Feb 27

Feb 24,

Longest day ever… EVER! This morning started out alright. They’ve moved my desk and now I get a rolling spinning chair and a cool little corner of my own. However, I am still sad that I don’t get to sit by jon and faith anymore. Thank goodness Kelsey will still be my partner in crime… when she’s actually here. Moving took all morning, so I finally finished Ender’s game, and I finally get how it might be seen as an allegory for Joseph Smith… kind of. And I get how the salamander letters might also be tied in. I still don’t like it. I tried wikipediaing the plots of the next books in the series but I got so bored that I gave up. I’ve been stuck at the front office since about one. For some reason, time is CRAWLING. I have been reading bits of the blog, go fug yourself. I know of that blog thanks to Katie. It didn’t kill as much time as I hoped, though.

This morning, I sat in the front because I had nothing better to do while they moved  my desk. Mytheos, the guy who’s spot I took over, was sitting up front too.  Mytheos was arguing with Liz about how Gnomeo and Juliet is going to be stupid or not (he was under the impression that it is, which I must say I agree) and he said something about bad movies, to which I couldn’t help but bringing up Troll Two to which he replied that The Room is the worst ever which I was excited to know what the heck he was talking about (thanks to Jason for keeping me up to date on nerd culture), but then I got embarrassed because I’m sure Liz and Macy were secretly judging me for bonding with Mytheos. It’s ok, I can secretly judge them for going to Gnomeo and Juliette.

Holy cow, we just got a HUGE petition book from the FLDS church. What I’m confused about is that I know the FLDS church changed their name… but it was complete with modern revelation from last month that was even neatly put into verses like scripture and it had tons of signatures. I’m not really sure why that church still exists.

Yesterday was a very good day, except for the head ache I was fighting off all day. Jon, Welchie, Kelsey, and I got to go on a tour of the Pentagon! It was super cool! The tour is a mile and a half long and the tour guides have to do it all backwards.  They’re generally part of honorary squadrons or whatever and have a yearlong tour-giving duty. It wasn’t very extensive, but I guess that makes sense considering how top-secret that place is. We just walked in a big circle while the guide babbled about how the military is involved in stuff. He did take us into the part of the pentagon that was hit on 9-11, though. It was very powerful. I felt it right when I stepped in that room. It was good for me, because when that happened, I was far too young to understand the significance. I’m glad I had a chance to feel what happened that day. Liz was telling us that at the time of the attacks, they were reinforcing the pentagon wing at a time, and that particular wing had just finished putting in metal reinforcements.  Because of that, much of the offices in that wing were empty, and the reinforcements made it so the damage on the pentagon itself was a lot less bad than it could have been. It was neat.

The memorial fountain. The ones facing the building are the people who were in the plane, the ones facing away were in the building and killed. they are also put in order by age.

We couldn't take pictures of the pentagon itself.

Memorial with the Air Force memorial in the background

A closeup of the Air Force memorial

Afterward, us interns wanted to stop in china town on the way back to work from the tour so we called in and they gave us like two hours to go ahead and eat. I got Chipolte for the first time ever. It was alright but I don’t see what the hype is all about. And chipotle is an awkward word anyways. I don’t like saying it. Kelsey went and got a gluten-free pizza. We just ate and laughed and teased each other. It was a good time. Then we still had a good amount of time left so we went to Urban outfitters. I need new ear buds, so I was deciding between the M&M ones or the normal-looking ones. I got the normal-looking ones because they looked more comfortable, only to realize two hours later than instead of M&Ms coming out of your ears, or something normal like I thought, they are supposed to look like drug pills!! Well I now have the ultimate hipster-druggy ear buds…I also had to make four binders for Amber and pack my things for the move
 

Kelsey with Jon and Welchie at China Town

My hipster-druggy-pill ear buds

I was talking to Macy about how I liked Tron: Legacy because of Daft Punk and she asked me kind of offhandedly if I have ever heard of Royksopp! And I freaked out, maybe just a bit too much.  They’re coming to town and I have been searching for someone to go to their show with for forever, and it happens that Macy and Chris, the press guy, are going! So she told me to get a ticket, so I’m going to an amazing show on march twenty-third with Macy and Chris. I’m pretty stinking excited. :) it’s on a Wednesday, so I have to figure out how I’m going to dress for this… One more long long hour. Longest day of my life.

Today, i decorated my new desk with a paper clip chain and three calendars. a Sherman's lagoon calendar (!!), a save the sea turtle calendar (CUTE), and an american oil calendar that has pictures of mountains, oil drills, and horses... But i also have a roll chair and i'm super happy about that. Other than that, i've really done nothing. Welchie and i had to call a few places to see if our office could throw parties there, and that's about it. I read the first two acts of Hamlet and tried to make sense of a couple of poems in my text book. they are unfortunately still way out of my league. i will keep trying.

I read this article in politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50138.html I think that guy has made some good points, and he's pretty handsome for being an old man. Seriously, soon state rights is only going to be a distant memory, if it isn't already. it's extremely depressing. How can people sitting in their offices all day on capitol hill who never see anything but washington (in all it's crappyness) understand what's going on in every state? they can't! and since every state is so obviously different, why does Washington think that one-plan-fits-all stuff works? I think this city makes people awfully narrow-minded and it freaks me out. Jessica was telling me how the Federalists and non federalists' arguments are basically the same as democratic and non-democratic arguments of today. non-feds argued that if feds got too much power, they would abuse it and tax everything, including income, which the feds denied. well, now our income is being taxed... and it seems to be a higher and higher tax as we go on. everything here is so frustrating. Jessica also told me that because of the teacher's union here in DC, the school system here is crap, and some new lady got put in charge of the school system for the city and fired a ton of teachers and put in new better ones and the test scores improved significantly for the students in the new teacher's classes, but the union hated her and she got kicked out and it's back to sucking. i feel like kid's educations are important enough that a union in that part should be viewed as bad on both sides of the political isle. also, she told me about the projects in detroit. the government took over a neighborhood, rebuilt it, gave it to the people for free, and it turned into the worse part of town. ai ai ai. but i really like hearing Jessica talk about stuff to and from work because she really is helping me learn more about the political atmosphere in the United States.speaking of Unions: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49911.html .

Feb 27

I've been reading the introduction to Ender's Game. Mostly, card kind of comes of as a tad self righteous, but i guess you would need to be to sell your book. he did say something funny though: "if everybody came to agree that stories should be told this clearly, the professors of literature would be out of a job, and the writers of obscure, encoded fiction would be, not honored, but pitied for their impenetrability." first off, very very self righteous because he's saying he knows better than people who's pieces are actually viewed as art. I partially agree with him because i struggled through some short stories that were very convoluted in my lit text book. i have no doubt that they were great pieces, but that doesn't mean they were enjoyable. i agree in the sense that they are frustrating, but i have no doubt that they are art. Card also claims that he wrote Ender as a perfect depiction of a gifted child because ender is based off of Card's childhood (hah). i would like to see what truly gifted kids think on that. I feel like i can't justly disagree with him. i never overachieved at anything because i didn't care, so i can't relate my childhood to Ender in that regard. I was also a recluse, but i part-way did that on propose. i played by myself pretty often. i heard later in my child development class that children who play by themselves are cognitively underdeveloped. haha, i'm so proud. There you have it, i cannot judge what gifted children are like.

ok, i really think i'm officially done talking about Ender's game for the rest of these updates. nothing happened friday after work. I decided that  i wanted to go to old-town Alexandria on Saturday, so that's just what i did. i texted up my friend from BYU, Mackenzie Waters to join me and she was happy to oblige. She's living with her parents in northern Virginia for the semester. I don't think she'll be going back to BYU, so i'm very glad for the chance to hang out with her some this semester while i'm out here! I had lunch with her and my other friend, Mayra, twice a week last semester. it was great. I know them from my hall freshman year. anyhow, i met up with them at the King Street metro stop. I say them because her dad drove her up to see me. he drove us down to the water front where we had a very nice lunch and then we walked all the way back up the street looking at random, extremely overpriced boutiques. we went up to pet some really cute kittens for adoption. We learned that Mackenzie is a cat whisperer because she had this kitty who was not used to humans at all and was very jumpy and all the ladies that were in charge were very impressed with how well the kitty was doing. We also went into an antique shop that was jam packed with jewelry. antique jewelry is my favorite! i drooled the whole time and Mackenzie was very kind to oblige. We also wondered to the Masonic temple for George Washington and took pictures before heading our own ways on the metro. It was so great to hang out with someone from BYU and i know she felt the same way. we both miss the social lives back at the Y. well i think we're going to hang out again, and i've made a goal to see at least one site a weekend. :) too bad i really only ever have saturdays to explore  :(

Cat Whisperer

Tom Crier and Hair removal

Old town Alexandria

George Washington Masonic Temple

Flower picture for dad

The Temple

With God Rays...

Alexandria

We thought this sign was funny

Today, church was pretty fantastic. Jessica, my ride, had to give a talk on family history, and she did an excellent job! it was really really good. it was one of those types of talks that had all sorts of shocking but motivating things in it, and those types of talks are my favorite. she focused a bit on how the family is under attack. She said that DC is the place to live where you'll most likely not get married (jeez, i can see why), talked about how Divorce rates are rising, birth rates are down, and marriage age is rising. she says that birth rates are so low in some countries  that people are paid to have children, and she sited germany and France as examples and said that their culture could be lost within our lifetimes if they don't start having kids! that's a pretty big deal. she also says that there's a social network made specifically for adulterous married people, and that social network is growing faster than any other social network on the web at this moment! She also told this family story. Her family was driving from SLC to California in an old ghetto volks wagon. There's a huge hill on the way, in the hottest place ever, where cars always overheat. on the way up the hill, her dad told the kids in the back seat that they better start praying. as the car was just about to die, it started snowing! and it was in the middle of July! she said that she wants that story to go on so all her posterity will know it, and that means she should write it down. she said that we need to write down our story so that it can be passed on. it was a very good, powerful talk.

On the way back from church, she talked more about her boyfriend. She told me how when he gets cranky, it's usually because he's tired or hungry. i took note. She was also thinking that they may not get married for another year (and they've been dating for two years already, and she doesn't know how it will all work out. her boyfriend is also an entrepreneur, so she knows she will have to work once and a while when they're married. i took note again. she apologized for talking so much about him, but i assured her that i liked it because i still have a lot to learn about relationships, and since she's been in one for two years now, i have a lot to learn from her. we then started talking about waiting for boys on their missions and exchanged success stories and horror stories on the subject. I recommended going to Dearelder.com to check out the dear john letters. they're golden! if you ever have free time and you're all caught up on fail blog, check that website out. it's great.

All i have left for the day is a shower and some grub. I miss all of you guys so much! i'm already a third of the way done, then i can come home to see you guys! i miss everyone tons. I love you all. TTYL!

 These shoes soak up water like a sponge. there's no vents on the ground so i got creative. i should have been an engineer.

 I don't have a straightener nor a curling iron, so this is how i sometimes let my hair dry. brace face...

 I know. Horribly myspace. I wanted y'all to see my top bun, though