Football, home improvement, and hanging out with the president.

Hey! The government is up and running again (kind of). That’s nice. In celebration of that, why not post another blog.

Have any of you ever seen me play football? No. Of course not. Because I literally cannot remember a single time in which I’ve ever played. And every football game I’ve “watched,” I just sat there and talked to the people around me, standing up and cheering every once in a while when the rest of the crowd would cheer. Literally my great friendship with Martin Olson started out by neither of us wanting to go watch the Bethel football team when everyone else was going. So we would go watch a movie and wait until people got back from the game.  It was awesome. (We also only did that for about 3 games before no one else at Bethel went to the football games too.)

Still, I was born and raised in Amurica. And, I was present at those few highschool/ college football games I attended. Also, sometimes my dad would watch football on the TV and I would walk by. Plus! I’ve been to many many super bowl parties, I’ve eaten the food, I’ve watched the commercials. Sometimes I even glance at football posters when they are posted in rooms that I am in. WHAT MORE COULD I HAVE DONE TO FURTHER MY FOOTBALL EDUCATION!?        

But alas, even after all that exposure, when I found myself in the middle of a football scrimmage with some friends of mine and some neighborhood kids, I was the Achilles heel of my team.  I just couldn’t figure it out. I really really suck. It wasn’t so much at the athletic part (we were playing against middleschoolers so it wasn’t like the NFL or anything), but the figuring out what to do part that I struggled with. My team tried to help me out. They really did. “Yellow Man” (a scrawny pre-teen who got his name because the first time he met his friends he was wearing a yellow shirt) gave me great advice like “Just look at the ball!”  Mostly I just found my friend Erica who I was “guarding” and we would stand there and giggle while other people did the work.  One of the kids told us at the end “playing Frisbee with you guys was really fun, but that was the most boring game of football I’ve ever played.”  Oh yeah, we played Frisbee with them first.  So if anyone wants to play football with me sometime and very clearly and slowly explain the rules, I might be up for that. I think it’s important that I understand the basics, but not that important that I will look it up on the internet and try to figure it out myself.

On to the next topic, my house. I love my house. I love the people, I love the location, love all around. But when you live in a house that people only live in for a year, no one really takes care of it. So, it’s vaguely run down. For instance, although our local program coordinator keeps “fixing” our doorknobs, I’ve been trapped in our bathroom many times because the doorknob will just fall off on both sides. One time no one came to my rescue so I had to climb on top of the toilet, out the window, onto the ledge/roof thing, and through Anne’s bedroom window just to escape. It’s all fine and dandy now, but winter’s coming and I don’t wanna do that bare-foot in the snow.

I ain't the only one with door knob probs. Keith "Sassy Pants" Suter found himself locked outside of his room when the doorknob fell off on the inside. Photo cred: Cara Smith

Also on Thursday the support committee came over for a potluck. One of the support members fixed our light in the living room (it hadn’t been working the whole time so we just used lamps). So that was nice. But then in the middle of dinner he just stands up, takes the chair he was sitting in, and pulled it apart with his man hands. I was so surprised I yelled out “WHY DID YOU JUST BREAK OUR CHAIR?!” He was all “better I break it now then someone breaks it when they are sitting down in it.” Fair, I guess. And now we have fire wood.

The lovely broken chair model in this Photo is Anne "Carl Lehmann's sister" Schrag. Just kidding, I just call her Anne. 

Wednesday, we found worms in our raisins. It reminded me of when I was little and we would find worms in our fresh-from-the- garden salad. My dad would eat them and my brother, sister and I would run away screaming. No one in my house was bad-ass enough to eat the worms (knowingly that is, we had all been eating the raisins for a while before we found the worms). Although this is slightly more gross than garden-salad worms because the raisins weren’t fresh from the earth where worms are expected to be.

We were all pretty grossed out if you can imagine. 

We’ve never really been able to solve our mouse problem. We keep many of our bags of chips and other non-mouse-proof food in our microwave so the mice can’t get to them. This is a very flawed system because I keep forgetting to put the chips back in the microwave when I’m done using it. So just 2 days ago the mice got into our unopened bag of Tostitos. Lame. What a waste.

Still, improvements are being made. We had some men come on Thursday and install a fan. Just in time for next summer! Apparently the request for a fan was made in March.   

Life is going pretty good. I’m getting better at talking with people over the phone in Spanish. Or rather, I’m less embarrassed to ask them to repeat themselves slower. Usually I just pick up on a couple of words they say and start talking about what I think they are wanting to know, and then they stop me and ask me the question again. After a couple of times, we work it out and both leave the conversation with a vague understanding of what’s going on. The other day I literally said “No entiendo “honche.”" The student on the phone said “como… eleven.” Dear God. I learned that word when I was 5…. From Barney! But why add an “H” sound to a word that doesn’t have an “H” if you’re going to ignore all the “H”s  in other Spanish word. And then adding a “ch” sound where it doesn’t belong. Forget it. I’m completely lost.

But I’m still pretty happy about the amount of Spanish I’m able to use at work. Most of the time my Spanish is better than the student’s English, and a lot of the medical words are the same or similar in Spanish and English.

On Friday, my school took a field trip to a farm. So as any professional school nurse would, I went through the First Aid kit and made sure was full and complete, and then promptly abandoned it with my supervisor while I explored a corn maze with a kick-ass Honduran family. It was so fun. They also said my Spanish was good, although all I did was cycle through the same 4 Spanish phrases: “Nos perdimos”, “No se”, “quizas este via?”, “alla”.

Ok! Fun at the farm picture time!  

 Brittany and I on the hay ride. Hence the hay. 

 Cara "Micah Smith's sister" Smith and I with our pumpkins. 

 I love pumpkins. 

 Grace took engagement pictures on Saturday so she was practicing with this charming pumpkin.

 Then we took some shrooms. 

 Meta picture... or something.

Coolest people at the pumpkin patch. 

Also, Perry and Daylene White visited DC. I was so excited to see them I ALMOST forgot about how old and boring I sounded when I told people Perry was the president of my alma mater.

Me and Perry "Per Bear" White at church this morning. 

Until next time! Here is a picture of the beautiful Miriam in her natural habitat. 

You can shut down my government but you can’t shut down my fun!

Do not fear, blogg-readers, I was not furloughed from writing my blog, because my blog has been deemed necessary.

I don’t know how much this government shut down has affected people who don’t live in DC, but I’m personally finding it quite annoying.

Mary’s Center is the health clinic my school works in conjunction with. We could lose $525,000 this month if the government doesn’t get its act together. It super sucks because Mary’s Center serves a giant community of people in need of health services. And Mary’s Center and Briya rely heavily on government aid. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2013/10/08/shutdown-could-force-one-d-c-medical-provider-to-stop-serving-low-income-patients/ And the WIC program is losing funding! Literally taking food from babies! This is the stupidest thing ever.

But it’s not only the money problems, my house was pretty shaken up the first the first week of the shutdown. Mainly because of the unarmed lady that got shot in front of the capital on Thursday, with her one year old kid in the car. But then that Friday, a man lit himself on fire in the mall.  But we don’t even know why! Have people always been this crazy? Has life always been this crazy?

So to sum up the first month here:

Navy Yard Shooting

Government Shutdown

House get’s broken into

Police kill an unarmed women who rammed her car into the White House Gate and then drove to the capital, with her one year old in the car.

Person sets themselves on fire at the National Mall.

I’m trying to wrap my mind around this crazy city, and this crazy world. I don’t feel like I had enough time to get a sense of what DC was like before the shutdown to compare it to how it is now. I’m really curious as to how the shutdown has affected Kansas, or any place that isn’t here. I also wonder what the previous shutdown was like. Why wasn’t my 4 year old self paying more attention!!!

On the plus side, DC has a nice way of coping with the shut down. Some people don’t really take the government shut down too seriously. For instance, bars that say they are going to add an hour to “happy hour” for everyday the government is shut down, until all the hours the bar is open are “happy hours”. Or the fact that the wooden barricades to the parks (because we don’t have a state, all of our parks are federal parks and therefore closed) are knocked down and a TON of people are at the parks (probably because they are all furloughed). Or this store: 

Also on the plus side, after only a week, garbage men were deemed necessary. 

For the first time since I've been here I actually enjoyed being woken up by this crazy loud truck outside my window. 

Well goodbye good people. Maybe next time I'll actually write about what's happening in my life. Until then, here is a cute picture of me and Miriam pretending to be asleep on the metro. 

New vaguely "famous" people I've recently learned about.

So last weekend my work scored its employees 3 dollar Nat’s tickets.  I mean its baseball so I usually wouldn’t have gone because…. Baseball? Really?  But it was cheap and what the heck.

Check out the baby Washington Monument on the left in the distance!

Baseball’s a hard game to watch, because it’s about 5 seconds of excited and then you wait another minute or so and then there is another 5 seconds of excitement.  As you could have guessed, it was pretty hard for me to concentrate. But I’m not the best spectator for any sport (except cross-country, which is the best spectator sport, because it’s short and you get to run with them).  Still the game wasn’t completely pointless, I learned two very important things:

1. I spent most of the game playing LOTR movie trivia with my co-workers ten year old son. I was totally whooping his butt, except when he pulled out an extended edition question. Apparently Legolas and Gimli had a drinking contest and Legolas won! What! How did I not know this!? I really need to watch the extended edition.

2. This guy exists:

No one cares that he plays baseball.... people only like him for his beard. I assume.

Oh! Also, something I keep forgetting to mention: Anet Gingrich is here!  I’ve randomly ran into her a couple of times now. For example: last week there was a festival called the “H street festival” and it was raining like crazy! But sure enough, there was Anet, in running short and a thin-jacket, shivering to death. She had ran there (of course) and was completely unprepared for the torrential downpour which was the festival; but still happy as a clam. Miriam, Anet and I decided to go back home together (we would be on Anet’s way to her house). Without much convincing needed, Anet persuaded us to walk back the whole way. According to Google Maps, the quickest way is 3.3 miles; I don’t think we took the quickest way home.

But the next day we went to a Book Festival on the Mall. It was awesome. I listened to some authors that I've never heard of before talk. They didn't talk about their books… but about whatever the author wanted to talk about. My favorite was this graphic novelist named Lynda Barry. She was freaking awesome and hilarious! She talked a lot about how the arts aren’t just aesthetically  pleasing but they have a biological effect on us. Like apparently when we sing out loud and really get into a song, our Dopamine levels in our body go up. She was super interesting. Note to self that I’m putting on my blog: see if any of her graphic novels are in the library because I’m too cheap to buy one. At least at this point in my life.

Lynda Barry in all her fabulousness. 

So one of my co-workers, who is super awesome, got 2 tickets for a ZZ ward concert this weekend. But then she found out that the band she is in was actually playing this weekend too. So guess who she gave the tickets to? This girl! Now, I’m ashamed to say that before this week, I had never heard of ZZ ward. It’s really a shame, she’s great! Look her up. You’ll love her. But you know who else you will love? THE OPENING BANDS! They were freaking great too! You should also look up James Bay.  Also look up the Wild Feathers. Seriously you won’t regret it. They’re fantastic. But yeah! Last night was fan-freaking-tastic. Now it’s picture time:

Anne and I in line to see ZZ Ward! 

James Bay

 Wild Feather, nick-names I gave them from left to right:

(Cut out of photo) Mr. Smooth-Voice; Leadguitarist-no-one-cares-man; High-school-Haircut "but-I-don't-care-I-still-tried-to-make-crazy-eye-contact-like-I-did-that-one-time-with-Tyson-Ritter"-Boy: Beardy McSmileyNiceGuy

 Photo courtesy of Drunk Stacy. I guess this photo is our compensation for dealing with her bumping into us a lot while she crazy danced and spilling her drink on our feet.  

ZZ Ward! 

Also, I would like to dedicate this post and my last post to the videos “What does the fox say” and “Stonghenge.” Because it if wasn’t for those videos, I would not be writing to you lovely folks right now. I had left my computer on the kitchen table for probably 24 hours on Thursday, but the night before the burglary, I wanted to watch those videos in my room, so I brought my computer up. I owe my computer and my privacy to those videos. Thank you videos!  

Hide yo kids, hide yo wife, cause they're First-Degree-Burglaring everybody out there.

         This week has been a long week. On Thursday night, I set my alarm for later than I usually wake up, to give myself a break. So when one on my roommates (Anne Schrag) knocked on my door a little before 7 I was pretty grumpy. But then she told me this little hum-dinger, and I immediately forgave her. “Mariah, Mr. Cunningham (our next door neighbor) just rang the doorbell and told me that he just saw 2 men leaving our house. And Keith’s bike is gone.”

Crap.

          We wake everyone else up, and go downstairs to assess the damage. Doesn’t seem like much.  They had stolen Keith’s bike, moved Miriam’s to another room (obviously with the intent to steal it too), took my rain jacket from its hook by the door and laid it on the kitchen table next to Mirmir’s bike, and (here’s the really creepy part) moved the big kitchen knife from its knife holder to half-hazardly laying on its side next to the holder.

         So we call the cops and waited. I make pancakes (it seemed like the right thing to do when we are all up early in the morning waiting around), and eventually Mr. Cunningham came to our house (he had been up the street looking for the guys) and talked to us.  It was kind of like story-time with Grandpa. He told us about our neighborhood and how it has changed a lot, he told us about how he came to be our neighbor (he’d lived in DC all his life), he empowered us as young people to change the world, and he told us we needed to get a security system.

         Eventually the cop came and Mr. Cunningham told him the story. He had woken up early to take out his trash and saw two 40year old latino men walking 2 bikes down the street. They looked like run-of-the-mill drunks, so he didn’t think anything of it. He watched some news and, 30 minutes later those same two men were walking three bikes down the street. That’s when he started keeping an eye out, soon enough he saw them exiting our house from the front door. So when they left he came over and informed us.

       More and more people came (a detective and about 7 other cops and another detective). The detective was kind-of annoyed because we had touched and moved everything, and she wanted to take DNA samples. I apologized, I thought they took DNA for murder cases or more personal cases, not bike-theft cases.  But apparently they do when someone breaks into your house. When I told her about the knife she asked “which one.” “Uh, the one my roommate is using right now to cut her carrots.”Whoops. Then she was like “The fact that they moved the knife means they were planning on using it if someone came down, or maybe they would have gone upstairs if they had more time.” SHIT! That was scary.

       As the detective pressed Mr. Cunningham for more information, he told us that when he saw the men leave the house, they were carrying bottles of liquid. When I looked in the fridge I realized, yep, they stool our beer. We had this one special six-pack that one of our roommate’s boyfriend bought the house a week and a half ago. We were saving it for a special occasion, and now it’s gone. Obviously, patience is not a virtue, it just makes you that much more vulnerable in a burglary. So FINALLY everyone left. I made my lunch and one of my roommates came into the house and said that about 6 houses down, our beer is laying on the sidewalk, empty. DNA! My roommate called the detective.

A cop showed up, and my day turned sour. All the cops were nice when they had other people around watching them. This cop was such an ass!

“This isn’t exactly the crime-case of the century you know.” 

“I know officer, but the detective wanted DNA and we finally have it.”

“The detective (grumble grumble grumble) (mumble mumble mumble) not the crime case of the century.”

“I wasn’t trying to waste your time, I just thought it might help.”

“Well where is it?”

“Down the street a little bit.”

“Well I can’t leave my car, get in.”

I get in the car and we literally drive for five seconds before I say  “Stop, it’s here.” Lazy –ass.

    So yeah, mainly, no one is hurt. But it was just a really annoying morning. And it's scary to think they had time to rummage through all of our stuff before they heard Anne wake up (via her alarm) and get scared and run off. (At least we think that's why they left.) And it's scary to think that no one in the house heard them, even though they apparently appeared drunk. 

   Anyway,I don’t know if this is the appropriate way to end a blog like this…. but I don’t care. We don’t have any more information. 

Peace

Twerking with Obama. And a little bit about my job.

      Just kidding I don't actually twerk. And Obama hasn't had the wonderful privilege of meeting me yet. I just wanted to say that. 

         So I guess I’ll call this stage in my life “Forced extroversion so I don’t just sit there and only be friends with the people I live with.” Now I know what you’ll say, “Mariah, you’re totally an extrovert.” First of all, thank you so much for putting my personality into a box. Second of all, I don’t even know what I am because I’m super awkward when I first meet people. Ok, I’m super awkward all the time, but I’m less aware of it once people are used to me. 

     That being said, I’ve spent about every night this week either hiding in my room and watching TV shows on my computer, or playing games with my house-mates. (Oh the joys of moving to a new place where you know no one.) So when my friend Grace said “Mariah, do you want to go to a dance party tonight?” I was like “Of-freaking-course!!” And then she said something to the effect of “Oh, well I’m not going to go, but my friend Becca and some other people are going to go to a party on Capital Hill, and they’re leaving now.” So I rushed to go put on normal people clothes (instead of my super-comfy lounging clothes) and booked it to the metro. I had met Becca twice before but hadn’t really gotten to know her or talk to her much either time. There was also one other person I knew who I was meeting at the metro who I had met for a total of 30 seconds one time when he was touring my house. Besides that, I had no idea who to look for at the metro. I was waiting in front of one of those huge fans that elementary schools have in their gyms (because DEAR LORD D.C. is hot and humid) when I saw a group of people walk over to the metro-card-buying-thing. I was pretty sure it was the group I was waiting for, but I didn’t want to walk up to them and totally be wrong. So I nonchalantly called Becca while staring at the group from a distance, nonstop, like some sort of friend-stalker. Yay! It was them!

   So I met up with my new friends. They seem like cool people. They weren’t afraid to sing Britney Spears songs on the metro, so you know, I feel like they’re probably accepting people.

  I don’t know why there was a party on Capital Hill, but my new friends told me it was supposed to be about “breaking down barriers.” I didn't get that from the party, because when we got there, it was about 50 white 20 somethings dancing to Lady Gaga. Ah well, after receiving our complimentary glo-sticks, my friends and I started dancing.

Proof that I don't make these stories up.

      Before I go into a tangent about a weird conversation that happened next, I would like to officially state that I think Capitol Hill parties should be for people of all ages. That being said, sense everyone there looked under the age of 25, this guy came up to me who stood out like a sore thumb. He was obviously in his thirty’s and he was wearing a business-suit outfit… at a dance. I thought he was one of the people who organized the party or something. But I was wrong.  Here is the conversation we had:

Him: Hi, I’m “so and so,” a friend of Alex.

Me: (I have no idea who Alex is.) Ok, cool.

Him: I’m a lawyer, I work in the commerce building, I was appointed by the Bush Administration.

Me: Holy Crap!

(And then folks, get ready for the weird part. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to start discussing politics at a rave on Capital Hill… I mean it seems fitting right. I just don’t know what it was about the way I was wearing my glow-sticks or the way that I was waving-my-hands-in-the-air-like-I-just-don’t-care that screamed “please assume that I want to talk about abortion and how no one should do it.”)

Him: It’s so good to finally meet people who are pro-life.

Me: Uh Yeah       

Him: It’s like I don’t have anything in common with the people in my office.

Me: Wait, people here are pro-life or people in your office are pro-life?

Him: Here.

Me: Oh, Ok.

Him: It’s just so good to finally be around people who agree with me.

Me: Of course!

Then I proceeded to be really vague about my life/ lie when he asked me questions about myself; and I boogied myself out of there and found a friend. 

You can't tell but this is totally me and Cara Smith.

 I got really excited because I wasn't expecting to see her there. 

     I don’t know why I felt the need to tell you guys about this.  It just struck me as really weird. I mean, I thought lawyers were supposed to be really charismatic, and know what to say and when to say it. Especially one that is really successful, right? Idk, whatever. It makes a vaguely good story.

    So, my dad made the comment that I only talk about partying in my blog… and I guess that story kind of proves his point. But let’s face it! It’s the most fun thing to talk about. It’s like when people post pictures of their food or their outfits on facebook. It’s nice and all, but it’s boring. Bring on the pictures of you doing fun stuff! So if you want to hear more about my job, continue reading.

   Basically I work for this amazing organization called Briya. They teach immigrants English, computer, and parenting skills. They currently help about 400 people become integrated into the U.S. It’s awesome. The staff is super diverse, many of them being former students of the school. So my job, is to help out the student that are sick. So far I’m still getting the hang of it. But I’m making home visits to students, going with them to the hospital and clinic, and a lot of other hodge-podge jobs that need to get done.  I will be helping with vision and hearing screening, TB tests, and helping create lesson plans for their new Medical Assistant program. It’s pretty all over the place actually.

    I work with this nurse is this lady who’s been a community nurse for the past 40 years. Literally she is the epitome of a community nurse. For example, we’re on a way back from visiting a woman at her house. We meet this gentleman at the bus station. He seems to be walking really unstable, and looks like he needs help. She starts to talk to him, turns out he is on his way back from the hospital. He had fallen down and hit his head. She gives him money for the bus and talks to him about these great community programs he would be eligible for that would pick him up at his house and such. She also knows EVERYONE in the health care community, Doctors, nurses, medical assistants, patients, on and on.  It’s quite overwhelming.

Ok, I think that’s about enough for today!

Adios!         

Nascar and Dancing.

So I keep saying to myself “It’s too early to write another blog. I don’t know what I’d write about yet.” And now I don’t even know where to start! I guess I’ll start with last weekend.

On Saturday, a girl from my house got an email from a guy from one of the Churches that supports MVS that there was a going away party for a friend of his, at his house. Apparently the whole house was invited. When I heard about this, I assumed for some reason that this was going to be some middle-aged, family-friendly, meet and great. However, when we got there, it was quickly apparent that this was not the case. To my delight it was a cookout with a whole-bunch of twenty-somethings. (YAY! I get to meet people my age!) Except it also quickly became apparent that no one that I had come with knew anyone there. Apparently the host of the party just sent out a mass email inviting people and he happened to have one of my friend’s email address, although they had only met once before, about a year ago or so. So here were are, about 8 of us, huddled in a corner of the backyard not knowing anyone and not knowing how we ended up here; while everyone else is barbequing and obviously, you know… knowing each other, and understanding why they were there. Eventually, with the help of some refreshments, we started getting acquainted to the other people there. I can honestly say I made some extremely temporary friends that night (I doubt I will ever see any of them again.)

I also learned that night that I was no longer in D.C. (or Maryland for that matter which was my second guess.) So apparently I was at a party in Virginia! Which I guess isn’t a big deal on account of the size of the states around here; and on account of I don’t actually live in a state.   

On that note, the next day I got to go to Baltemore for some Nascar race with RACHEL NAFZIGER! We met up at my house and I got to meet her boyfriend. They basically treated me to a day out on the town. It was super nice of them, especially Rachel who I haven’t seen in 3 years! I had a great time. Basically, they blocked off a part of the city and had cars race around them. To get in, they had built stairs above the streets to get into the circle. The whole event reminded me of a rodeo, except for rich city people. But they had booths where they gave out free stuff, or you could take pictures in cars and stuff.

In front of the Pollo Campero just because D.C. has one. 

Look at these cuties!

Totally not photo shopped. This happened. 

On Monday, I spent my Labor Day helping clean a couple of friends move into their new house. This consisted of hammering poky staples back into the floor, washing window, cleaning bathrooms, but mostly it consisted of me trying to de-goo the Kitchen cabinets. I don’t know why but for some reason the cabinets were super super super sticky. AND NOTHING WORKED. It was probably the most dejecting part of my day when I tried 3 different types of cleaners to get the stickiness off the cabinets for at least an hour and the cabinets stayed just as sticky as they had been. WHYYYYY! Whatever, I guess they’re not my cabinets. Not my cabinet, not my problem, that’s what I always say.

 Grace and Keith helping out. 

This is a good before and after picture of the grime that was on the handles. Also you can just tell that the cabinets are sticky here. Ew. 

Wednesday was Anne’s Birthday, so I went to buy her a gift from the whole house. You know what’s stressful? Buying someone you’ve known for less than two weeks a present, that’s what. You know what’s more stressful? Buying the present on behalf of the whole house who you’ve also known for less than 2 weeks. But the most important detail of this whole story, is that I got to see a two story Target. The best part of a two story Target, is the cart-escalator. It never in my life occurred to me that these things might exist. It was definitely the biggest “OMG I’m from a small town” moment when I saw these things. So of course I took some pictures.

 Anne's birthday brownies. Notice our way of saying she is 23 with only 5 candles. 

 It took Anne about 3 breathes to blow out her 5 candles. 

 CART ESCALATOR OMG!

On Friday, I went out with the ladies of my house to go Salsa dancing. We went to this club in China-town (I didn’t see one Asian person there) called Cubralibre. You guys: this was a club where there was actually a 50:50 girl to guy ratio and all the guys wanted to dance and knew how to dance. This also blew my mind sense most of the dances I’ve ever been to have been the complete opposite. Needless to say I felt like a Latina princess whenever the guy was a strong leader and would twirl me around and stuff. I also felt widely incompetent anytime I got a dancing partner that wasn’t a super strong leader, and I would kind of just hope I was in step. However, I started talking to this guy who told me the trick was to purse your lips and make strong movements with your arms. So yeah! Apparently the “duck face” on the dance floor means “I am confident and I totally know what I’m doing” instead of “I have the mentality of a 13 year old girl” like it does in pictures. I was really impressed with the atmosphere of the club. They even had professionals do a show for us to give everyone a breather.

This is the best picture I could get.

Yesterday, the MVS house had a progressive dinner, and we got to meet some of the grownups who had done MVS in the past and are now… I guess… supporting us…. Or something? It was nice, good food. Today, I’m going to go to a free Yoga thing, and then hit up a festival that’s near my neighborhood.  

Hasta Luego! I hope I didn’t bore y’all! Actually, if I did I’m sure you stopped reading by now. Have a good day! 

My first week in DC!

        Hi world! (Or parents and possibly one other person!) Welcome to my first blog; we’ll see if I keep up with it. 

        So as you may or may not know, I’ve made the exciting journey from Dodge City and Newton Kansas to Washington, District of Colombia. My dad and I flew up on Thursday and did some fun touristy stuff. We walked through the “mall” (which is the stretch where the Washington and Lincoln memorials are, not a shopping center), and got freakishly hungry and tired. We stopped in the Department of Agriculture and ate some lunch in their cafeteria, apparently this is a common ritual for city people to do although it seemed strange to us that the only eatery we could find was the cafeteria of a government building. We went to about all the Smithsonian museums and I can’t say I’m any smarter because of it. On Friday night, my dad and I were going to walk by the MVS house and check out where I was going to live (we had stayed at a hotel), and I heard someone call my name. Mirmir and her family were driving away from the house and saw me and my dad walking down the street. So we all scoped out the house together and went out to eat. I know this really meant a lot to my dad that he could meet an important friend of mine and her family.

 Here are some pics of my first 2 days with my dad!

This was a crazy star fish thing we saw at an aquarium. 

This is my dad and my favorite piece of art.

All the sticky notes talk about people's personal experience with memory loss. 

We had to wear shoe covers as to not ruin the floor which had a layer of beeswax.

          On Saturday I got to move into the new MVS house. After dropping off my stuff, I said goodbye to my dad, and a group of girls and I went down to the mall to listen to some speakers in honor of the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington. There were a TON of people, it was blowing my mind. We eventually got to a spot that we couldn’t really move up any further and I could kind of see the outline of a person’s face on the mega-screens. We listened to many wonderful speakers. I don’t remember who said it, but one of the speakers said that we “shouldn’t walk around like you hit a triple, when you were born on third base.” He was meaning that my generation was born with our civil rights given to us, while generations before worked their butts off to get us to this point. I also got to hear Nancy Pelosi (they had the audacity to start music to cut off her speech) and Martin Luther King the Third speak. It was super powerful and I left feeling empowered and hopeful for the human race and whatnot. Also, while I was there, I ran into…. drum roll please…. SARAH KNIGHT! How random is that!? So for those of you that don’t know who Sarah Knight is, which is everyone I know minus about 10 people, she is a girl I met in Guatemala, who lives in New York City. She was in town with her sister or something. But literally, smallest world ever because I came halfway across a country and stood in a crowd of thousands of people and saw someone I met in another country!  

Sarah and I reunited briefly! 

          On Monday I went to a meeting with my school I’ll be working for. The lady in charge made everyone stand up who started out as a volunteer, about 70% of people stood up, then she made people stand up if they were former students of the school, and there stood up about 25%. I bet that last 5% of employees felt foolish, or not. So it seemed like everyone at my school spoke English and Spanish. It was pretty nifty. I think this might be a good place for me to practice my Spanish without people being judgmental about me being a beginner. I’m pumped! In the afternoon the staff had a picnic at a park. It was a good place to meet people, but a little overwhelming. Everyone was super friendly though.

            Today was a little bit of a whirlwind, I woke up to go on a run to make sure I could find my work on my own. Not only did I not find my work, but I got lost on the way back home, diagonal streets get me all kinds of turned around. I met up with my boss later on that morning (so yes I did eventually find my work) and she gave me a tour of two of the buildings that Briya works at, tomorrow I’m getting a tour of the third. I learned two things: 1. Briya is an AWESOME organization that really focuses on holistically serving the community. 2. A lot of people participate in making the program awesome, and I don’t remember a single one of their names.

           When I got home I started making a sandwich and then realized I had about 5 minutes to get to the bus station because myself and the other MVSers were supposed to go to a self defense seminar. Half way to the bus station and two bites into my sandwich my housemates remind me that you can’t have food on the bus. So as I’m power walking/ inhaling my sandwich we see the bus we’re supposed to take start to leave. At that same moment a lady heckles me about giving her food. Without even thinking I said “OK” and gave her the rest of my sandwich (I hope she likes mayonnaise) and took off toward the bus. I lamented this action 10 seconds later when I realized it wasn’t the right bus and I was left lunch-less and bus-less.  We ended up finding a different bus that took us to where we wanted and only showed up to the safety seminar 15 minutes late.      

The seminar turned out to be super informative! Here are some things that I think everyone should know:

1. If someone is attacking you, you should yell “KEEYA! IT’S AN ATTACK! CALL THE COPS!” Apparently people hear the sound “Keeya” better than any other sound, so it will warn people around you. Also, people hear stong “K” sounds which is why “cops” is better than “police.”

2. If you see someone hitting their kid in public and you want to stop it, a good way is to be really cheery and say “WHAT A CUTE KID, LOOK AT HIS/HER SHIRT/HAIR/EYES!!….etc.” – I like this one on account of it startles the parent and weirdly enough apparently usually gets them to stop hitting the kid. HOW NIFTY!    

3. If someone is saying vulgar things to you on the street you say (in a bored-calm voice): “Stop harassing women. I don’t like it. No one likes it. Show some respect.” And apparently that works! I wish I had known that earlier on account of just this morning a group of about seven guys harassed me on my way to work that morning and I did the classic “keep eyes down and walk faster” technique which apparently gives them power and encourages them to heckle more people. DAMN IT!

So I hope everyone finds those tips super helpful or whatever, if you guys want to know more I have a ton! And they are super great. Also someone should try pretend attacking me sometime on account of I know awesome self-defense moves now.

Other random thoughts before I end this blog session thing:

 1. Someone asked me for directions today, so I guess I look like I know what I’m doing. YAY!

2. The people in D.C. are SUPER nice, what are people talking about when they say big-city people are rude? D.C. people are really quite helpful and easy to talk to. Kansans could learn a thing or two from them.

3. I’m pretty confused at work still.

4. I hate personality tests, but since I started taking them in 6^th grade they have told me that I am a blue, a yellow, a red, a circle, a south, a helper, and an enthusiast. Awesome.

Alright, talk to you later! Or, more than likely this will be a one-time project thing that I won’t want to do anymore tomorrow.

LOVE YOU WORLD!

MARIAH!