A Lesson to Learn from Peggy Olson

**SPOILER ALERT: If you, like me, did not watch this week's Mad Men episode, do not read this post**

Okay, now that that's settled...Dan and I haven't watched this episode yet and, while I did not set out to spoil it for myself, this article, which I found on Huff Post Women, seemed to good to pass up.  I re-watched Miss Representation last night with two dear friends (click here for my original post on the movie) and it inspired a really thought-provoking discussion.

One of the main points that the film makes is that women, because we are beaten down by the media, which constantly tells us that we are just not adequate enough to be the "ideal woman," do not seek leadership positions in government, business, and entertainment.  As we were discussing the movie afterward, we all had the same underlying concern: none of the three of us wants to be a CEO of a major multinational corporation or the first female president.  We don't feel that way because the media has beaten our self-esteem to a pulp (although we're not denying that it can have that effect); we simply do not aspire to positions like that.  After watching the movie, we felt as though the expectation was that we burn our bras, throw away our makeup and march to The Hill to begin our political careers in earnest.  Is there something wrong with us for not wanting that for ourselves?

However, in reading the article above, I extracted some pearls of wisdom that I found to be helpful in answering this question.  No, we do not need to aspire to those top positions, but we DO need to understand what our market value is, and we DO owe it to ourselves to demand the compensation that we deserve, which directly correlates to our market value.  The article points out (and I would completely agree with this) that men have an inflated sense of self, and will always try to negotiate more money for themselves, while women, having neither a knowledge of what they are worth nor a desire to rock the boat with new colleagues by demanding more money and appearing "demanding" or "bitchy" from the outset, do not negotiate in the same way that men do.  How does this tie back to Mad Men?  Well, Peggy, after years of mistreatment (getting passed over by male colleagues, some of them less talented, on accounts, and having these same men take credit for the work that IS rightly hers), sees the delight and decides to jump ship from Sterling, Cooper, Draper & Price.  Again, I have not watched this episode yet, but I imagine that I will be cheering.  However, the problem is that, after having been beaten down by her male colleagues for years and being subtly reminded of her second-class citizenship based solely on her gender, has no earthly idea how much she is worth and, thus, goes into the job search unprepared.

The author suggests that the best way for women to educate ourselves is to research what women in comparable positions are earning so that we can go into job interviews with a solid number in mind, as well as a number of reasons as to why we are worthy of that amount of compensation (because we still, in this day and age, have to justify that to some people).  Be your own advocate, ladies!!!

Oh Mad Men...despite the fact that its characters sometimes make me want to rip my hair out (Dan and I both agree that, if a character were to be killed off sometime this season, we would want it to be either Pete Campbell, a truly despicable and miserly creature, or Betty, who, for all intents and purposes, is still a five year-old child) and the dialogue exhibits such blatant misogynism, racism and classism, I can't help but be glued to the television screen.  I am very intrigued by Megan, who, other than Peggy, is the strongest recurring female character on the show, so I continue to watch, despite Pete's philandering and incessant self-pitying whining and Betty's childish behavior.     

The Official Start of Summer!!!

Gosh, with how hectic this weekend was, I feel like I need another long weekend to relax!!! It started off with our summer favorite, Jazz in the Sculpture Garden.  In case some of you don't know how this came to be an obsession of mine, a few weeks after graduation two years ago, Lauren said that she had heard good things about it and that we should try it.  Thanks to the combination of relaxing by the fountain (since we were both working part-time at that point, we had ample time to get there early enough to nab prime seats by the fountain), sipping the sangria that is completely overpriced but entirely worth it, and chatting while we listened to soft jazz, we were hooked, and went essentially every week that summer.  And from there, our obsession was born.  I look back on that experience very fondly, since Lauren and I were some of the only girls from our college friend group still in the city, so we did essentially everything together.  It was one of our fun little adventures together, and now we have been able to expand the group :)

Jazz with the girls!

My parents pretending that they don't know they're in the picture haha.  Love them

So anyway, my mom had been kind enough to save seats for us, and I was able to leave the office early enough to meet up with her and chat before everyone else (Dan, a group of my girlfriends, and my dad) arrived.  It was a beastly hot day, but my mom (unable to indulge in her favorite activity, tanning, since she is on an antibiotic and being in the sun for five minutes makes her feel as though her skin is burning off) had gotten us seats under the tree, so it was really refreshing.  It was great to see all of the girls, some of whom I hadn't seen in a while.  So, for me, Friday, the first day of Jazz, marked the official start of summer.  Afterward, we went and checked out the amazing view of the city from my dad's office building, before grabbing some beach supplies (cooler, umbrella) from them and stopping at the grocery store to buy lunch for our beach trip on Saturday.

View from atop my dad's office building

We were up at an ungodly hour for a Saturday (5:15) in the hopes of making it to Rehoboth without getting caught in gridlock traffic.  Luckily, that early-morning wake-up call (yes, even though I wake up earlier than that during the week, it was painful for me) paid off, and we didn't hit ANY traffic...phew!  The most difficult part of the trip was finding parking meters where you could park for more than three hours at a time (Dan, wonderful guy that he is, volunteered to leave the beach every three hours to move the car, but I refused to let him do that, pointing out that, by the time he would be moving the car, it would probably be impossible to find another spot.  When we were leaving, he acknowledged the wisdom in that rationale, because there was not a spot to be found!).  We were finally able to find a spot on a side street where you could park for ten hours, AND we utilized the app with which you can pay for parking, thus not having to worry about getting change.  Genius, truly genius!  Anyway, we found our little spot on the beach and set up camp for the day.  All in all, we were there for about seven hours, so we got some good reading time in and had ourselves a nice little picnic lunch.  It even got warm enough (it reached the low 80s by mid-day) that we went in the water.  Now, I am a total water lover- when we go to the Lake, I will often swim for hours on end- but my rational side was telling me that it was still late May, and that, naturally, the water would be frigid.  However, when you have been laying out for several hours, you throw caution to the wind and go in.  It was, predictably, shockingly cold at first, but felt wonderful once we went under.  After we left the beach, we decided to skope out the rooftop mini-golf course that we had spotted from the beach.  I had also been wanting to challenge Mr. Golf for a while :)  Sadly, I still lost, which I will blame both on the fact that he is a better golfer than me and on the fact that I hit my leg on a cement brick and my leg was gushing blood on the back 9.  Obviously that was the primary reason for my loss haha.  So, while I owe Dan a homemade dinner and certainly lost some of my pride (not to mention some skin on my leg), I DID win a free game at the end.

You can kind of see some of our sunburns in this one (and also the hordes of people on the beach in the background)

After a much-needed shower when we got back home (at this point, we realized the extent of what turned out to be pretty terrible sunburns; seriously, come Sunday morning, we were both moving pretty gingerly), we went to Georgetown for dinner, which, despite the number of people on the street, was actually kind of deserted.  That is one of the things I loved about this weekend; it seemed like hardly anyone was here, which made getting into retaurants a breeze!  We had dinner at Ristorante Piccolo on Saturday night and waltzed right in, as we did at brunch at Martin's the next morning.  We were able to make it to an earlier mass because we got breakfast in such a timely manner! 

I ended up spending Sunday night at my parents' house, which is always a nice change of scenery (particularly since I had not seen them in a few weeks).  We went to an adorable and delicious French restaurant called Bastille in Alexandria (kind of off the beaten path, so you it wasn't mobbed like the places on King St. tend to be) and then just relaxed at home, just what I needed.  On Monday morning (bonus day! Yay!), I met Dan for breakfast at Ted's Bulletin, which I have raved about time and time again.  Once again, the pop tarts did not disappoint, even though the service, sadly, did.  I went back to my parents' house for a quick workout before heading to a barbecue at my friend Maggie's.  The barbecue was a lot of fun and there was some great food, but man, did the stiflingly hot weather take a lot out of me!  I was only drinking water because I was feeling dehydrated, but I had to go inside and lay on the couch for a few minutes because I was feeling a bit lightheaded.  Oh well, 'tis the season...

I collapsed in an exhausted heap into my bed last night, because, even though many of the weekend's activities involved just "hanging out," the combination of the heat and the sheer volume of commitments tuckered me out.  That said, I can't wait for the craziness that I'm sure this summer will bring!!!  Sorry to the return to long posts...

Some Laughter at My Own Expense

I have had some highly weird things happen this week, so I felt like I had to give you all a nice laugh on this lovely Friday.

To start with, I was rifling through my wallet on Tuesday to find my ID so I could get on the bus, and what should I find but someone else's credit card....?  In a panic, I feverishly checked for all of my own cards, only to find that they were all present and accounted for.  This was a serious head scratcher, being that I am not in the habit of stealing other people's credit cards.  So then I did a little bit of investigating.  I looked the person up on Facebook, hoping that I would be able to find them.  In fact, she and I had a mutual friend, Patrick (one of the people whose going-away party I went to last Saturday night), so I immediately figured that, when I went to close out my tab at the first bar we went to, they must have accidentally slipped another card under mine without me realizing it...until three days later. 

I sent her a Facebook message, apologizing profusely and providing her with my idea of what could possibly have happened.  I told her that I was sure that she had already canceled her card, but that I would be happy to return it to her, and that I swore on my life that I had not used it.  She sent me a very nice message back, saying that she appreciated the message, even though she had already canceled her card.  So yeah, that was the day when I randomly ended up with someone else's credit card (after unknowingly having walked around with it for three days)...oops.

Incident #2 occurred last night, when a group of us went out to dinner at Rasika to celebrate (or mourn?) Colleen's final night in DC.  At one point during dinner, she turned to me and said, "Oh, guess what I found when I was packing up the apartment, hidden in the closet under a huge pile of things?".  Somehow, I had a hunch as to where she was going with that, so responded, with quite a bit of trepidation, "The router?".  "Yes," she replied, and I just had to put my head in my hands for a moment.  If you will remember, back in the fall, I was in an all-out battle with Comcast over an extra router that they said I had but that I insisted I didn't.  Being that I was not at home when they installed our cable and internet gear, I never laid eyes on this second router.  Nonetheless, I spent six torturous weeks on the phone with Comcast, even having to go so far as to make an unhelpful trip out to the Comcast facility in Rockville, trying to avoid having to pay for equipment that I was certain we did not have.  Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  So then the question became what to do with this newly-appeared extra router.  Colleen offered to throw it away, but, after thinking about it for a moment, I thought better of it and asked her to keep it to give to me later on, in case, for whatever reason, Comcast decides to hunt me down.  I think none of the people present knew whether to laugh or cry, fearful that I would forget that the incident was over and would snap at them anyway.  Well, I did no such thing.  I kept my head in my hands for a minute, and then I laughed, an exasperated laugh.  C'est ma vie...

Long weekend, anyone??? Today is the kickoff of Jazz in the Sculpture Garden, which is almost as good as Christmas. I will be recovering from this weird, weird week with a glass of sangria. 

The Five Love Languages

When I was out with some friends on Saturday night, they told me about the Five Love Languages, which is based on the book by Gary Chapman that examines the ways in which we experience (and show) love.  The five "languages" of love, in other words, the ways in which we prefer that love be conveyed to us, are: Physical Touch, Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service and Receiving Gifts.

You can take the assessment here, and I know you have time to do it, because it consists of thirty EASY questions.  I took the "For Singles" assessment first, because I don't really fall under the other categories (why is there not one for someone in a relationship but not married?), and then took the "For Wives" one next, to see if the questions or results differed at all.  The results were nearly identical.  If you're interested, there is also an assessment about the type of apology that you prefer (Expressing Regret, Accepting Responsibility, Making Restitution, Genuinely Repenting and Requesting Forgiveness), which I found to be interesting.  Apparently, it is most important to me that someone express regret.  Luckily for all of you, my lowest score was Requesting Forgiveness, coming in at zero, so I'm not the type of person who will hold something against you until you beg for forgiveness.

When I completed the "For Singles" questionnaire, my highest score was Physical Touch, meaning that:

A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, and thoughtful touches on the arm—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive.

My scores were as follows (greatest to least, with 12 being the highest you can possibly score on a section): Physical Touch (11), Quality Time (9), Words of Affirmation (6), Acts of Service (4), Receiving Gifts (0).  So, if we're trying to make practical sense of this:

• I feel most loved through acts of physical touch (and, by extension, show my love through physical acts).  I am a physical person; I hug and kiss family members and constantly kiss friends, even going so far as to hug close friends hello and goodbye when I see them, even if that is quite often.  Those are just a few examples, but that is how I both express love and prefer to have it expressed to me.  In moments when I am sad or upset, I often just want to be hugged or held (case in point: Kristin and Dan were comparing notes this weekend about how much of a crier I am.  Kristin said, "Well, she just cries because she cares, and you just need to know how to comfort her."  I assured her that Dan is a very good comforter.  Brownie points for him!). 
• Quality time is equally important; I feel loved when a friend, family member or boyfriend, takes the time to nurture our relationship and makes sure that the time we spend together is quality time.  I get upset when I feel as though the time that I spend with someone, no matter what the nature of our relationship, is not what I consider "quality time" (i.e. if the other person is preoccupied, constantly answering their phone, etc.). 
• My other high score was in words of affirmation.  I constantly tell the people I care about the most how important they are to me, and I admit that it is nice to hear the same back, whether in the form of birthday cards, thinking-of-you emails or just a verbal affirmation of how they feel about me.  
• Unsurprisingly, receiving gifts got no points. It is true that receiving gifts from people is not the most important expression of love to me; however, that is not to say that I do not take note of when a gift is particularly thoughtful (Dan happens to be an EXTREMELY thoughtful gift-giver, and while I love and cherish all of the gifts that he has gotten me over the course of our relationship, I derive more pleasure from the cards that he writes me).  On the flip side, I try to be extremely thoughtful in the gifts that I give, because it is one way that I express love for people, whether in the form of a birthday or holiday gift or baked goods (yes, those are a constant!).

Again, I highly encourage all of you to take this assessment, because I think it will help me become more self-aware (not that I was not already aware of some of my patters of behavior in that respect) of how I best receive and show love.  I would be interested to hear what all of your results are!

Someone Make Time Slow Down!!!! (please)

I started the weekend early on Thursday night, when Dan and I went to the Nats-Pirates game (knowing full well that it wouldn't matter if we had a late night because all I had to do on Friday was work at graduation). It was a lot of fun, for several reasons: 1) the Bucs won (yay!); 2) Some family friends sat next to us at the game, and I also got to meet one of Dan's golfing buddies, who happened to be at the game; and 3) I got a Shake Shack milkshake.  Heavenly (albeit terrible for you, I'm sure).  All in all, a very fun night, and I was glad that Dan's team won (for those of you who may be curious, while I have become a Pens fan, I will never, EVER abandon my allegiance to the Red Sox, no matter how much they suck.  In fact, I wore my Sox hat to this game), despite some serious threats from the Nats.

My students graduated on Friday under flawlessly beautiful skies, and I was so glad that I got to be there and witness it.  True to form, I cried during the alma mater (and alternately was quite pleased at myself for knowing ALL of the words haha), as well as during President DeGioia's speech when he welcomes the newly-minted graduates to the Georgetown alumni community.  For some reason, that sentiment always gets me.  Georgetown alums are sure a special group :)  I was also reminded of what a nightmare it can be to work graduation when graduates' families tried to walk up to the stage to take pictures of the graduates.  Seriously, one man was practically sitting in the lap of one man in the wheelchair section as he tried to get a picture.  Seriously, people are so inconsiderate!  Thus, my job as bad cop was made infinitely more difficult.

Immediately following graduation, I rescued Kristin from boards studying in Uncommon Grounds and, after stopping by the post-graduation reception for a hot second to grab some lunch, she and I walked down to the mecca that is Baked & Wired and stuffed our faces with cupcakes.  Sure, come to town and twist my arm to eat delicious cupcakes ;)  It was so nice to catch up with my beloved friend as we sat by the banks of the canal.  It is so rare that I get to see my out-of-town girls nowadays, so I was in my element that afternoon.  It also didn't hurt that the weather was, as I mentioned, fabulous. 

On Friday night, Kristin, Molly and I went to Senior Ball to support Kristin's brother, Justin, a Class of 2012 Georgetown College graduate (woo!!!).  Again, twist my arm and make me dress up to go to a BALL.  It was, as expected, a very good time, and, although we all agreed that the literary theme was less awesome than the circus-themed ball our senior year, there was a Gatsby-themed photobooth (complete with accessories) this year, which certainly knocked this Senior Ball up a few notches! 

Right back where we were two years ago

On Saturday, Lauren and I headed to Pentagon City for some retail therapy...and ended up buying the same shorts.  Oops?  In her defense, she bought them first.  Then we went back to her apartment and watched the exciting conclusion of the Belmont Stakes (I could care less about horse racing, but I get easily amped up about major sporting events, so I thought I could spare the three minutes to watch it.  Bring on the Olympics!  Dan and I have already agreed that we're not budging from in front of the TV).  Afterward, I met up with Dan for a delicious dinner at Commissary before heading to Local 16 for the much-dreaded goodbye party for Colleen and Patrick (I say much-dreaded because I have been dreading saying goodbye to them, not because I dread going to parties).  It was a really great time, especially when we migrated to Policy (two weekends in a row, not sorry) and had our own little private dancing area.  Dan, who hates dancing, was an amazing sport about going out dancing, which is one of the many, many reasons why I love him, and I was delighted to have so many of my favorite people together to celebrate two incredible friends.

 I will miss these two so much!!!

Wonderful friends!

 

So much love :)

Yesterday was a complete lazy day once I got home from Dan's.  I did go to the gym (yay me), but aside from that, I lounged around, did laundry, and watched lots of Gilmore Girls and Mad Men (the latter with Molly).  After weekends that jam-packed with activity, I really needed the lazy day.  As a result,  I was able to have a really great run this morning (because I was about as well-rested as I'm ever going to be), despite the fact that I had to fight the urge to stay in bed.  I have a lot of things planned for this week (literally, every night was planned out as of last Monday), including what I'm sure will be more teary goodbyes, but I'm very much looking forward to the long weekend next weekend.  I'm hoping that the weather will hold out so that we can go to the beach! 



Graduation

Wow.  Graduation season is upon us again.  HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???????  It really does seem like just yesterday that my friends and I were reveling in Senior Week and preparing to walk across that stage, but alas, that was actually two years ago.  Sigh.

This graduation season has proven to be a particularly controversial one on the Hilltop this year.  I mean, in general, the University seems to have been in the news a lot this year, but when an uncharacteristically decent lineup of commencement speakers (really, they are usually terrible at Georgetown) was announced earlier on this month, people went bananas. 

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and one of the main authors of Obamacare, particularly the portions of it that pertain to contraception, was selected as the commencement speaker for the Public Policy Institute.  Immediately, a maelstorm erupted surrounding the decision, with Catholic archbishops calling on President DeGioia to rescind the offer.

You know what I am most proud of?  The fact that my alma mater (and employer) is a place where people of differing opinions can flourish.  People come to Georgetown to become more worldly and to be exposed to differing opinions, all while receiving a world-class education, not to be around people who think exactly what they think, not to mention what the Catholic Church thinks.  I have said it before and I will say it again; I am a practicing Catholic, but I think that there are many areas in which the Church is out of touch with reality.  Georgetown may be on the Vatican's shitlist, but at least it is a place where civil discourse and free expression are encouraged. The fact that Secretary Sebelius was invited to speak here does not mean that Georgetown is abandoning its Catholic identity. It is not a prerequisite that the commencement speakers' opinions be the most popular or shared by the greatest number of people.  I truly admire Georgetown's decision to extend the offer to Secretary Sebelius, and I hope that people do not make fools of themselves at the ceremony.

This year's MSB ceremony will be a bittersweet one for me, because this was the class that started their student careers just as I began working here, so it will be very emotional for sure.  I'm going to miss all of them!!! Let's see if I can make it through this year's graduation without sobbing.  It's doubtful, because the Alma Mater gets me every time.  Congratulations to the Class of 2012, and may Georgetown live forever!

A Much-Needed Long Weekend

This weekend, I took a much-needed Friday off, mostly to spend time with Dan before he started his new job (today is his first day, and I'm sending lots of good karma across the river for him!!).  I had some training for work on Thursday afternoon that allowed us some additional time together in the afternoon, which was so nice.  We went out for a delicious seafood dinner at Grillfish, one of our favorites, and followed that up with milkshakes at Johnny Rocket's, another of our favorite activities (I was also having a weird milkshake craving, which I almost never have). 

On Friday, we had the main event, riding our bikes to Mt. Vernon and back. We stopped in Old Town to pick up the bikes from my parents' house and also grab some food for the picnic we were planning on having.  We were both definitely a little bit rusty on riding a bike (even though, as they say, it's just like riding a bike!), so we had some minor seat adjustment issues (at one point, Dan said it looked like I was riding a tricycle because I was so low to the ground!), but other than that it was a nice 22ish-mile ride!  We were definitely exhausted when we stopped for our picnic of a baguette, cheese, jam, and LOTS of water halfway in, and were very reluctant to get back on our bikes because our asses were killing us, but we powered through it!  When we got back to my parents', we set our bikes down and lay in the grass for a solid 45 minutes or so in a heap of exhaustion.  We were both still sore the next morning (again, bike seats, not so comfortable for long rides; I would imagine that it was worse on Dan), but it was an amazing feeling to have just completed the ride, and it was a nice change-up from our normal runs.  We didn't actually end up walking around the Mt. Vernon grounds, mostly because it's expensive and the place was overrun with school groups on a Friday afternoon, but we were content to just sit on a bench, enjoy our food and bask in the beautiful weather.

During our lunchtime stop at Mt. Vernon

Accurate representation of what we did after the bike ride

My mom hadn't been feeling well, so I stayed at their place to shower and then help her cook, and I also got to DRIVE!!!! I both wanted the practice driving (it had been over a year) and I knew she wasn't feeling well, so I volunteered to drive to Georgetown to get Tim. It was definitely harrowing to be on the driver's side of Georgetown, and I was drenched in sweat by the time we got back to the house, but I did it! And I did a good job! Dan came back after having showered at home, and once my dad got home we had ourselves a nice little 21st birthday party for Tim.  I can't believe my original baby doll is all grown up (seriously, my mom tells me that I wouldn't leave him alone, because I thought he was my baby and just wanted to play with him all the time)!!  Below is a picture of one of our earliest photo shoots.  As you can see, I, ever the style maven, am rocking the '90s bowl cut/mullet, which was a mainstay of my childhood.  I think that the picture below would be my equivalent of Mindy Kaling's and Tina Fey's embarrassing (but strangely cute at the same time) childhood photos in their respective books. Also notice the presence of chub in this picture.  Let's just say that neither of us were small in our youth...

On Saturday, Dan had to be up and out early for yet another round of golf (he played nearly every day during his week of funemployment!), so I helped my dad with some Mother's Day shopping and went for a run in Old Town before meeting up with Lauren for a delicious dinner at Posto, an Italian place on 14th.  It was so nice to catch up, and we got to do more of that when we headed over to Policy and met up with Molly. After ordering drinks downstairs, we migrated upstairs for some GREAT dancing.  When we felt that that had gotten too crowded, we walked over to Admo and stopped by our mainstay, Brass Monkey. We remarked that the crowd there seemed very young (making us, young professionals two tiny years removed from graduation, feel very old), but we had no problem throwing the towel in early and dragging our old lady selves home.  I left with more dignity than the three girls who tumbled from a stool and hit the ground hard, undoubtedly flashing some people in their too-short skirts.  So I think that, although we felt like grandmas for leaving early, we left with our dignity (and our clothes) intact.

Sunday was largely a lazy day, but I did get the chance to Skype with Kate (yay!) and then meet up with Colleen and Jess at a wine bar, which was really nice.  I loved getting the chance to catch up with the two of them, especially considering the imminence of their respective departures from DC. It was a great ending to an overall lovely weekend!

Also, Sunday was Mother's Day (duh)!  I didn't end up going over to my parents' since I had spent so much time there this weekend, but I talked to my mom oh, I don't know, five or six times on the phone.  My appreciation for my mother has absolutely grown since my college years and, while we are dramatically different in certain respects, I consider her to be one of my best friends, and I love her beyond description.  The fact that I am just a metro ride away from she and my dad is an indescribable blessing, and I feel lucky every day that I have such an amazing mother who is beautiful both inside and out.

I hate to end my post on a serious note, but I wanted to briefly mention a serious issue.  On Saturday night, someone very close to me was mugged.  This person is physically unharmed, but is still very much affected emotionally by the gravity what happened to them.  I have personally been very shaken by this incident as well, and want to urge everyone, especially those of you who live in a big city, to not walk home by yourself at night.  I know that it can be easy to give in to the temptation walking to avoid paying for a cab, but it is proven, at least in D.C., that there is a rise in crime in the summer months.  So please, be particularly vigilant, and don't put yourself in a potentially dangerous situation by walking by yourself, especially in a neighborhood that is unfamiliar to you, and MOST especially if you have been drinking.