Homecoming

First, thanks to everyone who completed my survey. I got enough responses to complete my project and I'm definitely going to ace it!

Second, I'm coming home Dec 17! I will *probably* be on the West Coast for about a month. I hope to see my friends, so let me know if you will be around and want to hang out!

Much love,

Amanda

I Need Your Help!

For my research methods class, I had to design a research project. The last stage in this process, since we are not actually carrying out the research, is to pilot our design. Because my final project includes several elements of research, I am only piloting one small part of it - a survey that is designed to measure the awareness and attitudes of students in regards to peer mediation.

It would help me out greatly if you would take my survey. Your answers are anonymous and will only be used for my final class project - they won't be published or otherwise reproduced.

Thanks in advance! The survey is short and should only take a few minutes. Click the link below to start!

Click Here to take survey

A Time to Be Thankful

Life has not been easy recently. Those of you who I have talked to know about my housing issues, current workload, joblessness, etc. But lately things have been looking up, and for this I am thankful. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving in New York City. Erica is coming home tomorrow and I am confident that a new apartment is in the near future. I have cheap plane tickets to take me home for Christmas. I found out that my student loans can be further deferred. And I just scheduled an interview with NPR for an internship with the Ombudsman. All good things. I don't have much more to write except to say thank you to everyone I love. See you soon, and enjoy the NYC pics!

Its a Lovely Night for an Exorcism

It's getting cold here, so Kat and I decided that it was now or never for tourism.

We started yesterday by going to the Mall and seeing the major monuments along the way. It was freezing, but a really nice walk. Afterwards, we went to Georgetown for shopping where I bought a new winter coat, hat, and scarf. Then we ate yummy fried green tomatoes at a resturant called Old Glory before heading over to the FAMOUS STAIRS.

Maybe you know the ones I'm talking about. They were featured throughout The Exorcist, especially at the end when the priest throws himself down all 97 steps after being possesed by a demon. I was going to put a clip of the scene on here, but youtube doesn't allow that one to be embedded.

Anyway, we took several chilling pictures (and some fun ones too!) in the lovely yellow light. Enjoy!

New-ness

So I made a major change in my life last night. I dyed my hair. There are a few good things about this and a few not-so-good.

Good things:

1) YAY I ACTUALLY DID IT!

2) It doesn't look crazy or bad and it matches my features

3) Now I'm not scared anymore!

Bad things:

1) It is way lighter than the picture on the box said it would be

2) It is so light that although I see a difference, no one has really even noticed :(

3) It is kind of anti-climactic

Judge for yourself:

Old:


New:


So I guess that the change was more of an inside one than an outside one. I did it! But no one can tell.

Stolen

So, I stole this from Sarah's blog. I really couldn't help myself. Really. Sorry for all the movies lately. Strike that. No I'm not. This one is so worth it.

Prop Eight

Prop Eight. I could rant about this for days. Instead, I'll let Keith Olbermann take care of it for me. Enjoy.

Whats a girl to do?

There were good times, once.

Like a few weeks ago at the Obama rally. That was fun.

Or even just a few days ago, looking forward to the end of Starbucks.

Sigh.

But now things are different. No more election fever. No more looking forward to the end of work. Even today, my last day at the coffee palace, was overshadowed by far more pressing problems.

Like the fact that I got kicked out of my house. And the fact that I feel like a loser because only losers get kicked out of their houses. And no one believes you when you say that you aren't a loser and that you really were wronged. Like, "No really, you must have deserved it".

I was thinking about this when I arrived home from work today and saw, to my dismay, that the internet cable on the outside of the house was cut. I feel pretty confident that my landlord did it. Yes, I am alleging that the terrible excuse for a person fell to a new low in the so-called "FIOS WARS" and has now cut me off from the world.

It could be worse. I could have boatloads of homework to do. I could owe the IRS $700 (and counting). I could have a zillion small things to do that together feel so immense that I can't get started on anything, instead retreating daily to the Post Crossword, competitive online scrabble, GFY archives, and sleep.

Wait. No. All those things are true.

And now I feel like an emo reject who blogs when she is feeling blue because she really just wants attention. But that's not the case. Really, it's just that I've already finished the crossword, played my games, and read the blogs. It just isn't time for bed yet.

Halloween macht Spass!

It has been almost a month since I've blogged, but I have been so busy! Several weeks were pretty uneventful, with work and school taking up most of my time. Thank goodness I'm quitting Starbucks!

Halloween weekend, however, was really fun! I have a new roommate, Katrin, who is here from Germany for an internship. We have spent a lot of time hanging out, and I'm so glad that she moved into the house! We are currenly working on our own slang with a mixture of english and the very limited German that I remember.

On Friday, Kat, Erica, and I went to Cox Farms to pick out a pumpkin. We got there shortly before closing, but it really was beautiful with the sun setting behind the farm and the last minute families looking for their jack-o-lanterns. We got our perfect pumpkin and spent awhile looking at the goats and talking to their keeper.




When we got home, my roommates and I carved the pumpkin and made yummy pumpkin soup and baked the seeds. I had to be up early for work the next morning, so it was a pretty tame but really enjoyable night. It was especially fun because it was the first time that Martha and Kat had carved pumpkins before! We named ours Jack Martha and he is still sitting on the porch.



The next day (Saturday) we had a day-after-Halloween costume party! Almost everyone dressed up, and the party went on until the wee morning hours. Mostly it was Allison's friends (since she is local) but Martha brought some Ugandan friends, Kat brought a group of Germans that she has connected with here, and I invited some people from school. Our big house was pretty full, but we didn't have any problems with the landlord and, despite a few uninviteds who had to be kicked out, everything went very smoothly. Here are some pictures of us in costume:





So that was my Halloween weekend! Expect more blogging soon, since I am going to an OBAMA rally tonight and then voting on Tuesday!

Famous people part II

This weekend has been really awesome. Disclaimer: this is going to be a long post.

On Friday I hung up with Kyle's family in DC. We met up at the Museum of Natural History and then moved on to explore all of the major monuments along the mall. It was so fun to hang out with my family! And my cousins are getting so big! It was also really cool to see DC from a different perspective. Instead of being the tourist, I felt more like the local person showing the tourists around. This is a little bit of a stretch because I am far from feeling any sense of ownership of this place, the way I would if I was showing someone around Port Orchard or Parkland, but it was still like I was seeing DC with a different set of eyes.


When it started to get dark, we met up with some of Michele's extended family who had also been hanging out in DC, and we all made a stop at the whitehouse before going off in search of a place to have dinner. We found a nice Italian restaurant in Georgetown where our 15 person party got right in. The food was delicious, and the family we were eating with were all so nice and welcoming to me! It was my aunt's sister's husbands family (they are all here from California for a wedding) so we were had a lot to talk about with the family relationship and the big day of sightseeing that everyone had.

One of the family members in our party was Rich Talauega, who, along with his brother, is a pretty major hip hop choreographer. I'm talking Madonna, Usher, Chris Brown, various commercials, movies (i.e. Save the Last Dance), ... you get the picture. I'm not going to over-exaggerate the extent of our meeting, because he was at the other end of our very long table and so I didn't have a chance to talk to him very much. (On the other hand, he is related to me by marriage!) Anyway, I wanted to give a shout out here because his family was so cool to me AND he paid for my dinner. So if you get a chance, check out Rich and Tone's website: www.talauega.com.

When I got home that night, I pretty much left immediately to go out to a club in DC with my roommate. I was pretty tired, and it was already midnight, but it was her friend's birthday party so we really had to go. It was pretty uneventful, but I'm blogging about it just to note that the friend whose birthday it was (I don't remember her name) had shelled out a few hundred bucks to get a table. So once again, Allison and I got right in past the line of people waiting outside. Only this time, we had a catered spot, elevated and separated from the floor by a rope, and we also had access to the VIP lounge on the fourth floor. I pretty much felt like a famous person. I also wanted to write about the club so that I would have an excuse to post this cool picture I took:

On Saturday, I celebrated my early birthday to myself. I got a haircut, then went to see David Sedaris at George Washington University. If you don't know who David Sedaris is, then you better run to the bookstore ASAP and fill a major void in your life. He writes humorous essays, mostly about his own life, but there is some fiction too. If you listen to This American Life, then you have probably heard him before (and PS if you haven't listened to TAL, then that is another thing you should add to your list).

Anyway, the night was fabulous. He read an old essay that I hadn't heard before, then he read some of his newer stuff. Afterwards, he did a Q&A followed by a book signing, where I purchased a copy of The Santaland Diaries. When I finally got up to him, I was so nervous that I didn't have anything intelligent to say. But that was okay. The only way I can describe him is "charming". I loved every minute of it! For all of you in Tacoma, he will be in town later on this month. Everyone should go! Here is a video that I took from the Q&A session where he talked about American and British soap operas. I apologize in advance for the poor quality, but that's video in a dark, crowded auditorium for you.

Three famous people sightings! (sort of)

You will not believe who I met today....

R.L. Stein!

I wish I could say that it was coincidental or even serendipitous (i.e. if I were about to be possessed by an evil mask like in book 11 and Stein came in the nick of time to save me), but it wasn't. Today I went to the National Book Festival at the DC Mall! There were about 70 authors there giving presentations and book signings in tents divided up by genre. Other than Laura Bush (who I missed), R.L. Stein was the only author I had heard of before. And, like 99% of my sixth grade class, I've also read about a billion of his books. Although I wanted him to sign a book for me, I was running late and didn't want to stop at the sales tent. It's a good thing I didn't, because I was literally in the last group of 10 or so to get his autograph before he had to leave. Could my spot have been better used by one of the hundred or so disappointed kids behind me in line, clutching their copies of The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena? Sure. Maybe next time they'll get there sooner.



After the signing I went over to the Capitol Building, which I hadn't been up close to before. It was there that I thought I was about to see another famous person. A hummer limousine pulled up about ten feet away from me and immediately there were a few photographers crowding the door. I pretty much joined them, figuring that I had as much right as they did to sell my pics to the tabloids. Unfortunately, the doorman was very frustrated with the photographers (I quickly stepped back, disassociating myself from the group and pretending to fiddle with my umbrella), and the occupants were refusing to come out. Eventually the car left, but not before I got a glimpse of the people inside. They were teenaged girls in prom dresses and tiaras! While I told myself that perhaps I had just seen the princesses of some tiny island country who were confused about where the back entrance is (in support of this theory, the doorman was carrying a large shield-looking thing as if he were prepared for the paparazzi), it's more likely that I got excited over some girl's sweet sixteen. Darn! I then turned my camera to the Capitol to see if I could zoom in enough to tell if that was Senator McCain on the balcony, perhaps getting some fresh air on a break from an afternoon of grueling bipartisan economic talks. Now that was just wishful thinking. Besides, one famous person is enough for one day!

Debate Number One

For those of you who live sheltered lives, yesterday was the first debate between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. It was actually the first presidential debate I have watched in its entirety, so I was pretty excited about it! Here are my reactions:

1. Let's get this out from the start: Obama looked like a president.

2. I was seriously bothered by McCain's absolute avoidance of any eye contact with Obama. It made him look mean.

3. Why in the world didn't anyone REALLY talk about the economy? I mean, earmarks? Really? That's not what anyone cares about right now.

4. Although it seems like a lot of commentators don't agree with me, I actually really appreciated Obama's "John is right but" phrases. I thought it sounded more responsible and measured than McCain's attacks.

5. On the other hand, McCain's toughness is going to appeal to a lot of people.

6. And come on Obama, there are so many more offensive things that you can say! You don't have to turn into McCain, but some more firmness and direct challenges to McCain would have been better.

7. I also think it is darling that McCain makes comments about his age!

8. The best part of the debate for me was the exhange about talking with "enemies" without "prerequisites". Initially I totally agreed with Obama, and theoretically I still do. However, I spoke with a friend last night about it and am now thinking more on this issue.

9. I think that Obama won, but of course I am biased. The debate actually seemed fairly close...

10. So, what do you think? Who won the debate? I want to know what you think and why, so leave me a comment!

**

On a related note, I am now really psyched for the vice president debate - especially since I spent some time watching Palin interviews online today. All of the ones I watched were so uncomfortable at best. Some moments bordered on disasters. Like this one:

Obama 2008!

So last weekend I went to an Obama Fundraiser hosted by my neighbors/classmates. It was at a vegetarian Indian restaurant (a whole new food experience for me) right down the street from my house. The food was amazing, lots of people showed up, and hundreds of dollars were raised for the Obama campaign through raffle tickets, donations, and the sale of homemade baked goods! I was really happy to be a part of it, going around to local businesses to (successfully, I might add) procure free haircuts, massages, and other things to raffle off. My roommate and I also made Obama Cupcakes to sell, and they were a big hit! Here are some pictures from the event. The first is of my neighbor and "adopted buddy" (long story) Ajla and Me. The second is of me and my friends Karolin, Ajla, and Drustva (and one other girl that I don't really know!):





Since I am now an official Obama supporter (via my hard-earned money). I'm now getting emails from the campaign. Mom - Obama is sending me emails too! I'm thinking about having a debate watch party at my house soon, so I'll post pictures here if it actually happens.

In other news, I recently bought tickets to see David Sedaris at George Washington University. I bought them through a local public radio station (represent!), so I paid more than market price, but it is worth every penny to me to actually see him live. The show is on Oct 4th, so I am counting it as an early birthday present to myself. Added bonus: My seats are in the first ten rows, front and center - the best seats in the house!

One Month

I just realized that yesterday marked the one month anniversary of my arrival to Virginia. It feels so much longer!

Over the weekend I attended the welcome dinner at ICAR. It was mostly new students and faculty, and was mostly an opportunity to attend a really fancy event. I bought a dress for the occasion, which is significant because I don't think I've work a dress since prom! Here's a pictures of me and my roommate Martha:

Also this weekend I went out with my roommate Allison and some of her friends to a place called UltraBar in DC. It's three stories of wall-to-wall people and dancing. By the way, there was a huge line to get in, but don't worry about it - we were on the guest list.

Allison is the one on the top left wearing brown.

Crazy dancing!

School right now is going well. I am working on a project for my research class, and this is bringing some relevence to my studies. My writing for the media class starts up next week. My goal for that class is to get my op-eds published SOMEWHERE (New York Times, perhaps?). If I do, then I will post it here first thing!

Watch this!

I Survived the Storm

If you are anything like me when I lived in Washington, you are probably not too aware/concerned with Tropical Storm Hannah, the most recent almost-hurricane that has visited the east coast. I, on the other hand, woke up to Hannah knocking on my door. Fortunately though, it wasn't as bad as people had predicted it would be. Basically it was just a lot of rain. Kind of like home actually! The following excerpt from a recent Washington Post article talks about the damage. To give you some perspective, Prince William County (the hardest hit) is almost an hour away from me. Fairfax county is about 15 mins. Apparently the power is out in parts of D.C. (about 15 mins away) but it is on at my house. The rain has stopped. And through it all, it stayed warm outside. Tomorrow is projected to be 85 degrees and sunny!



"Tropical Storm Hanna eased its way out of the Washington region early this evening, leaving behind closed roads, spot flooding and at least one fatality, but, despite rains that measured more than six and seven inches in spots, far less destruction than had been feared."

"The damage appears worst in Northern Virginia, where Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Prince William was the hardest-hit county in the state. Flooding in central and southern Fairfax County prompted a couple of small scale evacuations, authoritities said."

"Trees fell throughout the area, and in one Woodbridge neighborhood a tree fell on a single family home, but no injuries were reported. Rocio Chavaria, 18, was watching TV in the living room with her family when they heard a loud cracking sound. A thick branch broke through the ceiling of the kitchen."

"Water was coming in and I said 'Oh Lord'," she said. "I'm upset by the damage, but we're relieved that everybody's fine and no one got hurt."

"By 5 p.m., the wind and rain were all but gone from the area. However, dark clouds still covered the skies as Hanna headed across the Delaware Bay into southern New Jersey."

"Overall, "things are winding down," said Josh Newhard, a meteorologist at the Accuweather forecast service."

"Pepco reported about 10,000 customers without power early this evening in the District and Montgomery and Prince George's counties. Dominion Power said about 9,000Northern Virginia homes were without service."

"Since Hanna's rain bands first began hitting the region this morning, more than six inches of rain have fallen in Leesburg, and 4.8 inches at Dulles International Airport, where winds gusted to 40 miles per hour."

"As Hanna departed, it was apparent that the storm had not caused widespread damage. Though it met the meteorological standards for tropical storms, in its effects, it was essentially reminiscent of one of the area's more powerful thunderstorms."

See the full article HERE.

Name that movie! (Hint: see picture)

-Crawl, l really appreciate
what you're doing, but, l just--
l don't fit in here.

-How do you know ? You're not even
here now. You're still back there.

-Why'd you come here
in the first place, Bec ?
To try something new, right ?

-Yeah.

-Well, how can you try anything new
if you haven't even left campus yet ?

**************************************

So, I feel like the above movie quote might help to explain how I'm feeling right now. I think I am paralyzed because there is a part of me that is not really HERE yet. I miss my friends and family. I regret that I'm not working at KPLU and living in my downtown apartment the way I had planned. I can't stop thinking about how happy I would be if I had never left. And because of this, I'm not FULLY here. In the movie, Becca had the same problem. She left home to go to school across the country and she didn't feel like it was her place to be. With Crawl's help, however, she overcame that feeling. She dyed her hair, got a tattoo, and dove completely into the Southern California party scene. I feel like maybe that is not exactly what I need to do, but a similar transformation is probably in order. I need to figure out how to BE here, instead of just being here. Sooner rather than later would be great. Any advice?

A job, an assignment, and a social life

Hi! Sorry it's been a few days since I last wrote, but I have been very busy!

First of all, I got a job last week at Starbucks. It was as much from boredom as from the need for money. I basically just walked in there and asked them to hire me. The application and interview process was really tough though. It consisted of, "Wow, you worked for a radio station? You're hired!" I'm not even joking. That is all it takes to get a job serving coffee in Northern Virginia. Looking at the other employees there, I was struck by the thought, "They don't take their coffee seriously in this crazy place." Really, none of the Starbucks I've been to here have the same feeling, if you will, as their counterparts back in Washington. They are not as clean and the service isn't as good. It's weird. But starting on Monday I will be bringing some of that Seattle flavor to NOVA (that stands for Northern Virginia. It actually took me over a week to figure that out) coffee houses. I'll call it the "west coast roast", and it will be good.



I also had my first week of classes. It was overwhelming, to say the least! There is tons of reading and tons of writing. I think that over time I will get used to it though. If other people can handle it, then I think I can too! It helps that some of the things we are doing are really cool. Take, for instance, the final assignment in my Governance Post 9/11 class. We are writing a Memo to the President Elect, kind of like Madeleine Albright did. This memo will be edited and sent to the President. Let me say that again: Something that I wrote is going straight to the oval office. How cool is that?! My teacher was talking about us getting invites the White House and eveything. It is impossible to tell what will actually happen with our papers, but I know that ICAR has the connections and the name recognition on Capital Hill to really make this project worth doing a good job on!



And last, I just wanted to report (for anyone who I have called over the last two weeks either completely bored or somewhat lonely and needing to talk) that I am finally making some friends out here! Yesterday I went to the mall with my neighbor and classmate Ajla, then I went dancing with my new roommate Alison last night. Today I went to a school picnic where I met a lot of people from my program and made plans to hang out later this evening.

So in conclusion, I have a job, I am doing exciting things in school, and I am starting to meet people out here. Things are looking up, and I can't wait to see what next week will bring!

Things are really about to start!

It is finally sinking in that school is about to start. Maybe that's because I endured NINE HOURS of orientation over the last few days. It was everything you would expect from an orientation - meaning that there were awkward "get-to-know-you games", presentations from various members of the GMU community, and lots of information that can easily be learned by glancing at the website or reading any of the information they send out in the mail. Even so, it was nice to actually be there, meeting people and seeing the facility.

It was also kind of intimidating! There are students from the Balkans, various African countries, Canada, Switzerland, and probably some other places too. And it seemed like everyone had a really interesting story. From Israeli university graduates to former ICC interns or UN employees, I felt like almost everyone had already done these exciting and impressive things! No wonder I almost didn't get in... Nevertheless, I have already made note of the few people who seem even less prepared than I am, and that makes me feel a little better :)

As a reward for spending two days at orientation, I decided to spend Saturday at the National Zoo. It was sad that my camera ran out of batteries half-way through the day, but I still saw tons of interesting animals and took some pictures. Here are some of the highlights:


I <3 pandas! The ones at the zoo were particularly lazy, but they were still pretty cute.


I think the zoo may have received a large donation of Golden Lion Tamarins, or else they are admirable breeders, because there were like eight exhibits of these monkeys. Also, although I didn't have any nightmares about them (see spider story below), I think they were the scariest animal at the zoo. I have never before felt afraid of monkeys, but these little guys had creepy humanlike, shrunken faces and they raced around their cages in such a way that you just knew they would be impossible to catch with your hands. And in the exhibits where several were together, I couldn't help but think that if they ganged up on you, you would not stand a chance.


I know this isn't a good picture, but it's a sloth in a box! Adorable! This is an example of a nice monkey. (Although I'm actually not sure if sloths are monkeys at all...)


A Komodo Dragon! I actually don't care about it either way, but I think it is kind of exotic.


I'm not even kidding, this spider was one of the few animals that was NOT CAGED. There were two spiders that I saw, each of them pretty big (maybe two fingers together) and they shared a corner exhibit that was full of webs and plants. There was NO GLASS. Seriously, I had my camera only inches away from this thing. I can't figure out how the zoo knows that the spiders won't take off! I acted brave, getting all close and everything, but then I went home and had a nightmare about that spider! I dreamed that somehow the zoo spider's eggs (and there were thousands of eggs in there) got on my clothes and I took them home where they hatched and my room was overrun with HUGE spiders! It was very scary.

A Good Sleep and some Old Bones

Last night I got my first good sleep since arriving in Virginia. That's right, I have a bed. It was purchased, it was delivered, and it was good. Also, I figured out how to work the air conditioning upstairs in my house. It was like a double-bonus. In my excitement about the new sleeping arangements, I decided to take some pictures of the house and my room:






Well rested and feeling much less sick/cruddy than I have felt over the last few days, I decided to spend my day at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I was there for about five hours and still didn't get to see everything. I bought a book about the Hope Diamond (pictured below) and also saw an IMAX movie about dinosaurs. Here are some highlights from the museum:





After I left, I went back to the Lincoln Memorial for a concert. An Air Force orchestra played Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait along with several other works with a Lincoln theme. It was really nice to just sit out there on the steps of the memorial, looking down the reflecting pool (and Sarah, I have to admit that I saw a reflection today) to the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building behind that. A soldier was passing out American Flags. I'm planning on keeping mine.