All Over the Place

I'll start this blog post off with my typical rant of random tragic/actually not so tragic observations of my life... my beloved "click click" shoes have officially stretched out and are showing their Payless shoe worth, causing me to spend the majority of my Monday tripping and falling on multiple occasions. And I nearly caused a traffic jam this morning right in front of the escalator (BIG rush hour no-no). And the vegetarian thing lasted three days before I accidentally ate tacos. And then chicken... soo I'm still exploring that...ish.

I had a very nice weekend. Saturday mom came to visit... we got to see some cherry blossoms, got to go to lunch with cousin Ian and his girlfriend (so nice to see them!) and then mom and I headed to one of my favorites, the National Portrait Gallery. After mom left, I headed over to what I thought was a park, but it was this strange bus-waiting area in the middle of a parking lot... I did a lot of people watching, and then my good friend Jen came to meet me and we talked and sat in the sun. Once we assembled some more interns we headed over to the Marvin Gaye Park Festival that Andrea (my roomie)'s internship, Washington, Parks, and People, was putting on in the community where I volunteer. We got there right in time for some live music... one of the Temptations was singing, it was pretty sweet.

Mommy and Me!

Oh hey mom... (It was windy) ...don't tell her this is up here ;)

Live Music at Marvin Gaye Festival:

What else... Sunday John, Andrea, and I headed over to the National Mall and parked ourselves down for a little picnic. I departed to head over to a new favorite, Bus Boys and Poets, for a discussion on race and a book called "The State of Black America in 2009." Two friends, Nick and Keith, met me at the discussion. Nick also enjoys discussing race, but this resulted in standing on a street corner debating after the talk was over (and we're both really loud). We definitely got some strange looks, but I managed to persuade him to go to a restaurant, where we wound up befriending the bartender and getting almost everyone in the place invested in our conversation. U-Street is my new favorite DC area! We will be back!

My DC fam at our picnic :)

One (good) thing I have noticed is that even though I am spending the semester only 2 hours away from Dickinson -- I have still found ways to explore the issues that I care about and most importantly, to get myself out of my comfort zone. It was sort of interesting to witness the dynamic of bringing a group of fellow white interns into a predominantly black DC neighborhood for the festival... and we should acknowledge music as powerful in bringing people together. A speaker I heard at the beginning of the semester said something along the lines of, "we need to acknowledge what we have in common before we can celebrate our differences." People are still so hesitant to talk about race... even at the discussion, I'll admit I was uncomfortable at times, and I definitely hesitated to go in the first place... but what I came to realize is that oftentimes it is important to push ourselves to do what isn't easy. It's easy to think and talk about what needs to be changed in our society, but taking the next step, to put ourselves into situations that are different and to try and understand another point of view... that is valuable experience.

And another thing, as I have officially been defeated emotionally and physically... I hope everyone is taking some time to relax, wherever they are. Because I thought I had a relaxing weekend, but my body thought otherwise. I don't think it is a secret that I don't actually know how to relax, but how do we give ourselves time to relax when there is so much going on? Meh. So you know when you sleep on your neck wrong? Well apparently I slept on my back wrong, and as the day went on my shoulders got tighter and tighter (anxiety much?) to the point I basically couldn't move. I had to skip my weekly volunteering today in an attempt to "take care of myself" ... aka having a good cry on my bed while paralyzed. I feel like I write about being overwhelmed a lot, and even when I am having an "easy" semester. Maybe I shouldn't be realizing this about myself on a public blog... but I'm only human. Moral of the story: I'll admit it, I am burnt out! I'm heading home for the weekend for Passover and Easter (the plus to being half jewish/half catholic..) I'm looking forward to a good hug from Grandma Shirley.

Anyway, we're watching slumdog millionaire... and my very attractive Indian friend just won, and they're about to make out, err wait-- just kidding-- it doesn't show them making out. Just some crazy bollywood dancing I need to learn ASAP. How do you not want to marry Dev Patel after this movie?

Sending love to wherever you are... :) Leave me some nice comments, I'd like to get some feedback on my craziness... thanks much.

Last pic...Me attacking Jen by some blossoms Friday night: