The reason I love CIES.

I received this email the other day from my trainer, Kareem, who sent it out to everyone in the unit (F&O). It is in regards to our supervisor's birthday.

SUBJECT: In the 1970s a baby Noguchi was born...

On a stormy night in the Nagano suburbs, Taeko was born to Mr. and Mrs. Taeko. Fast forward through the 80’s and 90’s and now Taeko has everything she’s ever wanted including an incredibly good looking group of co-workers in F&O (and Athena). To celebrate we are doing a potluck in the Havel Room on Wednesday May 5th at 12:15. The gathering will last until someone passes out, the elastic snaps on my sweats, or we run out of food…we can take wagers on what happens first.

You all are the best, never change.

Righttime = good time. Mostly.

Well, I broke down yesterday. My nose was stuffed up so badly and I was so sick of being sick that I got in touch with my RA. She said that there is a clinic nearby called RightTime that used to be a pediatrician's office but now does mostly clinic/emergency/walk-in type stuff. So I gave the number a call and they had an appointment in like half an hour. I called at like 4pm. Well, I totally wasn't expecting that and I had class, but I was like...okay, we'll give it a try. However, upon booking it to the station to catch the bus...I waved as it passed by...and decided to cancel. I called back and did so, wanting to reschedule, but she told me that they only do same-day appointments. The phone lines open at 8am, though, to take appointments from 11am to midnight. So I resolved to make an appointment at 8am the next morning.

Class was okay. Got into an argument with a classmate over the Google vs China controversy (ironically, I was on China's side). Also turned in my paper. We have three assignments left in that class. This is honestly one of the most...assignment-ridden classes I've ever taken, all coupled with TWC and the internship. Ugh.

I had a crap time with the metro last night. Moving on...

This morning, I had planned on going to work for a couple hours at least. But upon gaining consciousness, I completely changed my mind. I felt like crap all over again, though at least I could breathe this time. I stayed awake for the next hour and a half, talking to my mom, watching Dancing with the Stars reruns on Hulu, and called to make an appointment. They had one at 11:20 that I took.

Napped for about an hour or so.

I checked the weather upon waking because it's been crazy lately. 70 one day, 40 the next. Today was another cold day, which I was grateful for, because all my T-shirts are dirty. (I desperately need to do laundry.) I vaguely saw that the chance of rain was around 50%, but didn't really pay attention.

Again, I got to the station as the bus was leaving. However, a very kindly man was driving and stopped for me when I waved him down. He was awesome and I hope his life is filled with love and happiness.

Got to the clinic, which was thankfully right at the bus stop.

Well, apparently this isn't really a clinic like I thought it was going to be. It's not a doc-in-the-box. This is an awesome facility. The check-in process was completely electronic, complete with a little iPad doodad that you fill out all your paperwork on. Sweet. Once you turn that in, they give you a buzzer thing like at a restaurant. When it buzzes, you go to your exam room. Btw, they have TVs everywhere, in the waiting room and exam rooms. So I got to watch Monsters, Inc, which brightened my day because that little girl is so cute. (Also, on the way to the exam room, I noticed that this place had a lab and x-rays within, too. Doubly impressed, and relieved, because I was pretty sure I was going to have to have a chest x-ray to either confirm or deny pneumonia as a diagnosis.)

Anyway, the amazing electronic technology continued with an automatic blood-pressure checker thing, and not the kind that you sit in. She wheeled the machine over to me, strapped me in, pressed Start, and let it go. Weird. Also took my temp, which was 97. My normal temp. Good that I don't have a fever any longer. My blood pressure was also fine, but my pulse was 82. Hey, I was in a doctor's office. They make me nervous.

The doctor eventually came in. Dr. Simms? Simmons? Something like that. She looked in my right ear and immediately said, "Okay, well, your ear's infected." She went to my left ear and made a disapproving sound. "It's even worse in this ear." She then looked in my nostrils and at my throat. "Well, both of your ears are infected and you also have a sinus infection."

Lovely.

She proceeded to fill out paperwork for about five minutes while I watched Sully try to get the little girl to sleep by showing her that there was no monster in her closet and miming the universal "sleep" signals. I guess the paperwork is the only thing wrong with this electronic system. They still have to fill that stuff out, and it still takes a long time. Anyway, I ended up with two prescriptions, Flonase and Amoxicillin. I made my way to the front desk.

The receptionist looked at my paperwork and said, "Oh, we can have your prescriptions filled here if you want." My eyebrows shot up. "Really? Great!" I sat down to wait, watching other people coming and going through the waiting room/lobby. A few minutes later, the pharmacy tech comes out and says that BCBS won't pay unless it's filled at an approved facility, which is not them. Okay, no problem. I live above a CVS, won't be that bad. Can check-out now please?

Except that now about three people had walked in and needed help checking in and everything. Sigh.

I waited. And waited. Had a good view of the bus stop. Also saw one bus coming and going. Oh, it was raining now, by the way. Didn't know if you caught the fore-shadowing earlier. I was miserable, because I knew it was going to be at least twenty minutes for the next bus, and I was also feeling crappy because my benadryl was wearing off, and I knew I was going to have to walk home in the rain without an umbrella or jacket and just blah. I had my own little raincloud over my head.

Finally the receptionist called me up and apologized several times for the wait, said she wouldn't make me wait any longer, just wanted to give me copies of my receipt and everything and I could leave. This made up for my crankiness somewhat. After all, there was only one person at the front desk.

Anyway, I left. Waited in the (thankfully covered) bus stop for about ten minutes or so, freezing. Walked home in the windy rain, stopped at CVS and stockpiled on junk food while waiting for my 'scripts, then headed upstairs, took them, and went to bed.

I'm not really noticing a difference, though people are saying that I sound better already. I'm still coughing and sneezing and my nose is alternating between sliding off my face and being so stuffed that I can't breathe. My head is also aching, and my ear started to as well. At least my throat doesn't hurt anymore?

But there you go. Double ear infections and sinusitis. Wow. My head is just completely infected right now.

Probably going to stay home again tomorrow because I'm worried about making people sick and still being contagious. Also because I'm not in bed yet.

Next time, someone make me go to the doctor if I'm sick for more than three days.

Our door should have a Biohazard sign on it.

If this was a dorm, I'd definitely do that.

3/4 of us are sick, all with different stuff. Alice is having stress issues that are culminating in physical symptoms, like mine is. She also had the sniffles, but I think that was cherry blossom stuff. Annie is having a wicked battle with her allergies, and they seem to be winning right now. I myself woke up with a scratchy throat yesterday, developed a fever last night, and now it feels like my chest is congested. Michelle...it's your turn...

I've decided to just not do my volunteer stuff. I wait until now to do it and now I'm sick and can't, so. Screw it. I don't get credit for it, anyway.

I did my informational interview this morning. I would grade myself horribly on it. I was sick and wasn't really prepared to do interview-style stuff, which was apparently what Dr. Cohen was expecting. Oh well. I did get information out of him, enough for 2-3 pages for sure. And he is a very nice person. One of the first things he said to me this morning is that I have a lovely laugh. I'm going to try to get his address from Dr. Campi so I can send him a thank you note.

In addition, I've done research for the green team stuff. I've also brainstormed on my US-China paper that's due Monday that really should be taking priority over everything else, but doesn't seem to be doing so. Sigh. Oh well. After that, I just have to do my reflections and final defense letter...and the rest of the stuff for class. Ugh, after Monday things are going to start going downhill. Finally. I hope. We'll see how much I can get done here this weekend.

Anyone who says we have seasons in Alabama is lying. Well, we have two. Winter and Summer. What I love about DC and Rockville is that there are clearly four seasons. We've seen things move from Winter to Spring and it just really is gorgeous. I'll share some pictures later.

Alright, I think I'm going to just sip my lemon tea and watch movies, maybe read. Maybe cook some pork buns. I lead an exciting life.

Stress = bad.

Hello, loyal readers.

Sorry that I haven't updated in like...two weeks...yikes. Things got really hard up here, and I was having a very tough time dealing with it all. It's too personal to go into here, but I started having physical symptoms of the massive amounts of stress I've been dealing with, and also having little breakdowns somewhat similar to panic attacks. Stress attacks? I don't know. But I got in touch with my doctor and she called in some sedative medication for me. Thankfully I haven't had to take any, but I feel relieved that it's there if I need it.

Things are still moving along. My laptop is awesome. I took an impromptu visit home a couple weeks ago. It turned out to be not as restful as I had hoped, as I had a bunch of stuff to do (spring clothes shopping, doctor visits, haircuts, etc). It was nice to be back home, though. I noticed some differences between there and DC: Southern life is a lot slower-paced than here, people are nice everywhere, the food is a lot better, etc. DC is kinda like a crossroads between North and South to me. You can run across Southerners, but there are yankees here, too. The majority of people are yankees, I think, or Southerners who are trying to fit in with the faster pace of life and therefore can't afford to be as nice as back home.

Anyway. I got philosophical there. Sorry.

I made a schedule of the stuff I have to finish and when I'm going to work on it. I think that has helped my mental stability greatly, along with having an emergency plan in case things do start to go wrong again. Sigh. There's just so much to be done...

I felt so tired yesterday that I canceled my volunteer shift. Despite sleeping about ten hours, I still took a nap of a couple hours. Alice did too, but she got home at about 3am and woke up at about 10am, I think. She was entitled. Anyway, we went down to see the Cherry Blossom Fireworks show doodad thinger last night. We sat on the opposite side of the Tidal Basin and watched them. Very pretty, but pictures didn't come out very well. It was dusk by the time we got there. We took some pictures anyway, and since Alice's camera had a flash, her picture-taking time lasted longer than mine. I plan to steal some pictures from her whenever she posts them.

I slept a lot today, as well. But according to my sleep graph, I was up and down all night, so that explains it. Going to just take it easy today, I think. Tomorrow, I may make a trip to Union Station, where the HQ of the Cherry Blossom Festival is. Last night we couldn't find any vendors anywhere (food or merchandise) and I want to buy some stuff. Let me know if you want something!

Gonna sign off now. I desperately need to do some laundry. Bleh.

Laptop woes...and laptop yays!

Well, my friends...last Saturday, I learned that soy sauce and laptops are not friends. In fact, they really hate each other.

We were eating Chinese dumplings, since we have six bags of them and never eat them anymore. I had finished mine, and was on my laptop, which I honestly never do, have my laptop near food, I mean. So I picked up my bowl to take it into the kitchen and it slipped...and splattered the leftover soy sauce all over my open laptop.

I immediately shut it down and wiped up all that I could. Did you know that soy sauce is greasy? Upon getting back on it, it appeared that everything was okay. It had been a crappy morning (crappy week, really) so before I had a mental breakdown, I went to take a nap.

When I woke up, my trackpad was being strange, and a couple of my keys didn't work. Sleep made me feel better, but I still felt like crying because my laptop was broken. I made an appointment to take it to the Genius bar the next day.

So, Sunday, rainy rainy Sunday, I trek out to Montgomery Mall to the Apple store. The guy says that they'll have to send it out to be repaired. He won't say that I spilled something on it on the off-chance that they don't find it. If they don't, they can replace everything for free because I have the protection plan. If they find it, they could requote me up to $755 plus tax. This made my jaw drop. He also said that I could take it to a third party certified repair shop, but that seemed really daunting seeing as I have to rely on public transportation to get anywhere. I called Dad, who spoke with the guy, and decided that he would rather them send it off because it's Apple, so we know they'd do a good job. I left my baby there, knowing I wouldn't see her again for 5-7 days.

This past week was horrible. Thankfully, I have awesome roommates who lent me their computers so I could get the stuff done that I needed to on Monday. But the first deadline for getting the applications into the new database at work was Monday, and we didn't meet it. We met it barely yesterday afternoon, when I was very near to strangling myself with my mouse cord while slitting my wrists with staples and choking myself with toner. I've done about 250 of these applications over the last three weeks. I want a day off. I especially want something new to do. Hopefully I'll get that something new to do on Tuesday.

In the middle of the week, I got a call from the Apple store. They found the soy sauce, but they were only going to charge $430 to have it cleaned up, thankfully. I think that might be their ploy. They suggest an outrageous price, so that when you're confronted with a less, but still outrageous, price, you actually feel relieved and agree to pay it.

Anyway, I trudged home last night and took the shortcut, which meant that I didn't come by the front desk to check for packages. I went out today to Maxim, the Chinese supermarket, to get some more pork buns (AGAIN no Chinese spinach! RAWR!) and Japanese candy. When I came back, I noticed a slip on our mailbox that said I had a package. Two packages, actually. I went to the front desk.

A laptop-sized box came out. I was trying not to hope it was my laptop. I was actually trying to figure out what the second package was, but he said he couldn't find one and I'm not expecting another one. So I told him to call me if they ran across anything.

I came upstairs, getting increasingly giddy because what else could this be? It HAD to be my laptop! I opened the box after some struggling (what kind of devil box do they ship these things in???) and saw nothing but padding. HAD to be a laptop! I dumped the padding out and my laptop slid out with it.

AAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!

I shrieked and jumped around for a long time. I'm pretty sure Alice thinks I'm a freak.

So I have my laptop back. I missed her. I feel tons better now that I have it back, but this semester is still stressing me something awful. At least we're halfway through.

Mondays = evil.

And for more than just because it's the end of the weekend and the start of the work-week (at least in the U.S.).

On Mondays, I have programming. I know. It sounds like we're being brainwashed, right? In a sense, we are. We've had it pounded into our heads since we got here that we have to be making contacts, planning for life after graduation, getting our career tracks in order, figuring out what we're going to do and how we're going to do it, etc. That's pretty much what Monday programming is, 2-3 hours of some form of the above.

While this tactic is good for someone like me and Alice, who are 26 and mature and know who we are for the most part, I don't really believe anyone else is taking it seriously. Not that I think they should, because they're mostly 20 or 21 and still partying and having fun. Still able to function on five hours of sleep (I'm not anymore).

That's getting off-topic. Anyway, in addition to this programming, which takes place in the afternoon, and which we have to wear business dress for, I also have class on Monday nights from 6-9. I like the class, it's very interesting, but it's late, I'm tired, and the metro, for some reason, is hellaciously crowded.

I've learned a lot about myself in this first half of the semester. One thing is that I will never be comfortable in crowds. Ever. In a crowded place, my anxiety levels slowly rise and my mood slowly falls until I'm grinding my teeth or cursing everyone around me or launching into a panic attack. Thankfully tonight, just the one happened.

I've also learned that if I don't get a day to myself during the week, a day to relax and unwind and decompress, I get extremely exhausted. I think this also deals with my anxiety issues. Also has to deal with some of my spiritual beliefs, but as this is somewhat of a professional blog, I will not bore you with them here.

I have also learned that I am intensely curious about other cultures. I have three Chinese roommates, an intern from Spain working in the cube next to me, a Japanese supervisor, and a Japanese ex-patriot advisor. I've been having so much fun learning about new cultures and such. I always have tons of questions and I dearly thank these people for putting up with me.

This blog has just been all over the place, hasn't it? I'm sorry.

So today's programming was a career bootcamp, where we were sent a list of about 20 workshops to choose from and go to them. I chose International Employment: How to Make it Happen, and Getting a Job with the Federal Government. The first was a lot more informative. Tomoko, my advisor, gave it. She gave us the different ways you can get an international job, what you can do, tips about working internationally, and some cases of people she knows and where they ended up today and how they got there. The second, he started off by saying it was a 2 hour presentation that he was going to have to condense into 50 minutes, so he went so fast that I barely knew what he was talking about. Thankfully, I knew most of what he was talking about because my mom is a fed employee, so I knew about GS, and the side to apply, and what the application looks like. He did share tips on how to do your resume, though. That should come in handy.

My back is killing me, it's midnight, and I have to get up at 6:30am, so I'm signing off now. Sorry about the complete disorganization of this post. I'll do better next time, promise.

Er...hi?

Wow. Two weeks since I last updated. Sorry about that!

Well, the last time I wrote I mentioned that someone had stolen a package of mine. It's still MIA. I sent Caroline, the concierge, an email yesterday explaining that I still had not received anything, but I hadn't exactly been checking in at the front desk, either. I also said that my parents have re-ordered the case and it should be here Thursday. No response. So I'm going to assume that they're having a meeting about what to do.

The 27th was my birthday. My unit at the office (aww, I'm so grown up!) threw me a breakfast party complete with Krispy Kremes, half-bagel and sausage sandwiches, scrambled eggs with shallots, granola, yogurt, grapes, etc. It was really yummy. And Taeko gave me flowers. ♥ I have the best supervisor ever.

My parents came up on Friday night for my birthday weekend. We...I don't remember what we did. Oh! We went to the Sichuan Pavilion. They enjoyed the authentic Chinese. I think they liked the dumplings more than the buns, though, which is the complete opposite of me. But if you're not an expert with chopsticks, it's kinda hard to get use to how to eat the buns.

Saturday night we had my birthday dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Mmmmm. We didn't tell them it was my birthday, but they brought out my piece of cheesecake with a candle in it and "Happy Birthday to you!" written on the plate in syrup. Oh, and rainbow confetti all over. Good stuff.

Sunday, we went shopping at Montgomery Mall, which is a mall that is really close to here that I had no clue about. It's really easy to get to, too: take the metro and hop on a bus. Takes you right to the mall. But it's huge and awesome. Macy's is there, and if you have a uterus, you probably know about the huge sale they were having. So I stocked up on short-sleeved shirts for when the weather warms up, and got some new work pants, too. I also finally got my hands on a cashmere/wool coat that I've been wanting for a long time. The other coat I have is just too bulky. This coat is awesome and I love it so. They had an ivory one, too, which looked gorgeous on me and which I've also been wanting for forever, but we couldn't afford both and I wouldn't be able to wear the ivory one all the time. It would get dirty way too easily.

Monday we had programming, which was horribly boring and I read through the entire thing. They never took attendance, which really irritates me. If they're not going to do that, I'm just going to stay home during boring ones. Of course, next week is Career Boot Camp, which should at least be informative. But there are some other events that I have no interest in whatsoever. Also had class that night, where we talked about beastiality among the Mongolians and the baboon-esque habits of the Tibetans before Han Chinese showed up. Interesting, it is.

Yesterday and today was back to work stuff. I've been waiting on access to this system for at least a week. I finally got the email with my account info today and I only have limited access, and it's limited in a way that disallows me to do my work. So now Taeko's trying to get me full access. In the meantime, she's entrusted her login information to me, which was quite a shock to the rest of the team. ^_^

I've had a cough for the past few days. It's a tickle below my voicebox that feels like phlegm or something, but I never cough anything up. It's getting on my nerves, though. Hopefully I can get over it this weekend. I'm thinking of taking a half day Friday so I can recover early. I'm totally having my PJ day this weekend, since I didn't get one last weekend.

That's about all in the life of me right now. I want the weather to warm. I'm still addicted to pork buns. And I'm waiting for the dryer to go off so I can go to sleep. Life could be worse.

Another pretty crap day.

Well, today was not so good, as you can tell by the subject. I've tweaked my hours at work to Tues-Fri 8-5. It's tiring working that extra hour, and I have no idea why. It's not proportionately tiring. It's way more so. Odd.

Anyway, I ran out of work this morning and opened my big mouth to my supervisor about it, who told me to tell her and she would always find me something to do. I started doing the sudoku puzzle in my Express newspaper (free, daily) and she came by.

"Hi! How are you doing?"
":P I'm so bored."
"Come with me."

It scares me that she's always so efficient like that, and always has this grin like "you asked for it." The Japanese. They are an efficiently scary people.

She ended up loaning me to another department, since mine won't need me until next week. The department is Global Services. I'm not sure exactly what they do, but it involves more databases and spreadsheets. And a headache that's been going on for a while.

See, their old system was...well, old. They were moving to a new system with the apps from this year, and had all the scholars fill out the online apps directly into this new system. But now the new system is broken. So the apps have to be moved back to the old system. BY HAND. Like HAND-TYPING. That's where I come in. Because I am an intern and no one in their right mind who was getting paid for this would do it. But me? I do it for free. :D

The apps are about 24 pages long. It took me about 2 and a half hours to do four of them. I thought that was it. Nope! Global Services Manager Anneke comes by my desk that afternoon when I'm finished with the first four.

"Were you okay with the apps?"
"Oh, yeah, I was fine, no problem."
"Okay, I'm gonna give you more to do."

By "more" she meant "a helluva lot more." I got two done and was working on the third before the system hiccupped on me, I lost all the data, and only have fifteen minutes left. So instead of breaking down to cry, I left for the day. Seemed progressive at the time.

On the way home on the metro, I started feeling ill. I read about halfway, then had to put my book away and just breathe and concentrate on not throwing up on the lovely shiny shoes of the businessman standing next to me. I made it out of the station feeling much better, but still craptastic. I got to the apartment and got an email from my dad asking if I'd picked up the laptop case he shipped to me. I tracked it on FedEx and it had indeed been delivered. I stole my roommate's shoes to go downstairs and pick it up. In my pajamas. Because I just don't care after a long day's work.

I got down there and the attendant was someone I didn't know and hadn't seen before. I've made a point to make friends with the attendants. I told her my apartment number and my name and she said the package had already been signed for.

...What?

I said that I had picked something up a couple of days ago. She said, "Oh, maybe it hasn't been logged yet." And disappeared behind the desk. She came back a few minutes later saying that she didn't see it and then showed me the log where it had been signed. All I could see were a bunch of strange loopies that looked nothing like letters, much less my name, and much much less my signature. I told her so and she looked panicked, kind of like she didn't know what to do. "Oh...um...oh my god...Okay, I'll leave a note here for Caroline in the morning." She wrote down a strange, short-hand synopsis on the situation on a post-it. I explained that I would ask my roommates if they'd picked something up for me. She said okay. I knew none of my roommates had done that. They're all Asian. They have gorgeous, neat lettering and don't know cursive or whatever that language was that was supposed to represent my "signature."

So I've had a package stolen. It was a macbook case from Speck, so it wasn't anything really expensive. I'm disappointed because 1) it seems like Fate has decided I should not have this case because it was supposed to be a xmas present and has been backordered these last three months only to now disappear and 2) I love Fenestra and the security and the apartments and location and everything. I don't want to have to fight with them over paying for this if it was, indeed, stolen. It's their fault. They will pay for it. I just don't want it to get ugly.

And now I've stayed up way past the time I planned to go to bed. I'm looking forward to tomorrow being Friday, even though Saturday I have a field trip with my class to the Freer/Sackler galleries and then to Chinatown for some chow. At least I don't have to leave until 11.

Wow, long time no see...

I haven't updated in a while, pretty much because nothing big has been going on. We were snowed in for a whole week, with no metro or bus service, and there was a cabin fever epidemic. Thankfully, there were a couple of places in the town square open, and our RAs put on a Valentine's Day card-making party last Thursday for us to make cards for the residents of a nursing home. They also had free cookies and candy and drinks. Yay!

Our vacuum cleaner doesn't suck. Which sucks. (I love that joke.) We told our RA, Ann, about it and she's put in an order for a new one. Yay, we get a new vacuum cleaner!

We went to the Sichuan Pavilion across the street one night. It is really authentic Chinese food. Since we had Alice and Michelle with us, we ordered in Mandarin and everything. They had these pork buns that were the most flavorful thing I've ever put in my mouth. Definitely my favorite Chinese food, followed by the frozen mini-buns we got at Maxim, the Chinese supermarket (not as juicy).

Friday, the government was actually open, but the metro was not serving our area, so we couldn't go into work. I had to take a personal day. :( I guess that's okay, because I get five and I was wondering what I would do with them. They're expecting more snow tonight, but just a little, so tomorrow should be a work day. I hope so. I had just learned to navigate that office and now I'm going to be lost all over again. But the first time we got the big snow, they only predicted 2-4 inches. I don't really trust meteorologists anyway. I think they work for the bread and milk companies.

We did go to this restaurant called Bobby's Crab Cakes. It was...strange. We went there Saturday night, we made reservations for six (even though only five of us went). Their food prices are pretty high, so we were expecting a sort of upscale restaurant. Nope. It was one step up from a bar. We waited forever for our food, too, and it's not like they had tons of orders. There were maybe six tables in the entire place. It was just a strange experience. The food, when it finally came, was delicious, but...because of everything else, I don't know that I'd want to go back.

Oh! I also signed up for some volunteer shifts at the Cherry Blossom Festival. I think I'm working three weekends, so far. Should be fun! If you're in the area, come see me!

Today, I need to finish revising my Individual Development Plan, and write my second reflection, both of which are due tomorrow. Alice and I are planning to cook dumplings for lunch, and then all three of my roomies have a makeup class tonight, so I'll have the apartment to myself again. Will probably go to Five Guys for dinner...

Snowed-in Craziness.

I haven't updated in forever because we've been hit by Snowmageddon. Yesterday was the first and only day in the past five days that metro has been running, and it was at half speed and for only a few hours. But for those few hours, I went out and got more supplies because this snow is never going to end.

Since we haven't been able to eat out, we've been cooking a lot of Chinese food. Tonight we're cooking dumplings, which we've cooked before, and pork buns, which we have not cooked before. Should be interesting!

Anyway, I wanted to update this little snippet of fun that happened just a few minutes ago.

Me: So what's your favorite English word?
Alice: "Cookie."
Michelle: "Ice cream!"
Me: No, not your favorite food, your favorite word!
Alice and Michelle: "JENNIE!"

They're so silly.

SNOWPOCALYPSE!

At least, that's what everyone is saying. Perhaps after seeing these photos, you will agree.



This picture is taken from our living room window, showing how much the snow is building up on them. We're on the fifth floor. The bottom windows (one is in the bottom left corner) are halfway covered with snow building on the ledge).


As you can see, the street and sidewalks are covered. No ground to be seen. And people are STILL out there driving.


There are some markers in this photo that show how deep the snow is. See the pole that the walk sign is on? It's about halfway covered. There is a bush behind the powerline pole that comes up to about waist-height, also covered. The trees in the background are also being weighed down. And these photos are pretty dim, because it's STILL SNOWING pretty heavily out there.


These pictures were all taken around 10am EST. It's supposed to snow all day and perhaps into the night, and, as I said, it's still snowing really heavily right now. More pictures will probably come!

Snow day!

As my previous post showed, it snowed all day. And I mean, all day--there wasn't once that I looked out the window and didn't see snowflakes covering the place. So I think we got more than 2-4 inches. But because of the weather, we didn't really go out today. No Tai Shan party. :( I was kinda scared to go out because it just kept snowing harder and harder and I didn't want to get stuck in Adams-Morgan if the metros stopped or something.

I laid on the couch and took a nap. It was nice.

Annie went out to do errands. And Michelle had to meet some people this morning for the model UN stuff? Or something? Alice took a nap, too.

Pretty lazy day, really.

When Annie got back from errands, I woke up. She said she wanted to go out to eat at like 6 or 6:30. We got ready and went out to La Tasca, a Spanish restaurant that serves different kinds of tapas (appetizers). I thought it was going to be the Mexican kind of tapas, the things that are kinda like hot pockets but actual food. Anyway, it did end up being just a bunch of appetizers and you order 2-3. Our waitress left much to be desired in terms of personality (I made it my goal to make her smile, but succeeded only barely and for a microsecond) but the food was pretty good. They had these battered and fried skewered shrimp that came with a garlic mayonnaise sauce that was delish. And for dessert, I got these things called churros with chocolate fondue. Churros are like...twisted fried dough covered in sugar and cinnamon. You dip them in the fondue. They were yummy. It was a very interesting experience. I'd never been to a Spanish restaurant before.

Across from La Tasca was Five Guys and when I told Alice about it, she said she really wants to go. So we might go there tomorrow for lunch. We need to brave the snow to get a few things down the Rockville Pike, too. Ugh, and our Individual Development Plan crap is due tomorrow, too. :( TWC keeps you seriously holy god busy.

Anyway, we got back and Michelle was here. Yay! She'd been missing all day and it felt weird without her. We've all gotten really close. We wound down a little and then me and Annie sat down to watch True Blood season 1. Well, Annie doesn't know where the remote to her DVD player is. So we were fine watching the first episode. But couldn't get to the second, because there aren't arrows and stuff on the actual player. We tried to hook our computers up to the TV, but that didn't work either. So we have to go get a universal remote tomorrow. I totally got her into the show, though. Yay! :D

Alright, I'm tired and need to go to bed. Tomorrow's going to have to be productive. Unfortunately. :(

SNOW!

It's snowing! ZOMG!

EDIT: More snow! It's really picking up!

Powerful Woman!

When I first found out Annie's last name, I told her that her name sounded like a powerful woman's name. Ever since then, Michelle has latched onto that phrase. At random times, she'll strike a pose and say "Powerful woman!" It's hilarious. :D I love my roomies.

So it's been a few days since I've written. It's been kind of hectic around here. Work, sleep, work, sleep, work, sleep. That's pretty much what my life has been. I don't have the energy level of a lot of these youngsters (once you hit 25, your body starts to feel old) so I don't go out at night. Annie is going out clubbing tonight and I'm just amazed. I don't have the energy for that. I'm exhausted after this week.

Okay, so Wednesday. I forget what I did at work Wednesday, but I'm sure it involved printing stuff. I got my printer over in my cube. I printed applications for this Iraq program that they're doing because I think the deadline is Monday...? Anyway, it's really soon, so that was top priority. But I finished them all that day. Kareem was happy.

Wednesday night, I had the apartment to myself because all of my roomies had class. I took a glorious shower, and washed clothes. Man, my life is exciting. My roomies got home at about 10:30, when I was going to bed.

Thursday was a very boring day. I ran out of work to do about 10:30am. Kareem needed to do some prep work before training me on the next project, so I just chilled out. I wrote my first reflection thing that I have to do for TWC. Then I pretty much read the rest of the day. I was so sleepy and bored. About 4pm, I went by Kareem's desk and he said that he was having trouble and we'd just have to do it tomorrow. So I asked Taeko if I could go home and she said yeah. When I got home, it was actually still light outside!

My roomies were late getting home, though, and I'd left my phone at the office in my desk. RAWR! I should stop making fun of my mom for doing that now. About 9pm, Annie and Michelle came in, saying that they went to Target and got carried away and then ran home because it got really cold outside. Annie was worried that she had frostbite. She's so silly. Alice, our fourth roommate that arrived...Tuesday? I don't remember. Anyway, she got home about 9:30 because her boss treated her to dinner. Since everyone was home, this mother hen could finally go to bed.

Today started off being a bad day. I woke up at 7am, half an hour before my alarm was going to go off. I wanted to go back to sleep, but I got all excited about work and couldn't, so I just decided to get up. I got ready and everything and went off to the metro. Well, I'm buying 7 day unlimited passes during my time here because after calculating all my expenses, that turned out to be the cheapest option. So I had to buy another one today, which made me just late enough to miss the usual train I ride. I had to stand in the 16-degree weather for six minutes until the next train arrived. That doesn't sound like long unless you're in that weather. And there was a guy about fifteen feet from me who kept spitting off the platform onto the tracks. He did it like four times. I was about to go shove him onto the tracks. Grr.

Then we arrived at the Van Ness station, and I tripped and fell going up the escalator. Boo. :( And it was freaking hella cold outside, again, so I went in the main entrance of Intelsat, which is like two blocks closer than the other entrance (the building is huge). I'd never done that before and I'm still getting lost in that place, but I figured I could ask a security guard if I got really lost. Little did I know that to use this entrance includes going up like three flights of steep stairs. I made it to the central spiral of the group of pods that I work in, but there's no bridge to get to my particular pod. So I had to go one floor below, find another set of elevators, and go up to my floor. Thankfully, unlike yesterday, the door was open today. Security is big in this building (Intelsat = Intelligence Satellites) and you have to have a code to get in the CIES office, which I had yet to get. Juliou gave me one later that morning.

So since my morning was sucking so far and I hadn't eaten anything, I got Lucia to come with me to get some breakfast. Cinnamon french toast day! Yay! I got a couple slices, along with a hash brown and a couple pieces of bacon. Kareem was also in the cafeteria, and made a comment about how expensive it is. I knew that was unusual! And I saw this morning that bacon is $.55/each! But I've been really nice to the lady that works the register and she only charged me for one slice this morning. I'm telling you guys, being nice to people and turning on that Southern charm (if you have it) really goes a long way, especially in a place where the people aren't used to that.

I ate my breakfast, which could have been better, but also could have been worse. When Kareem was ready, he came over and explained to me that we're going to start processing visiting scholar applications. This means the people overseas who want to come to the US to study. There are 800 of them, and each app is about 30 pages, give or take. Why did they insist on me having my own printer? Because I have to print all of them.

I literally ran through five packs of paper today. That's almost a whole case. 2500 sheets.

And my morning didn't get any better.

I was just feeling bad for some reason. Not physically, but mentally or spiritually, I guess. I just wasn't in my normal, happy, energetic mood. When I was printing the Jordan apps (there were 11 of them, 339 pages) I noticed that the back door of my printer was open and the paper was spitting out there. Well, I was multitasking doing other stuff, but eventually noticed that paper was falling out of the back. I turned around (my back is to my printer) and paper was piling on top of it, all turned over and falling on the floor, totally getting out of order. I stopped everything. I got into an even more gloomy mood after seeing this. I pouted for a few seconds, then went to Lucia's cube and demanded a hug. She obliged and I told her what had happened. She lent me her sympathy and I went back over to stare at the mess. Kareem sent me an email asking me to print one of the applications I had processed Tuesday and I got that done, really procrastinating on what I had to do--pick up all 300+ pages and reorder them. I sent Kareem an email about my bad morning, and he came over. But he hadn't read his email yet, so I had to tell him what happened, in the middle of sorting the apps out.

He said, "You know, I would just chuck them and print them out again."

I raised my eyebrows at him.

"You can be green if you want to, but I'd recycle all that and start over."

I rubbed my face and relented. I chucked all 300+ pages into the mixed paper recycling. And started over.

From then on, my day got better. Taeko took us out for lunch to a place called Z-Burger. They have, literally, 75 different flavors of shakes. And their burgers and fries are good, too. She treated us all, and it was just a really cool lunch. I got to tell a few more of my coworkers about myself and also to hear what they had to say about stuff. I like getting to know people. Taeko teaches martial arts! How many of you can say that your supervisor teaches martial arts?!

We went back to the office after an hour and a half lunch and I got back to work. I had about seven or eight countries' apps to go through and I got them all done at about 3:15. I went to deliver them around the office after I was done with each one, and people said, "Oh wow, they're still warm. Did you just print these?" I nodded and they were amazed. Really made me feel good. ^^ Anyway, when I was done, I went to Kareem and told him. He had nothing else for me, so I went to Taeko and asked if I could leave. She consented and I got to leave early. Man, the metro is dead at that time of day.

Got home early, took a shower, and read some fanfiction that Christy sent me. Ahhh, it was so calming. And again, it was daylight! I don't like getting home in the dark.

Annie got home about 5:30 or 6, demanding that we go out for dinner because all she had for lunch was a bagel. I had eaten well all day, so I wasn't really hungry. Michelle got home shortly after that and we learned that Alice's work hours are 10-6. She would be late getting home. We waited as long as Annie could wait and then decided to just go. We took Sarah, our neighbor, with us to Primo Italiano. Honestly, I wasn't all that impressed. I ordered some garlic bread, which went over well, but my calzone wasn't all that great. I just ordered a cheese one because they didn't have any with meat, just cheese, eggplant, broccoli, and spinach. Ew? So yeah. I also got a root beer. I've been wanting a soda for like over a week and the Sprite was broken. :( Why does that always happen? Anyway, they had cannolis, though! Me, Sarah, and Michelle ordered one. Chocolate flavored. They were richer than regular cannolis, and Michelle didn't like hers. She's not used to the richness of American food yet, I don't think. But I suggested she take it home to Alice, because Alice has a sweet tooth like I do. I don't think we'll be going back to the restaurant, though.

I was correct about Alice liking the cannoli. She said it was delicious.

Now Annie has gone out clubbing, Michelle and Alice are in bed, and I'm falling asleep in my bed.

Tomorrow is Tai Shan's Farewell Party. I really hope the weather holds up. Right now, they're predicting 2-4" of snow. :( It involves a lot of walking to get the the zoo and then get around in the zoo. I hope the snow doesn't screw up my plans. I love Tai Shan and the other pandas. I can't believe we can't get an extension on our loan from the Chinese. :(

Anyway, those are my plans for tomorrow. We have a 3-5 page paper, part of our TWC portfolio, whose draft is due Monday, too. Bleh. If not tomorrow, I'll be busy Sunday. At least I'll have Monday off from work...

CIES = AWESOME!

Hello, all! Sorry for not writing last night, but updates may get sparse anyway. Basically we went to more orientation yesterday morning. A sergeant with the DC Metro police talked to us, gave us his work email, personal email, and phone number with instructions to call him at ANY time. This is an awesome example of community policing. I can't imagine the B'ham police doing anything like that. I found it very impressive and inspiring. We also listened to the best speaker I've ever heard--Josh Sundquist. He was so hilarious, and also had moments where he was very inspiring. The auditorium was roaring with laughter and then completely quiet. He really has a gift.

After that, we ate lunch at this little diner. It was freaky weather yesterday, too, because it got up into the 60s. So we sat outside (there was NO room in the diner) and ate. The diner had tons of different foods. I got a pizza. I was starving, so it was good. Not sure if it would have been otherwise. The others seemed to like their food okay, though. I don't know.

After lunch, we were all terribly uncomfortable from having to dress in business dress for the meetings, so we came back to Rockville and changed. We decided to go shopping because Annie needed some dress shirts for work. We went to White Flint Mall, which is a couple stops down on the metro. They have several stores in there, but it's not nearly as big as the Galleria. I'm spoiled. Anyway, I bought a few things. At H&M, I got a black scarf and crocheted beret. At Nine West, they were having a huge sale/clearance, and I found some flat boots for $40. Couldn't pass those up! There was also a Cheesecake Factory in there, so we ate there for dinner and trudged back to the apartments being dead-tired and fat and happy.

This morning, there was a fatal crash on the red line at Rockville Station. This is the station that I use. I had no idea about it, so I went down there and they said that there were shuttles to the next station. This added on 30 minutes to my morning, so I'm glad that I left early. I feel bad, though, because I just wanted to know when the metro would be back up. I got a text from Annie that said a fatal crash was the reason the station was closed. They have everything back up and running now, but people at the office were saying that it's happening all the time now. I hope they get to the bottom of whatever's going on.

Anyway, I got to the Intelsat Building, where the CIES offices are located, at maybe 9:04am. No big deal. But security in that place is tight! I had to wait in the tiny lobby for someone to come get me and escort me to the conference room. They had heard about the crash, so they were all really understanding and didn't hold my tardiness against me.

To the conference room we went, where we were able to pick off of a small breakfast buffet they had set up for us, which included fruits and pastries and different things to drink. Sweet. We had meetings with the two people who hired us, Tanya and Jeff, telling us all about CIES and giving us info and different things like that. Apparently, we get a travel stipend for traveling to the office. $10/day, given to us at the end of the semester. Cool beans! Oh, we also have 5 personal days. Double cool beans!

We took a tour of the office. Interestingly, the Asia region people mostly speak Spanish. Huh? I know, I was like that, too. I asked if anyone spoke Japanese, and an older guy looked at me and said, "Nihongo o dekimasu" (I can do Japanese). I was so excited! I shrieked and we had a little conversation in Japanese while everyone around us kind of stared. It was awesome. Also on this tour, we met Taeko, my supervisor, who is Japanese. So I greeted her with "Ohayoo gozaimasu!" (Good morning!) And she greeted me back. I love working with people who can speak Japanese! (Note: I later found out that the older guy was married to a Japanese woman, hence his fluency.)

I met with Taeko and we went over my schedule and goals and whatnot. I didn't really know how to put my goals into words. I'm basically just trying to find my career path right now. I'm not sure what TWC is looking for, in terms of that. Anyway, I explained to her that we have TWC programming on Monday and the times vary. She said that she was told I would be working Monday-Thursday, so we just switched my days to Tuesday-Friday. Sweet! Three day weekends rock! Well, it won't exactly be a three-day weekend. Monday is still packed for me, it just starts a little later.

After this, she handed me off to the guy I'm working with to lighten his load. His name is Kareem and he's so awesome and funny. Basically, CIES is moving to an online application process where the info is directly put into the databases. Previously, they had to type all of it in by hand. There are 800 chosen applicants. This is a lot. So they're still tweaking some stuff, and this is what I'm helping Kareem with. There's an Iraq program which has a deadline in a couple of weeks, so that's on our agenda first, then to the regular applicants. But I think what we're doing is printing out the applications and making files for them. That's what I was doing this afternoon, anyway.

The interns all met for lunch in the cafeteria. I am so glad that they have a cafeteria, because I didn't really see many places to eat around the office. And the cafeteria is really impressive. They had potato and leek soup today! Wow! So I got a bowl of that and some vanilla pudding and water. All of that was over $5. Pricey! I'll have to pay attention to that next time.

After lunch, we got our ID badges so we no longer have to be escorted around. We also had more training time or whatever to do, so I worked on the stuff Kareem gave me. I sent him an email that I would be by his desk at 3pm for him to give me whatever work, and I was over there exactly at 3pm. He goes, "Oh...you're...here?" And I was like, "...Yes?" And he goes, "That's...so weird. I mean, you're actually here when your email said you would be." It was so funny. So basically, I just printed out applications the rest of the afternoon and put them into folders. I should be getting my own printer tomorrow and then I'm going to print out labels for them. Kareem checked up on me at 4:30pm and was impressed with how much I was getting done. He also said, "I'm tired of being here, so I'm leaving. I hope you will, too." And I said, "Oh, far be it from me to dash your hopes." And he goes, "Well, I can't tell you to leave. But I encourage you to do so." I ended up staying so that another intern and I could walk to the metro together, but still. It's nice that I'll get to leave early.

So I get along with everyone fabulously. They're so fun-loving and relaxed about everything. It's a great office.

It did take me an hour to get home. That was a bummer. And it got super-cold outside. Friday it's supposed to snow. It's going to be cold for this little Alabamian.

I have other stuff to catch up on, so...until next time!

Another good day...badda bing!

I slept the most solidly last night that I have so far. I went to bed at about 10:30pm and woke up at 7am. Back at home, I wouldn't consider that enough sleep. But I wanted to get up this morning, so I did.

I was the first one up for a while. Michelle got up around 8am and took a shower, didn't come out of her room until about 9 or so? But Annie, who didn't go to bed until 2am, didn't get up until around 10:30. So I had some time to myself to catch up on things. I got a few emails from people back home, which nearly made me cry. I miss home, but it makes me happy to hear from people. So if you're back in B'ham, feel free to send me messages!

It was a very gray day, so the Mall trip was nixed. It's been rainy and nasty outside, and pretty cold, even though weather.com says it's 53 outside. That is a lie. Your breath does not fog up that way when it's 53. Anyway, one of Michelle's college friends flew in this morning, after finally getting his visa and everything. He knows how to say "good morning" in Japanese! Anyway, he came over and didn't have any bedding, so we went on a trip to Target. We tried to tell him how to get around and everything, but I think he was a little overwhelmed. Anyway, we got some food stuffs, too, and some other little random things that we were needing. I also got some of those turn-cans-into-bottles things? That you pop onto aluminum cans to turn them into bottles? I think they're called Bottle Toppers. My parents made fun of me for wanting them, and even Wentao was surprised that I was buying them, but Michelle was impressed like me! I think it's an awesome idea!

We also rode the bus by ourselves! The drivers weren't as nice as the one yesterday, though. Why are bus drivers so mean?

Anyway, we came back home and found out that Wentao, Michelle's friend, had bought a Verizon cell phone, but a T-Mobile card with minutes. Since he can't use those two together, we were telling him that he should return the phone. Apparently this isn't as prevalent in China as it is here? Or maybe it was because he'd already opened it. Anyway, we were trying to tell him that in America, we return things if we can't use them. The thinking is, if we paid money and we can't use it, we deserve our money back. So what he decided to do (what we told him to do, really) is return the phone for a T-mobile one. There is a Verizon store downstairs, though, and he went down there to ask about any pay-as-you-go programs that they have. The guy apparently told him that if Target didn't take back the phone, they would downstairs. I was impressed.

Annie and Sarah are big Vikings fans, so they went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the game, and took Michelle with them so she could see what a sports bar is like. I took a nap while they were gone. They came back at halftime, which I'm glad for because I didn't need to sleep any more, and apparently they had scared Michelle with all the yelling and everything. Whoops. She's fine, it's just really different from China. Wentao also came over at one point to give us an update on the phone situation and Annie and Sarah yelled at the TV at one point, which scared him, too. He asked me why I was so calm and I said that I just didn't care like they did. He said, "Oh, okay. Yeah, it's good to be calm." XD Cute. I asked Michelle later if the Chinese just aren't enthusiastic like Americans and she said it depends on who follows sports, but sports aren't like this in China. There aren't any like...nationwide popular sports or anything. If you play it, you're a fan, but other than that, you're not really. Though she did tell me that instead of university vs. university teams, they have department teams within the university. I thought that was interesting.

I didn't eat much today, which might be why I'm so tired. But we have more orientation in the morning, from 9-12:30, then a couple of optional workshops in the afternoon, which I don't think any of us are going to. Classes don't start until Tuesday, so I won't have my first class until next Monday. Therefore, I only have to do the orientation tomorrow morning. I need to go to CVS to pick up a few things, though, and we didn't make it to the Chinese market. We may do that. I also hooked up the DVD player, so movies are a go now. I bought "True Blood," which ran me $50 at Target, but neither Annie nor Michelle have seen it and I love the show anyway. It's a good investment, right?

Okay, time for bed. Goodnight. ♥

Pork dumplings, Rockville tour, Sushi Damo

Hello, all! Significantly better day than yesterday, I'm happy to report. :)

This morning I woke up at 8:30 and couldn't go back to sleep, so I just got out of bed. That was when I came in here and started my previous entry. We were supposed to have a pancake breakfast, free, complete with blueberry and chocolate chip, starting at 9:30. Annie told me that she wanted to sleep in until 10:30 and I told her that we'd bring her some pancakes. Michelle and I went downstairs a little after that time and found that the clubroom was locked. There was a sign on the door saying that one of the people from Fenestra was supposed to come open the door for us, but they were delayed, so the time was pushed back to 10am.

About 10 after, Michelle and I started to head back down. We ran into some other Chinese students in the hall who just came up from downstairs and said that it still wasn't open. So we just decided to wait until Annie was up and we could all go down together.

I got Annie up a little after 10:30, though she said she'd been awake for a while, she was just lazing in bed. She got up and got ready and we actually lost track of time just sitting in the living room and talking. It was about 11:30 by the time we went downstairs to check again. This time, there was no sign or anything, so we figured we missed it. Darn!

Annie insisted that she could make us some pancakes, but we didn't have any baking soda or salt, so we decided to try these frozen pork dumplings that her father had bought at a Chinese market not far from here. It took the water FOREVER to boil, but they ended up being REALLY good. They came in a bag of 30 for $3, and we had some leftover, so we're going to be eating those a lot, I expect. During the cooking and the meal, we discussed food and decided to cook on the weekends. Annie and Michelle will try to teach me how to make Chinese food and I'll try to teach them some Southern recipes.

Also, something that struck me as a little bizarre--they don't use dishwashers. Apparently this is an Asian thing? I don't know, but I find dirty dishes disgusting and have always hated washing dishes, so I'm all about some dishwashers. So I taught them how to load it this morning and once we get enough dishes in it, I'll teach them how to use the detergent and turn it on.

After lunch, we had a few minutes to chat some more before we went on the Rockville bus tour. Instead of an official tour, it was really just the students from Fenestra who wanted to go see where the things are in our area. We just took a bus line and ran to the end of it, then ran back. Amazingly, the bus driver was awesome and didn't charge us any fare. A couple of interesting people sat next to me. One woman, when she got on the bus, instructed a couple of the students up front to get up for an elderly woman who was getting on. I was immediately impressed. "A Southerner!" I thought. The woman herself was standing. A female student gave up her seat. The woman then smiled at the boys who were still sitting and said that now they should give up their seats to her. I was even more impressed. I am a complete believer in chivalry. The student said that she was okay and wanted to stand, so they didn't end up getting up.

But a little bit longer down the ride, Michelle turned to me and asked if she should let the outspoken woman sit down because she had two bags that looked heavy and I told her that yeah, it was probably a good idea and would win her a lot of points. The woman sat next to me and we talked a lot. I found out that she's trying to get her Bachelor's in Business Management for the fifth time right now. Before, she kept having to drop out because people in her family kept getting sick and she had to take care of them. She told me that at one time, she had six jobs simultaneously. It was just very inspiring to talk to her, and she wished us all luck on completing the program.

A few stops later, an elderly Chinese woman got on and sat next to me. Well...she was American, but both of her parents were Chinese. She was very insistent that she was not Chinese. She struck me as being a very conservative Republican, saying that she went to Bush's second inauguration and she cared nothing about going to Obama's and that she was tired of DC and wanted to get out. She did tell us about some cool events happening, though. On January 30, they're having a farewell party for the panda cub Tai Shan at the National Zoo from 11am-3pm. Peking Acrobats are also coming to the Strathmore sometime in February. I'll have to look up the exact date again. However, the woman was also kind of...not mentally sound, I guess? She mumbled to herself when she wasn't talking to me and she repeated herself over and over and over. I mean, after telling me about fifteen times in a row about the zoo party, she wrote it down on a strip of paper and gave it to me. I folded it to put it on my purse and she took it back from me and folded it another way. It was just strange. I am glad to know that there are people willing to chat here. I'm a Southerner, I'm comfortable chatting with strangers.

After the tour, we came by the library to check out the DVDs and different selections of books they had available. They actually have a long shelf of Chinese books that thrilled Michelle. I looked for Japanese. I found Vietnamese, Korean, Russian...no Japanese. It was disappointing, but I also didn't look very thoroughly. Annie was getting a headache because it was so stuffy, so we decided to head back to the room. Before we left, though, we found a little niche in the wall that had a bunch of flyers and pamphlets about stuff going on. I pointed out to Michelle that she should take the pamphlet on human rights back to China. They had a map of the town square that's really nice, too.

Came back to the room and kind of chilled for a couple of hours before going to dinner. A friend of Annie's and her roommate came with us. Connie goes to Washington University with Annie, and Sarah is in the International Affairs program with me. Sarah's also traveled really extensively and speaks several languages. She's a poli-sci major, but not one of the annoying ones. She's obviously very serious about her work here.

We decided to go to a sushi place that also had Japanese food, Sushi Damo. The sushi was inexpensive, but if you got the Japanese entrees, it was kind of pricey. Since I don't eat sushi, I got some chicken katsu (torikatsu?) that was delicious. It was really, authentically Japanese. Our waiter was also authentically Japanese and very hot. When I was explaining to everyone what the different things were, he came over and asked if I wanted to apply for a server position. ♥ He was very cute.

After dinner, we just came back to the room and hung out. Michelle's still a bit jet-lagged, so she's very sleepy and going to bed now. I'm getting tired myself. Tomorrow Annie and Michelle want to go down and explore the Mall. I'll see how I feel tomorrow to see if I want to go with them. I've seen the Mall a lot of times, it's a lot of walking, and it's also crowded, so. May not happen. I could just enjoy the time to myself. But we'll see, because I really do enjoy my roomies and love spending time with them.

Alright, I think I'm going to go do some pleasure reading now. Hoping that tomorrow is as awesome a day as today!

Bad day. :(

Well, I didn't update last night because yesterday was a bad day, and my roomies and I stayed up late discussing things and helping me to feel better. I really have awesome roommates.

The day started before the sun was even up. I'm not a morning person. If the sun isn't up, I don't think the world should be up. It's not natural. But we finally rolled out of bed at about 7am, left here about 7:45 bound for the metro, and rode into the city. It was cold and dusk-like and sprinkling some freezing rain. But the metro was warm, at least.

Since my roomies are in a different program than I am, they got off a stop before mine. My directions turned out to be wrong, but I caught it quickly. Instead of turning left out of the station, I needed to turn right. It was a lot of walking and I wore my rain boots because it was supposed to get really bad. It turns out that rain boots are not for walking long distances, and when they say "a couple blocks" in Washington, it means more like 4-5 Birmingham blocks. Blocks are long here. So my feet ended up being sore, but I made it to the National Housing Center.

We were sent into the auditorium, where the first five rows were dedicated to Criminal Justice and Law students and the last rows were International Affairs (which I consistently refer to as "International Studies" and they have to correct me). Two of our advisors introduce themselves (including my own, Tomoko Shimizu) and we're split into groups of four and sent off to the Freer Gallery to do a scavenger hunt all morning. I was disappointed. I was prepared to listen to lectures and soak up information, but instead we're doing a scavenger hunt in a Smithsonian art gallery? Wow.

Well, one of the girls in my group was from Birmingham and her brother goes to UAB (I was wearing my hoodie) so I thought we would click right away. On the way to the metro, I figured out that that wasn't going to happen. These people liked to complain. A lot. They were not very happy about being sent on a scavenger hunt anyway, apparently because we're too old to be doing that (I've done at least two of these in art history courses) and because who cares about art history, we're political science majors. (I've discovered that I have a distaste for poli-sci majors, by the way.) Anyway, none of them had been here before, and I've been several times, so I offered to lead. But in order to lead, people have to willingly follow you, which these three did not. I consistently had to shout, "HEY!" to get them to come with me in the right direction. I was getting very annoyed.

We got to the Freer Gallery and they didn't even open for another half hour. So the caffeine addicts sought out directions to the nearest Starbucks and we went inside for a few minutes. They insisted on trying to look up the answers with our phones, which didn't really work because the kind of information you find in an art gallery doesn't work like that. I knew some of the answers already because quite a few of them dealt with Asian art and a couple just from knowing about Ancient Egypt. I was proclaimed weird for knowing these facts. Sigh.

We trekked back over to the art gallery and started on our scavenger hunt, these guys putting way more effort into trying to find someone who knew the answers than actually looking for them. After an hour, I just didn't care anymore. I felt like crying, because that's what I do when I feel intense emotions, whether it's frustration, anger, sadness, or happiness. I was definitely frustrated here because I thought all the students here would be serious about their studies and wanting to make this an awesome experience. These guys just wanted coffee and shopping and sleep. So basically we half-heartedly filled out the questionnaire (I have to admit that when asked how to handle a certain artifact and my group decided to write "very carefully" that that was pretty funny) and they set off for an early lunch. But I wanted to meet my advisor face-to-face and also wanted to eat with my parents because I couldn't take the group anymore.

I introduced myself to Tomoko and we chatted a bit. She said that she would send me an email of a bunch of Japan-oriented events and organizations around DC. Oh yeah. We've bonded.

I went to meet my parents at Dupont Circle and we decided on lunch at a place called Cosí. It's a sandwich place that makes its own bread. The bread itself was really good, but I ordered a pizza that was not so good. Of course, I was already upset and nearing a panic attack or breakdown, so my stomach was upset and I didn't feel like eating. But the regular bread was good. I dreaded leaving my parents again to go back to this stuff, but I figured the afternoon would be the lecture material that I had been prepared for in the morning and maybe we wouldn't have to split into groups again.

I made it back to the NAHB and sat by myself. They started shortly after that, going over some of the information, but then stopped and divided us back into our groups. We have a portfolio project to do this semester that is about 60 pages long, consisting of various things we have due over the next few months. They gave us a portfolio from the past semester that we could look through. I was not in possession of the portfolio, so I just had to twist around and look over the back of my chair as they hurriedly flipped through it and complained about all the work and how people kept asking stupid questions and how we were gonna be there all day and that they're leaving at 4pm, no matter what. I turned around quickly and just read through our syllabus by myself. Thankfully, that was the end of the group work for the day. We did a couple more activities, but I was really glad to be out of there at 4.

My parents were waiting in the lobby, so we just went to their hotel and I took about an hour and a half nap before we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was kind of funny, because we were the only ones there. The waiter/bartender was excellent, though. I got a steak, because I figured it would be the last time in a while that I would get to. It was really good.

I ended up getting back to the apartment after 9:30. My parents graciously drove me so that I didn't have to ride on the metro and walk the freezing three blocks back here because I was already sore from walking all over everywhere today. When it was time to say goodbye, I started crying. This is the first time that I will be separated from my parents for such a long time. I was separated from them in Japan, but that was only two weeks. I lived by myself for over a year in Birmingham, but they were half an hour away, and I had two cousins living across the parking lot. Family is just really important to me, and all the stress of the last couple days hit me, so...the tears came.

I came up to the apartment and Annie and Michelle immediately asked what had happened. I told them about my bad day and Annie gave me a hug and we just sat and chatted for a while until I calmed down. I felt better after like two minutes. Like I said earlier, I have great roommates. And Annie hates polisci majors just like I do now. :D

We talked a lot last night. We didn't end up going to bed until 1am. I feel a little sore this morning, but it's nothing I can't handle. Now I'm just waiting for the pancake breakfast we were promised to open. The rest of the day will be resting.

Made it to Rockville!

Hello, all! Today has been exhaustive because of the fact that I did not sleep for long enough last night and have now had to stay up way late. Boooo for mandatory things. Boo!

Anyway, we got on the road this morning at like...9am maybe? Made it to the Rockville Town Square about 11am. Fenestra Apartments is NOT where the GPS says it is. It is a few blocks further down. And there is NO easily accessible parking to the area. There are two public lots on the entire Town Square area and they are ridiculously full. But Dad made nice with the Fenestra concierge because she's a fellow Alabamian and he was wearing one of his Bama jackets (my parents are die-hard Bama fans). She actually went to Auburn, but I think we bonded over the "It's cold here, huh?" thing. Because it is cold here. Around 40 degrees. There are random piles of snow outside. It's weird.

So Caroline, the concierge, told us about a secret loading dock place where we could park. There is an elevator RIGHT THERE that leads up to the apartments. So we unloaded after I checked in, and I set about unpacking after seeing that I was the first roomie to arrive. It was actually a pretty painless endeavor until I got to my "bathroom/miscellaneous" tub o' stuff. Then I was tired of it and didn't want to do it anymore.

My parents were starving by then, so we walked over to Noodles & Co. I got some buttered noodles with grilled shrimp. They were okay. Next time I think I'll get some kind of seasoning on them. But for $7, it was awesome.

We came back and I still didn't want to unpack, but did a little bit. My parents needed to check-in to their hotel room, so they scurried off to do that. In the meantime, my first roommate arrived!

Annie was born in China, but her family moved here in '97. Well, not here, but to the US. She lives in Cincinnati and goes to college in St. Louis. She's here for the Bilateral US-China Trade Relations program. She chose to share my room (it's the bigger of the two). She's a light-sleeper. I fear that the traffic and trains will keep her up all night.

Well, there was some grocery/market stuff that I needed, so we located a Target not far from here. I picked up a few things, including a nightstand (there's only one in the room) and we came back here to find...another roommate!

Michelle flew here from Beijing, where she's from. Her English is really good. She's also doing the same program as Annie, the bilateral trade thingie. And obviously, she's also Chinese.

We got a flyer about a mandatory meeting (with pizza) in the club room at 7pm. It was about 6pm at this time. So we chilled and I finished unpacking everything with much help from my parents.

The meeting ended up being a lot of "duh" stuff. No smoking, no kegs, no parties, etc. Oh, but I did find out that, unbelievably, a $39 weekly metro pass is the best deal. Why? One-way trip from here to DC is $4.25. Twice a day is $8.50. If I didn't even go into the city on the weekends, that's still over $40. I guess I'll use up the $10 on my smartrip card and then start getting those passes. Public transportation is expensive here! :(

Now Annie and her father have taken Michelle and another of Annie's friends to pick up a few things they need. I'm exhausted and would like to stay up to talk with them a little before bed, but it doesn't appear that will be happening...

Oh, and apologies for stilted and grammatically incorrect prose. I'm exhausted and just want to post this without editing it much.

Tomorrow is a full day of orientation, 9am-4pm. Let's hope I can get a good night's sleep in preparation...

First Leg of the Journey

This morning at 7am, my parents and I started the first leg of the journey to Washington, D.C. from Helena, Alabama. We drove 13 hours. That much time confined to a minivan should be illegal.

But at least the back seat made a sufficient bed. I slept nearly half the time or so, and looked it when we got here. After a shower and brushing my teeth, I feel human again.

There is a Cracker Barrel across the parking lot from us. I decided it's going to be the last time I see actual Southern food for a while, so we went there for dinner. Mmm fried stuff!

We've made it all the way to a little north of Richmond, Virginia now. We are about 100 miles from Rockville, Maryland, our actual destination, since that is where I will be living for the semester in the incredibly swank Fenestra Apartments, located above the Rockville Town Square. I'm really looking forward to it!