but I was unable to get to it. It was just a frustrating day.

But we watched Obama's speech in the student lounge and then Alyssa and I watched "My Best Friend's Wedding" and talked for a while. Lovely.

I'm going to go get some food.

C-Span Plays Classical Music When Nothing is Happening

I have been a direct witness for at least the past three hours. At least it's nice classical music. I was extremely surprised when I first heard it, and I couldn't figure out where in the world it was coming from. I finally figured it out when the reporter that sits diagonally from me said, "I always forgot how soothing C-Span's music is." Who knew?

Anyways, I'm not really feeling like being at work today. I haven't really felt it all day. It's not that I hate being here - I really don't mind. I just don't want to be doing anything really, which is a total opposite of last night. I spent a half hour pacing up and down in our bedroom last night, raving to Danielle about how I had all this time on my hands and I had no idea how to use it.

But now that I have something to do, I don't really want to do it. My brain feels like it's made of cotton.

I was assigned a story about bullying this morning. The assignment was essentially: "This Board of Education in Maryland is talking about this bullying policy today. I think there's a story, but I don't know what it is - see what you can find."

So I spent the first four hours of my time here researching bullying policies in Maryland and just bullying in general in schools in Maryland. The biggest problem I encountered was that the people I needed to talk to most were in the board meeting all day. Luckily, I caught one guy on the lunch break and he talked to me about it for a while, and then promised to send me the release as soon as the decision had been made.

So I got my story! I really didn't think it was going to unfold until about 4 p.m., when I finally got the release. And I still am trying to get in contact with one more person - somebody from one of the county school systems. Fingers crossed.

Alright. I'll finish the update.

Saturday

Saturday morning we had a community meeting called that everyone was expected to attend. At the meeting we were informed that one of the guys in the ASP program was being sent home for violating the behavioral code that we signed when we entered the program. It has something to do with one of the WJC girls who went home without telling anyone last Thursday (and who isn’t returning, as of yesterday), and there are a lot of questions floating around about the whole thing, especially since all the stories that we’re hearing don’t really make a whole lot of sense.

But I thought the whole thing was handled extremely well. The director of ASP conducted the meeting Saturday and made people ask the questions that were on their minds. It was a pretty big surprise, to be honest. I had heard what the meeting was going to be about earlier that morning, but the whole issue was just really unexpected. The guy who was sent home was extremely well-liked in the program and everybody knew him. One of those guys that is really good at including people and bringing people together.

Karin and I had discussed some of this stuff at length, and essentially come to the conclusion that we didn’t know what the real truth was, and we weren’t going to take sides. I had been friends with both parties involved, and I just didn’t want to have any ugliness. And honestly, we’ve only been a part of this community for five weeks – I had no idea how people were going to react to everything.

So we decided to just get out. Just the two of us. We went to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and got lost in the world of beauty and talent. Art is revitalizing for me. I love being surrounded by it and looking at the strokes and appreciating how much work went into creating such an incredible work. It’s a different world, and it felt nice to escape. A solid 3-hour escape, to be honest.

After we had spent as much time as we wanted in the museum, we went out in search of frozen yogurt. It had been far too long, and we are far too used to being able to eat frozen yogurt whenever we want to – Berry Cool, Yogurtland, PinkBerry, etc. They hardly have any that we’ve seen here. So, we found TangySweet. We got our yogurt and then sat and just talked for a couple of hours. Talked over all the events of what happened, of life, of the past weeks. It was really good. I’m so thankful to have someone I trust so much here with me.

We headed back to the apartments, a bit reluctantly, and made dinner. Once we’d finished, we found out that the guy who had been dismissed from the program (he hadn’t left yet) had bought pizza for everyone and we were all invited. We’d already eaten, so we went down to the party a little late, just to kind of hang out with everyone. Hanging out and watching tv turned into a massive game night. About 20 people retreated into the parlor and played the Animal Game, Signs, 4 on the Couch, and then finally a 3-hour finale of “I Have Never” – the youth group version where you run around and have to sit in an open chair. The night ended with a send-off and prayer for the ASP guy, and while it was encouraging to see the community come around this guy, it made me wish our WJC girl could have been around to see the same sort of support given to her.

Sunday

The game night didn’t end until after 2 a.m., and I wasn’t in bed until almost 3 a.m. Add to that Karin was getting sick, and we basically slept through Sunday morning. Got up around 1 p.m., and ate, showered, and went to the grocery store because we were pretty much out of food. We took the bus down to Safeway, shopped, and then literally as we walked out of the Safeway doors, we saw our bus arriving across the street.

Unfortunately, we were too far away to make it, and the next bus wasn’t coming for 45 minutes. Bleh. So we ended up having to walk back to the apartments – which we hadn’t planned on, so we weren’t wearing warm enough clothes AND we had bought heavier stuff than we would have if we had planned on walking. So it wasn’t the best walk back we’ve ever had.

We cleaned out the nasty food that had been sitting in our fridge for too long (and made a couple executive decisions – for instance, shriveled up strawberries), and then headed out to Ebenezers, where National Community Church was having a special worship night.

I’m very glad we went to the worship night. It was a good reminder to turn to God when things get tough. It had just been such an odd weekend, and coming to Him at the end of it and surrendering was exactly what I needed.

Back to the apartments, dinner, talked to the family, and that was about it.

Now you’re caught up!