Two Things I Love Right Now

I know I just posted about the 4th, but I have to share two things that have got me excited right now:

1) Kate told me about this website called Pinterest, which is essentially a photo tagging site that has a social media focus. Basically, you can "pin" (or tag) pictures that you find on the interwebs and then consolidate them on a series of bulletin boards. My profile consists of everything from pictures of places I've traveled to or want to travel to, fashion trends that I love, things that just make me happy in general, home decorating and food, so check it out if you're interested!!

2) I finally signed up for a half-marathon!!!! I have been saying all year that I'm going to run one, but constant injury (ankles and knees) has prevented me from doing so. My friend Andrew told me about the Parks Half Marathon, though, which is on September 11th, so I signed up to run it. Click here for more info! The one little wrinkle in this plan is that I recently sprained my ankle (I went to the hospital on Friday and that fact was confirmed), so my training schedule is going to be a little more compressed than what I would like, since I am under strict instructions not to run for at least two weeks, but I hope that, if I continue to stay active, I should hopefully have the cardio base to be able to jump right back in once my ankle is feeling better. Leave it to me to injure myself the week I sign up for a half-marathon (not to mention the fact that I'm the worst sick/injured person in the world. When you lead as active a lifestyle as I do, it's really hard to slow down!!!), but I'm just grateful that nothing is broken!

Hot Town, Summer in the City

Happy Independence Day!!!!
Yes, 'tis the season in DC for barbecues, afternoons by the pool, hordes of sidewalk-hogging, Metro-crowding tourists rushing to the Mall in throngs and scorching summer days. I have a love-hate relationship with DC summers: I love those lazy afternoons at the pool and the fact that I can walk around outside without a constant, rainy chill in the air, but I cannot stand the hordes of tourists that make daily life slightly more annoying and the oppressive heat and humidity that sometimes make multiple daily showers a necessity. In addition to the omnipresent tourists, a new group, Hill interns, descends upon the city, and the interns make themselves a very visible presence throughout the city.

One of the highlights of DC summers is 4th of July weekend. In terms of total celebrations, I would argue that no city does it better than DC (although the Boston firework show is, in my opinion, better). There is truly nothing like being on the National Mall with several thousand of your closest friends (I don't know what the final count was last night).

Before I get to the official 4th of July festivities, I'll go through what we did the rest of the weekend to make it such a fantastic time. On Friday night, the group met up at the Sculpture Garden, as per usual, for jazz (which has been Lauren's and my weekly summer tradition since last summer). On Saturday night, Molly had a bunch of people, including Alexandra (who was in for the weekend from NY) and Jordan and Nick (two of Molly and Alex's friends from Dalton who will be in the city until the end of this week) over to her place for fruit pizza and Kings. It was a lot of fun, especially getting the chance to meet two more Daltonians!

On Sunday, we went to the Nats-Pirates game. Dan and I already had tickets (which ended up being AMAZING seats about 25 rows behind the Pirates dugout), which, unfortunately, were directly in the sun, so all vanity quickly went out the window. We went up to visit the rest of the crew for a few innings in the nosebleeds in the hopes that we would be in the shade (which definitely did not happen). Afterward, the girls and the Dalton crew headed down to the Southwest Waterfront because our friend Joelle was in Elegy for Rose, a short play about Tennessee Williams' sister, Rose. Joelle did a fantastic job, and it was a good excuse to explore an area that I had never been to before. I quickly went home and showered (to wash off both the puddles of sweat from the game and the rain from the unexpected downpour that we got caught in) so that I could meet up with Dan and a few of his friends from home in Georgetown. We grabbed a drink at Martin's, and then Dan and I split off from the group to take a trip down memory lane and go back to Tombs (for whatever reason, he knew that I would want to go there haha). It's funny, because the place itself never changes, but they just funnel through class after class of college juniors and seniors, so as an alum, it feels really weird to go back (particularly during the summer, when there are so few people there to begin with). I was reminded of how wonderful Tombs is when our waitress, so apologetic that it took a little bit of time for our drinks to come (I was not actually upset at all), informed us that our drinks were on the house. Score.

On Monday (oh, how I love bonus weekend days!), Alex had the group over to his house for a 4th of July BBQ. I was elated at the chance to have one of Alex's delicious homemade veggie burgers and some home brew, and, as always, there was great company. The other girls and I left around 6ish to head down to the Mall, wanting to stake out a large enough spot for our growing group. We found a great spot on the northwest corner of the Washington Monument, so we had a great view of the fireworks. Our group of about 20 people had a great time enjoying the best spectacle that DC has to offer. And, as was the case on July 5th of last year, getting back to work this morning was a little bit tough.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:
The Dalton Crew

Some casual Saturday night Kings at Molly's

Dalton and Georgetown- worlds collide!!!

Dan and I looking gross and sweaty at the Nats game

Georgetown loves

Bucket List

We have a work off-site in a few weeks, and, since so many of us in the office are relatively new, my boss came up with the fabulous idea of each of us coming up with a Getting to Know You Power Point. Obviously, lightbulbs started going off in my head the moment she said it (scrapbooking and general arts and crafts freak that I am), so I was trying to come up with ways to make it more creative. Once of the ideas I had was to talk about my bucket list, which I thought would actually be something fun to blog about! I would love to hear about some of your bucket list items, and here are some of mine:

-Living in France again (DUH...we all know I fantasize about moving back to France daily. Moving on...)
-Learning Arabic (I use a couple of Arabic phrases that some Arabic-speaking friends have taught me quite often in daily life, but I only know a handful of phrases)
-Traveling to India (I always get a particularly strong urge to travel to India after watching Slumdog Millionaire or eating Indian food, so since the bf and I did the former this week, I’m very much in “India NOW” mode)
-Running a marathon (the goal for this year is to run a half, but I eventually want to run the MCM)
-Doing the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg. It has been one of my lifelong dreams to frolic in the Austrian Alps (which, contrary to what they say in the movie, lead not to safety in Switzerland but, rather, to Germany), singing and dancing in clothes I made myself. I have actually heard from people who have taken the tour that it is quite disappointing, but I still want to go. Also, Molly’s presence would be required, since she would be the only person to go all-out and fully embrace the spirit of the tour with me.
-Rediscovering my French and Spanish fluency
-Planning a wedding (obviously my own wedding eventually, but also for either a friend or as a real wedding planner for a stranger)
-Visiting all of my various ancestral homelands
-Making it to all 4 tennis Grand Slams (I’ve been to the US Open 5 or 6 times and Roland Garros once)


Happy Friday to everyone! I’m heading off to my cousin Ashley’s wedding in NY this weekend, so I’m sure I’ll be writing about that (as well as the one-year anniversary of Kate and Dave’s wedding!) sometime next week!

A Sign of the Times...

Pure bliss :) How can you not believe in true love after witnessing a day like that?! (Photo courtesy of people.com...CLARO)

So it is now more than two weeks after the royal wedding, and, since I've essentially been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I have been remiss in writing about it. Since we all know that my posts tend to get a bit lengthy, I'll just say a few words about it. The wedding day was, for hopeless romantics such as myself, the most magical of days. Kate was, I believe, one of the most stunning brides that I have ever seen. I would not necessarily wear her dress myself, but it was perfect for the location and the tone of the occasion. William was simply dashing (the scarlet uniform definitely didn't hurt!!!), and he and Kate looked like they are madly in love. I know that, to some people, it is so frivolous to care so much about an event that actually cost English taxpayers money, but, with so little happy news these days, to be able to witness the crowning (no pun intended) day of a beautiful love story is a breath of fresh air. I truly do hope that the newlyweds breathe fresh air into the often-stuffy monarchy and do things by their own rules.

Three short days after the wedding, I awoke to the news that a team of U.S. Navy SEALS had killed Osama bin Laden after a near-decade-long search. I can definitely say that I had a mixed opinion about the event that so many used as an excuse for revelry. On the one hand, I certainly agree with President Obama's statement that "justice was done" and that his death may serve as some comfort to the families of those for whose deaths he is, be it indirectly or directly, responsible. The man was a monster and distorted a religious doctrine to the point where it no longer resembled the spirit of that religion. However, he was still a human being, so the fact that so many people my age flocked to the White House and fêted his death seemed to me to almost make light of his death. I am of the opinion that celebrating the death of another human is simply tasteless, and, in fact, debases those who celebrate it to bin Laden's level.

Anyway, enough of current (or, rather, recent past) events. The reason I entitled this post "A Sign of the Times" is that I've been feeling a little bit out of my element. For the past few weeks, I have been feeling so overscheduled and exhausted that I feel like time is just flying by without me really taking the time to appreciate it. Whereas, in the fall and winter, I liked to take at least a night or two after work to relax and do something for myself, like read or watch a movie, now I find that I have something scheduled every night. 'Oh, poor little whiney girl, can't appreciate how good she has it,' you may be thinking, and don't get me wrong, I don't want to whine, but I guess I feel like I'm having trouble balancing everything, that I literally can't live without my planner because I can't keep everything straight. I guess I want to make sure I'm enjoying everything I'm doing, not simply running from one event to the next. On Saturday night, I took a detox night and went and stayed with my parents at the new house. Don't misunderstand me, it was wonderful to be able to stay with them and relax, but it shouldn't get to the point where I need to extricate myself from my normal environment to get a good night's sleep. So my goal heading into what will likely be a busy summer is to choose after-work activities that truly bring me joy and be in the moment so as not to take those experiences for granted.

Lastly (and then I will end this long entry), this weekend marks the one-year anniversary of my graduation from Georgetown. I have dreaded May 22nd for quite some time, because, at that point, I will no longer be able to say, "I graduated in May." I will now be forced to say, "I graduated in 2010." Despite all of my anxiety over the fact that friends have become more scattered, some friendships have fallen by the wayside and memories from the Hilltop have started to become less relevant, I feel so blessed for everything I have. Molly and I were saying today that, if you had told us at this time last year that everything that has happened to us in the past year would happen, we would have laughed in your face. For better or worse, good changes or bad, this year has been one of incredible growth for me, a year in which I've gotten to know myself, others and my city more than I thought imaginable. I owe this continual journey of self-discovery to my incredible family and friends old and new, so thank you, dear readers, if you have played a part in it. Finally, HOYA SAXA and GEORGETOWN FOREVER!!!!!!

I am still in disbelief that this was a year ago. I love all of you so much <3

The Mother of All Royal Wedding Hype

Thanks to the magic of Facebook, I stumbled upon this Tumblr feed, and it is HILARIOUS...

Enjoy!!!

My First Mid-Atlantic Easter and The Royal Wedding

One thing I love about working at a Jesuit university is that we get Good Friday off! (hence the blogging during the day on Friday). I will be splitting the weekend between my parent's new house in Alexandria and my grandparent's in the Shenandoahs, so I'm really looking forward to a weekend of pure relaxation after thoroughly running myself ragged in the week leading up to Welcome Weekend (and then paying for it this week by getting really sick).

In other news, the event of the century (the royal wedding, naturally!) is almost upon us! Come next Friday, the 29th of April, millions of eyes will be turned to each respective nation's BBC affiliate to catch a glimpse of Kate Middleton's much talked-about dress and, hopefully, a glimpse of a royal kiss on the Buckingham Palace balcony.

In Sarah Lyall's April 21st NYT article, she says of Kate that, "she is like an old-time Hollywood star, full of mystery, a canvas onto which the world can project its fantasies." I think that, in a world of TMI when it comes from everyone to celebrities to politicians, Kate is a breath of fresh air: someone who is content with what life has handed her but doesn't feel the need to make an exhibition of herself because of it. I think that the poise and grace with which she handles herself is incredibly admirable...and damn it, she has an amazing wardrobe that any girl would be silly not to envy!!! PLUS she's marrying the arguably better-looking of the princes! I don't really buy the rags-to-riches story that the press so often attempts to construct for her; yes, her parents may have had humbler roots, but they are still upper-middle-class Britons, so to refer to Kate as a "commoner" sounds demeaning in a way. If she's a "commoner", then what does that make the rest of us?!?

I was thinking the other day about what it is that I find so intriguing about the royal family, and I guess I can trace my interest in them back to when Princess Diana died. I vividly remember the day: I was 9 years old, we were up at the Lake for Labor Day weekend and I was in bed, sick as a dog. I remember hearing, even in my groggy state, someone exclaim from downstairs that Diana had died. From then on, I was a sponge, learning everything about the royals that I possibly could. I guess you could say that my interest in the royals was my gateway drug into my current People magazine-obsessed world. They were the first "celebrities" that I took a real interest in, and I suppose some of that had to do with the fact that I, like so many little girls, wanted to be a princess.

Molly and I are planning on having a sleepover the night before the wedding and waking up early to watch it, complete with a breakfast of homemade scones, strawberries and cream and English Breakfast Tea. I obviously wasn't alive for Charles and Diana's wedding, so I couldn't be more excited to watch this one. While the press has been attempting to unravel the truth about what will happen that day, frankly, I would prefer to be surprised (so hopefully they don't spoil it for me by digging up every last detail!).

Since I have seen so many ridiculous wedding-related things in the past few months, I thought I would post a few of them here for posterity's sake:

- People had a gallery of the most ridiculous wedding-related memorabilia
- The Kate Middleton doll's adventures around London
- The William and Kate Lifetime movie
- The T Mobile Royal Wedding ad
- Papa John's Royal Wedding pizza
- Dunkin Donuts Royal Wedding donut
- Royal Wedding-inspired food and drink
- Design-your-own Royal Wedding stamp

I'm sure there are more ridiculous things I'm missing, but I'll add in any more particularly humorous ones that I find!

My Official Induction into the Running World

Christine and I just after our race!

Those of you who know me best will remember that, despite a couple of phases of infatuation with running in college, during which I would want to run every day for a month or two until the passion fizzled out, I would say that I hate running. I think that, when I was in physical therapy last year for a freak knee injury and was told I couldn't run (HA, not that I was a runner anyway), I really wanted to start again, so start I did once my physical therapist gave me the green light.

Throughout the fall and winter, I put the miles on, built up my speed and, yes, even grew to tolerate the monotony of the treadmill. My New Year's Resolution (I feel like it's better if I share it, since then I will maybe force myself to hold to it) was to run a half-marathon, and I soon set my sights on the Historic Half-Marathon in May. Well, my body had other plans; it seems as though every time I run, some confused combination of knees and ankles decides to get injured, meaning that I don't think I've ever run more than 9 miles.

However, a friend told me about the Hurry Up 4 Health 8K that was taking place on the towpath along the C&O Canal last weekend and I couldn't resist. 'What a perfect foray into the world of running races,' I thought, so I hurriedly signed up. Well, my poor, broken body had other plans for me, because I did something to tweak my right ankle during a run on Tuesday, and then a run on Thursday further exacerbated it, leaving it swollen and incredibly painful to walk on. On the day of the race, I gave myself a lazy day (even though I easily run the same distance several mornings a week 15 minutes after popping out of bed with no lazing-around time...but that's beside the point) and met my parents down by the Potomac (where my dad, ever the crew enthusiast, had dragged my mom to a crew race and looked like a little kid in a candy store). They had (adorably) decided that they wanted to watch my race, so we walked over together. It also turned out that my friend Christine was running the race, so we decided to be running buddies.

I was surprised at how nervous I was before the race; for all intents and purposes, this was a "normal" race for me, but it was my FIRST race, and damn it, my ankle hurt. I resolved to run until the pain became too much to bear, even though I knew, in the back of my mind, that I wouldn't let myself quit (my mom often uses the word "headstrong" to describe me, but, in the context of exercise, I don't really think she gets where my self-discipline (or maybe masochism) comes from). Surprisingly, my ankle didn't bother me at all during the race, although having to dodge rocks, puddles and the occasional root certainly made me nervous. It was a lot more enjoyable because Christine and I were pacing each other the entire time, and we ended up finishing two seconds apart, me at 41:08 and her at 41:10. Despite the fact that I didn't finish with the blazing speed (just over 30 minutes) of the guy who won, I was pleased with my time for the first race. As I crossed the finish line, where my beaming dad stood taking a picture on his phone (only to fail at saving and sending it...oh well, he tries) and slowed down...oh, God, ouch, my ankle was killing me, and suddenly I couldn't put any weight on it. The only justification I can come up with is the runner's high that I must have been on (I can fully attest to the fact that it does exist), and I think the adrenaline just kept me from noticing the pain.

Nearly a week later, my bothersome ankle is still swollen (perhaps because I tempted fate and run on it again yesterday), but I can now say that my first race is behind me. Hopefully 2011 will be the year that I do run a half-marathon, even though so much of it is conditional upon my body and the extent to which it lets me train. Stay tuned...the next one I'm considering is the Rock 'n Roll Half in Virginia Beach, which I believe is in the fall. Otherwise, I'm hopeful that I can get myself in shape for the National Half-Marathon on the same day as the MCM. Thank you all for humoring me!!! I'm sure you could probably care less about my 8K, but it was a victory for me (I may have shed a tear thinking back to elementary school, when I was the girl with asthma who couldn't finish the Mile Run because she had an asthma attack every time), and it is hopefully a building block to bigger, better races!!!!