This is a long one. Stick with me. Or skip to the end. It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve updated–I’ve been way busy. Last week, I went to the NIT semi-finals with my friend, Ryan, who went to UNC also, because UNC played (and won against!) University of Rhode Island. I don’t think I’d ever met anyone from Rhode Island. It was a place I didn’t really know existed…but anyway, what was totally nuts about the game, besides both teams’ awful playing, was that URI’s color is identical to UNC’s. Which was pretty immediately obvious. And then additionally, their mascot is a RAM!!! Which I guess isn’t as crazy as if it were a ram AND a tar heel…but STILL. Crazy. Same color, same mascot. Ryan and I heard this URI chick whining, with the help of surly significant amounts of alcohol, “They stole our color AND our mascot!” We felt similarly. But it was a fun little adventure. Wednesday night I got to spend some time with my lovely roommate, Palmer, scoping out hotties at the Columbia Chipotle before he left for Guyana to bring back some cheap, delicious rum.
Thursday, I left for DC on the most horrific round-trip bus ride experience yet (this is what I get for traveling on a holiday weekend I suppose)–we waited for two hours to get on the bus, which would’ve been kind of annoying, mostly since my cell phone battery was dying, buuuut was made horrendous because this woman behind me talked THE ENTIRE TIME despite the fact that I had head phones in, listening to the Savage Lovecast (which I get a huge kick out of listening to in public…it feels so dirty, and people have no idea…), and part of the time reading/looking at things on my iPhone. It was quite clear to anyone who cared that I didn’t really want to have a full conversation. This lady did not care. I discovered the reason when I noticed about an hour through the wait that her teenage son was with her. He had his headphones in, watching a movie or something and laughed periodically. So she’s totally used to having someone ignore her! THAT’S why she breezed past my social cues. Anyway, as we were about to get on the bus, an hour and a half later than we were supposed to leave, she starts bitching at the poor guy loading bags in that we won’t get to DC until after midnight, and why are we stopping in Philadelphia, and this is so wrong, and repeat. Finally, her son looks up from his iPod, turns to her and goes, “Mom. No one wants to hear you complain. Everyone is annoyed. Just be quiet!” Though she ignored him, I felt so incredibly bad for him. Or perhaps he’s fortunate that he has learned to deal with obnoxious people in a reasonable way (at that point, what he said was INCREDIBLY reasonable). The bus ride itself wasn’t awful.
The weekend in DC was wonderful–cherry blossoms were in bloom, and I took the day Friday to explore and photograph them, which was fun. I also got to have lunch with my uncle, which was nice. It was a gorgeous, sunny & even hot day. Later, I got to go on a little adventure with Ali since she ran into (and when I say, “ran into” I mean, DROVE into) a curb when she was trying to pick me up, and blew her tire. I heard it hisssss from across the street. Not cool. Her boyfriend changed the tire to the spare that we didn’t know if it would fit (but it did!!) and was just generally, as usual, such a trooper. It all worked out. Not exactly our plan for the afternoon, but whatever.
Friday night, I got to hang out with another friend. More, perhaps, on that later.
Saturday, I went to see Clash of the Titans with Ali, Alex (her boyfriend) and Lacey (my sister). We went in 3-D, which I probably wouldn’t do again, but it was entertaining. I wasn’t blown away, and definitely wouldn’t see it again, but it was worth seeing I suppose. Having not seen the original one, it was like Avatar, without the blue people, and in bad 3-D.
Saturday night I made myself a really nice little dinner and just spent some quality time with Lacey’s dog, who is one of my favorites, hanging out. It was actually quite nice. And, as anyone who knows me can attest, I appreciated a full night of sleep. Sunday, I went for a 8.6 mile walk around DC with Lacey and a friend of her’s, Jeffery, who works in the White House. We had a really fantastic conversation and delectable brunch in the middle. An excellent way to wrap up the weekend, and to spend Easter (if I celebrated it…).
Returning on the bus was, once again, pretty awful, this time due primarily to traffic.
This week was way crazy. Monday was pretty mundane…Tuesday I was sick again. Which was REALLY annoying. But I was pretty productive on my sick day–I sent out some resumes, updated my resume (wrong order–I updated it first). Then Wednesday, at our weekly meeting at work, we found out that our main clinical supervisor is GONE. His last day was Tuesday. Shock of shockers! I do not want to say too much here. Who knows who reads this. But everyone was pretty sad, and mostly did not understand why he’d left (apparently he was offered a choice to be fired or resign. He resigned). Anyway, to discuss this further, you’ll have to email or call me directly, but it was a bit surprising. More than anything, I feel really bad for our now-total supervisor, because she will literally have to do both jobs. That sucks.
Wednesday afternoon I got to hang out with Natacha and her kids–we got some food and had a little rock-picnic in Central Park–it was sweet to be able to be outside sans coat into the darkness, which I took further advantage of by trekking down to Brooklyn to meet up with Ryan and a mutual friend from high school, Lindsay. We had some beers out on the patio of a cute little bar, very pleasant. I do love the warm weather. Unfortunately, that has since left us, and today is a bit chillier.
I’m still in the process of getting stuff together for Peace Corps, trying to figure out my life. I’m also not entirely ruling out the possibility of moving to DC. But overall I’ve been in an excellent mood–things are moving and shaking, in a bigger way, and I’m getting used to that. Life isn’t so exciting daily, but that’s okay. Oh!! And I finally got my insurance card!