She's going rogue!!

No pictures today, and I'm "going rogue" because I'm updating from work. Sssh...

Just a few new pieces of info. Numero uno: I'm teaching myself to write with my left hand. My friend Jason could not believe I did not know how to use a lighter (not even a zippo or anything, like your basic BIC) so he tried to teach me and I just could not make it happen. He bought me a lighter so I could practice and after my right thumb got sore, I switched hands and boom. It worked every time. Sometimes I forget I'm left-hand dominant. I was supposed to be left-handed, but my dear sister always took the pen/crayon/whatever out of my left hand and put it in my right when I first started picking them up. But my piano playing was always off because my left hand would naturally be louder than my right, and I still sometimes reach for things with my left hand. So I figured it only makes sense to teach myself left-handed writing. I'm seriously tempted to go buy one of those books for 5 year olds that teach you how to write by tracing letters and stuff, but do it with my left hand. Should I?

Nexttt...I went to an Oktoberfest party with my German friends last Thursday night, but that turned out to be a total bust. The only thing Oktoberfest-y about it was the giant glass mugs. There were no huge tables, no German music, no German decorations, and the beer wasn't even that good. It was more of a networking event for business people. Seriously, people were passing out business cards and shaking hands and whatever.We felt awkward being there as students, so we didn't stay long. But it was fun to just go out with my friends. It's kind of funny that I'm here in DC but studying with a lot of international kids (at least eleven Germans in my class, almost as many French, a Danish girl, a Chinese girl, three kids from South Korea, three girls from Colombia, two girls from Africa, three U.S. kids, and I think I might be forgetting some) but some of my friends from Scripps/home who are studying abroad are there with a bunch of American kids. Who's getting the real international experience? Maybe none of us.

Another fun thing is that I reconnected with the Forans last week (yay!) and I'm going to New York this weekend to spend a few nights with them (YAY!!!) I'm really excited about that, except for the small fact that it's supposed to rain all weekend. Oh well, I can happily experience New York from their apartment, honestly. And Penn Station.

The other night, I had a dream I was eating pumpkin pizza. I think it's time for fall.

I'm getting tired of wearing business casual clothes almost every day. I'm such a jeans, sweatshirt, and flip-flops kind of girl. I should get my black jeans up here, then life would be easier. I'm also kind of sick of all my tops. I didn't bring a whole lot, seeing as I had to ship everything, but my office is dangerously located next door to an Ann Taylor and a Gap. Every time I walk by I want to try on everything in the window. I smell a post-work shopping excursion in my future - but next month, after this month's ridiculous credit card statement has gone through. Daily metro rides and eating out almost every day is killing me...and my bank account.

I've been swimming on Wednesday and Friday mornings. I wake up at 6am and eat a banana or granola bar, then walk ten minutes to main campus (last week it was raining, so that was fun) before the sun even comes up to swim for about an hour. The bus starts running at 7 so I can bus back and shower before class. It's glory. The pool has retarded hours here - 6-8am on Wed/Fri mornings, and then various times in the afternoon/evening the rest of the week. I've heard that it's normally PACKED; one of my friends had to share a lane with five other people once. When I go at 7am, I get a lane to myself. I live for that. I sometimes forget why I ever stop swimming, and I still kick myself for not swimming every day this summer. Next summer, assuming I'm home, I'm gonna try to go daily again. It just changes my whole day, it wakes me up.

On the other hand, I've been taking afternoon naps almost every day I don't work (aka Wed-Sun) Just one short hour in the afternoon does wonders. It doesn't help, though, that I've been sniffly and sneezy because pollen counts are ridiculously high. Stupid allergies.

No other news for now, but I'll probably post something when I'm back from New York. This will be my first time back in almost five years. I cannot wait!

Sorry about the delay

Blogger was being weird and not letting me log in for some reason...but it's all good now! And I have many many updates.

okay so last time I was talking about internship stuff, so I'll let you all know that I'm working at the American Iron and Steel Institute as the Communications Intern. I've already been in three times and I love it! My first day was pretty clerical, but that's because I didn't have a computer, so what else was I supposed to do? Last week I audited the website (omfg thank you Core III!!!) and fixed a number of broken links. Our website won an award. I like to think I was a part of that. I also wrote a survey for Hill staffers about where they get online info and what they think of our website. We want to win the award again next year, so we're revamping it to make it as user-friendly as possible, and catering it towards the people who matter, obviously. I also wrote fact sheets on steel sustainability, the transportation crisis, and other stuff. Those are gonna be up on the website soon! Check it out.

So I have a few weekends to catch up on too. On the Sunday of Labor Day weekend there was a free symphony concert on the Capitol lawn, so we went to that. It got rained out after the first set, but I got some gorgeous pics of el Cap at sundown.

The stage as we got to the lawn
A few hours later
Gorgeous!

That was pretty much the highlight of the weekend. My friend Quinn has a house in Friendship Heights, about a 15 minute walk from campus, and he threw a party that Saturday. Last weekend I went to a march for Health Care. I'm sure most of you have heard about it in the news and stuff, but if you haven't, there were two rallies. Saturday was the Tea Bagger march and they had thousands of people. On Sunday was ours - we were only a couple of hundred strong, but it was still really exciting, and very DC. I even made a "honk for health care" sign and stood on a street corner for about half an hour. We got a couple of rude people, but most people who walked by were super supportive, and we got a good number of honks. I've ALWAYS wanted to do that! My friend Lauren has pictures of that, so I'll post them when I get them from her.

Then this past Thursday was pretty much the most exciting thing ever. I got to see OBAMA speak! [I don't have pictures, but I'm going to get some from my friends who brought cameras.] My professor canceled classes when we told him about it. 16 of us woke up at 3:30 in the morning to take three cabs at 4:15 to the University of Maryland (the metro didn't start running until 5:30 - too late for us!). We got there just after 5am, which is when we were allowed to start making a line. The doors opened a bit before 9, but not until after we all got rained on. We finally got inside and got seats, but we all got split up. There was also virtually no food there, which was awful because I had a granola bar and yogurt when I woke up, but some of us hadn't eaten at all. There were some speakers at 11, right on time, but Obama didn't come out until almost noon, by which time we were all almost dead, but I was so excited I almost cried. He rallied for health care and catered to his audience (primarily college students) beautifully. And he was hilarious!!! We eventually made it back to Tenleytown close to 3pm, at which point we all devoured McDonald's. How appropriate after a health care rally.