The Whirlwind

Soooo…it’s been ten days since I flew out to the East Coast, and I have yet to publish anything on here telling you anything about what’s been happening.  I’m quickly realizing that there is more to do than there is time to do it…especially when all I want to do on the weekend is go play tourist or vege.  As a result, I’m going to try to keep this post quick.  I hope to come back later and add a few pictures…but realize that may not happen and that a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing!  So hang on to your hats folks, it’s been quite the two weeks!

Wednesday June 6 – last day of nannying before setting off on my Washington adventure (for the latter see my previous post)…good happy day in some ways but still also a sad day.  Visited with a friend that evening!

Thursday June 7 – Packing….lots of packing and then almost completely repacking.  Included in this day was a breakdown under the feelings of overwhelmed-ness.  Emotions weren’t helping any.  But it all got done in the end….

Friday June 8 – Flew to Houston for a layover, then my flight to Baltimore got delayed.  Didn’t get in until after 11, if I remember right.  Family friends the Davises were kindly there to pick me up and take me to their home for the weekend.

Saturday June 9 – Mrs. Davis took me shopping for the stuff I didn’t bring, and it was also nice to just have some down time to relax on their beautiful back porch between the rush of packing and leaving and the task of acclimating to a completely different city.  Had fun with the Davis girls!

Sunday June 10 – Attended the Davis’ church…the sermon was certainly applicable to how I was feeling about then.  The pastor was talking about how even when we fail, that doesn’t mean God cannot or will not use us.  Here I was, facing a huge unknown, and God knew just what I needed to hear J
After lunch we loaded my stuff into the car and eventually meandered our way to my apartment! (Driving in DC is very confusing!).  Unloaded, then was dropped off at campus for orientation!  Met my apartment-mates later that evening and started getting settled in.

Monday June 11 – Amazingly managed to get everything unpacked and find a home for all of it by mid-afternoon!  Had our first class on Ethics that evening.  Long class sessions…..6:30-9:30 Monday/Thursday evenings and 9-12 Friday mornings :/  Professor is GREAT though – he’s a good teacher, there’s just a LOT of info.  Thankfully there’s a whole group of girls from the off-campus apartments I’m staying at in my same program, so we commute back and forth together, especially in the evenings.

Tuesday June 12 – Had a big welcome ceremony that morning, then an orientation session from the program with suggestions for how to make the most of our internships.  Five of the six of us who are working in the same building went together and tried out the route from campus to our internship location, then had lunch together.  It would have been totally great, except for the fact that it was raining…but it was still good J  Went on an adventure to Target to get a few extra things that afternoon.

Wednesday June 13 – First day of internships!!!!!!  Lots of orientation information, which was great to hear but a bit of an overload.  After learning some of the basics, we were able to head out early.  Interesting evening lecture from an investigative journalist that night!

Thursday June 14 – After some more orientation-type activities, we dove right in.  Summarized a press release into a story for broadcast, then worked on writing an article from a summary of a research study.  Couldn’t resist visiting the National Cathedral for a little while (only 15 minute walk from the office!)  Second ethics class.

Friday June 15 – Got up early to go run…class in the morning, then third day of internship. Had my story from the day before checked and posted, then wrote a second piece which was also posted that afternoon.  After arriving at the apartment, an apartment-mate and I went to the zoo just for a little while.  Headed to campus for a trivia game hosted by TFAS (the sponsors of the five programs, of which mine is one).  Joined a team with one girl from my internship and four other random people, and we won!!!!!!!  Had dinner with the other girl to celebrate.

Saturday June 16 – Attended a fascinating seminar about the Constitution by a Reagan administration official.  LOVED IT!  Then joined up with a couple other Woodley girls at the Smithsonians.  Wandered around the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, then called it a day when that closed.  Chilled with the apartment-mates all evening (including watching a movie) rather than doing anything productive…

Sunday June 17 – Father’s Day!  Met up with Josiah and Carolyn Davis to visit their church, had an IPJ friend along with me!  Absolutely loved it – very convicting and very good.  Invited out to the main Davis house for lunch, which was fun J  Came back just in time to change and leave the apartment again, headed for campus to join a bus tour of the monuments organized by the program.  Definitely a good experience!

Monday June 18 – Another internship day – completed two stories, both of which were posted to the web.  Also was able to learn more about how things are posted to the site, which is great exposure for me to get a little familiar with that!!!  Another night of class – followed by a feeble attempt at productiveness this evening.

Random notes:  ~~Otters say "maaaaa."  At least the National Zoo ones do!  ~~The Catbirds here don't know they're supposed to be shy.  I've seen more and closer than the rest of my whole life.  ~~The Pileated Woodpecker on the tree outside my internship window didn't know he's supposed to be out in the woods far from people either.  ~~Squirrels are all sorts of colors here!  Just yesterday saw a black one and a brownish-grey one almost right next to each other.  ~~And metro is crazy until you get used to it :P

Well that’s all folks, and now I must get to bed because tomorrow we hit the repeat button all over again J  Thanks for reading!  Comments always appreciated – it just might encourage me to post more often!

My Summer Plans....

Ah, poor bloggy.  I know I keep saying I'm going to post on here and then leave you all alone.....but I think that's just the way life is.  Anywho, here's an update on my life/summer plans!

As some of you probably know, I will be spending two months this summer in Washington, D.C. as a student at the Institute on Political Journalism.  I will be leaving soon (June 8th), and I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you more about what I will be doing.

The Institute is one of five led by The Fund for American Studies and hosted by Georgetown University.  There are about 400 students who will be in the Institutes during the time I will be.  These programs provide participating students with an internship and a couple of classes from Georgetown.  Housing is also provided.

I will be in an apartment near the Georgetown campus.  Several other students will be in the same set of apartments.  I will be sharing the three bedroom, two bathroom apartment with six other girls.  I have yet to meet any of them.  In fact, I don’t know anyone at all who I will be with during these two months.  It kind of feels like going to college for the first time all over again…except this time I know it’s only for two months.

My internship will be with WFED radio, a 24 hour news radio station in Washington, D.C.  My understanding is that I will be writing, editing, and conducting man-on-the-street interviews, primarily for stories that will be posted on the station’s website.  I am rather intimidated by this internship, since I know basically nothing about radio broadcasting.  I think it may be good to broaden my horizons though.  I will typically be working 8-5 at my internship, then going to class two or three days a week from 6-9.

While I will obviously be busy, I hope to also have some fun enjoying living in D.C. too.  I am sure I will be visiting most of the Smithsonian museums at some point.  I think some of the program participants are also scheduled to get a tour of the White House!  Perhaps best of all, I will be in D.C. for the 4th of July!  If you watch the concert at the National Mall on TV, look for me – because I am sure I will be there somewhere.

CRAZY day - (Wednesday)

Well, Nathan has been home the last couple days! But he leaves again tomorrow :( (That's why I haven't posted much - trying to spend as much time with him as I can before he takes off....)
So - now about the crazy day! Wednesday morning I went running at Richland's path...it is a .75 mile loop. I put in my greatest distance so far - 2.5 miles! I didn't do it all at once though...I did 1.5 miles in 15:06, walked some, got a drink and stretched, then one mile in 10:12 or something like that. I came home, ate breakfast, took a shower, etc...then I went to babysit!
The way I came in contact with the family I babysat for was funny....the wife of the "pastor" (we don't call him that at our church) at my church suggested me to her daughter (last summer I think...), then her daughter suggested me to her church in March or so (and I've done quite a bit of babysitting for them). A couple weeks ago, one of the coordinators at the church asked if I would come to her house to babysit for a birthday party, so I did. One of the families there was the pastor and his wife from that church....so Tuesday night, my dad called me to say that someone he didn't know was asking me to babysit...and it took me a few minutes to figure out who it was :D
Anyways, they have five children....(girl - 8, girl - 6, boy - 5, boy - 2, girl - 10 months)...so I was pretty busy for the three hours I was there. It was very fun though. They are sweet kids for the most part. The boys loved it when I gave them horsey back rides...kind of wore me out! I really enjoy babysitting, for many reasons! :D I love being with the kids, it gives me a small taste of motherhood, and I earn money doing it!
Once I got home, I took a short nap then worked on random things, watched news, and ate dinner. (There was some thunderstorm activity - that will figure in later!) We (Dad, Mom, and I) then headed out to go to our U.S. representative's town hall meeting. It started at 7, and we got there a few minutes afterwards...as we got closer, we realized that people were having to park a ways away and walk in...Dad was nice enough to drop us off by the door so we wouldn't have to take the chance of getting rained on. As Mom and I were walking in the door, two police officers were walking out...I heard them tell all the people still coming that they wouldn't be allowed inside the building - there were too many people! So I called Dad and told him that we got in but he wouldn't be able to....he decided to go home and just come pick us up later. Well, we made our way to the room where the meeting was, only to find that it was so full of people that people were crowded outside the doors! We couldn't see and could barely hear. The representative was told to ask everyone to move quietly away from the doors because of the possible fire exit hazard, etc. We were thinking we would just leave, but as we were headed out we heard that there was a speaker in the hall, so we sat in the hall and listened. It was still really hard to hear because (ahem) some people (ahem, like the mayor!!!!!!!) were just standing in the hall chit chatting..... We left before he actually finished because we didn't want to get stuck in a big traffic jam.
That was about 8:30. Nathan's flight from Washington, D.C. was supposed to land at 9:20, so we headed for the airport. The sky was very interesting....there was a big dark cloud over about 90% of the sky. As we got closer to the airport, I noticed these very bright lights...too bright to be stars or warning lights on towers. Eventually, we figured out they were airplanes, lined up and just waiting to land at DFW...there were at least 11 planes that we could see flying around under the big cloud. Remember those thunderstorms??? DFW had to stop landing planes for a little while because of that, so they had gotten backed up....soon after that we got an automated call saying that Nathan's plane would land at 10. We headed to a mall to kill some time. While we were there, we got a phone call saying he would land at 10:30, and then another call to say his flight had to divert to Austin (getting to low on fuel) and that he would land in DFW at 11:30. The mall closed officially at 9:30 (we were still inside after that), then we just stayed out in the car a little while (I tried to sleep...) We arrived at the airport at about 11, then sat at the baggage claim area. THEN NATHAN CAME!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!! Two and a half weeks and an overseas trip - it was GOOD to see him again!!! Poor guy was exhausted though - it was 5:30 am Thursday (London time), and he had gotten up Wednesday morning in London and not really slept since then. Then, to top it all off, his luggage didn't come up the belt....we had to stand in line to talk to the baggage guy, he told us to wait 10 minutes, then we had to stand in line AGAIN, then we had to fill out all this information for a claim etc. etc.... It was nearly 12:30 by the time we left the airport...and I didn't get to bed until 1:30 a.m....it's really no wonder I slept in until 10 the next morning (usually, I can NOT sleep past 8 or so)......
So that was all about our crazy day! Nathan's luggage was found and delievered to our door the next evening.