Mississippi on the Mall, etc.

fun summer flowers!

Then end of this week was awesome! Work was great Wednesday and Thursday because I got to do several things that I hadn't done before. I went to some cool hearings AND made me CSPAN debut-- big deal.

Friday morning I watched the U.S. world cup game (hopefully we'll come out with a win on Wednesday!) and then spent the afternoon at the Holocaust Museum. I was really glad to have the chance to go but it was tough to see the reality of what happened.

Julie (thanks for coming to visit!), Val, and I at MS on the Mall

That evening we had a DC Area MSU Alumni Association reception at Penn Quarters. It was so fun to get to visit with alums who are here in town and to see Dr. Abraham and his wife Mrs. Patsi! We have a great group of alumns in town so it was special to all get together before MS on the Mall Saturday. Before we left, we all sang "Hail, Dear Old State"... I felt like I was back in Starkville! haha Two school friends were in town so we all went to Georgetown for dinner and hung out with them!

On Saturday, Valerye, Lauren, and I went to the National Art Gallery for a few hours... It was amazing! I can't wait to go back and spend more time there. Our whole crew met up that afternoon for Mississippi on the Mall, a huge picnic put on by the Mississippi Society! They had McAllister's sweet tea (sweet tea is hard to come by up here-- as Cat Randall will tell you!), catfish and other southern food. We stayed at the picnic all afternoon just hanging out with other Mississippi folks. It was great to get to see everybody and have a little taste of home. The best part of the afternoon was before we left, Cat went to get her 5th (yep, fifth) refill of tea and the girl working just gave her a gallon jug that was left over!!

Cat Randall loves her sweet tea!

We wrapped the weekend up with church this morning at Capitol Hill Baptist. The sermon was wonderful and, as always it was so encouraging to fellowship with other believers and be taught from the Word. I'm so thankful to have friends here who want to be in church. As always, the Lord provides!

editor's note: for another/better synopsis of MS on the Mall, visit my dear friend (and Chi Omega sister) Caroline's blog!

My Soundtrack

Since I got a new computer, I don't have much music on it and I've kind of forgotten how much I love music... Now I'm a really big music person. I have music on all the time. One of my friends, Emily, is a member of a gym and she brought me to "bring a friend night" at her gym! Being the music lover that I am, I brought my ipod with my old music library on it. I was getting tired so I turned on the ipod and shuffle took care of me. Here's the playlist of the day:

Everyday- Live at Fenway Park- Dave Matthews Band

Manhattan- Kings of Leon

Brown Eyes- Andy Davis

Warehouse- Under the Table and Dreaming, Dave Matthews Band

Taper Jean Girl- Kings of Leon

Everybody's Working for the Weekend

This weekend was so much fun! Virginia, Sarah, and Kathrine came to visit for Virginia's 21st birthday. It was really great to get to catch up with them. Friday afternoon we went to this really great event called "Jazz in the Park". On Friday afternoons the Smithsonian Sculpture Garden hosts this event and there's a band and tons and tons of people... I mean tons of people. Grace and I walked around for about 30 minutes before we found a spot to land! It was totally worth it though! Ben and Hunter came to meet us and we ended up getting to see Braxton and Elizabeth Coombs. We stayed in the park until 9:30 when they closed.

Me, V Wegs, G Craig at Jazz in the Garden

Saturday we all met  up and watched the U.S. v. England world cup game at a bar in Eastern Market. It was a really fun crowd and I loved watching the game! We all ate dinner for Virginia's birthday at Vapiano's- this really great Italian place. It was fun to explore DC and continue to get to know the city better.

The girls cheering on the US!

Drew's birthday was Sunday and so, as promised, here are a few pics from his birthday present (a "shot book" of Drew's friends wishing him a happy birthday via photos)... my favorite part was getting random people on the metro to take pics with the sign!

 

Office Space

After my first full week of work, I am nothing short of thankful. The girl and two guys with whom I'm working have been so fun and welcoming! They are so patient when I ask a million questions (that's barely exaggerating) and always take me along if they are going somewhere in the building I may not have been to yet. I am really excited about spending the summer getting to know them! I hope that the jobs I do will lift a little bit of the burden from them and be a help-- since we work on the minority side, the 3 of them do the same work about 8 staffers do for the majority side.

I have a very nice table where I work and throughout the week I got more and more technology. I started with just the table on Monday, got the computer on Tuesday, and got internet on Wednesday afternoon! By Thursday I was hard at work on my first project which was very exciting.

Our group of interns has started to get really close, which I'm loving! The MS Society has a softball team so we all went and hung out at the Mississippi Mudcats game and ended up all eating dinner together Thursday night. Several of us also went to a Bible Study specifically for interns at Capitol Hill Baptist this past week. I had my day off Friday so my weekend began a little early! I spent Thursday night making my contribution to my good friend Drew's birthday present... It was a lot of fun and I'll post some pictures here after he gets his present (I don't want to spoil the suprise!).

Take Me Out to the Ballgame!

It’s been a great first weekend in DC! Saturday I slept in a little bit and went for a run before lunch. I love living on Capitol Hill because I get to run around all of these beautiful buildings! Even at the end of July I don’t think I will be used to seeing the Capitol Dome, the Library of Congress, and the Supreme Court every day. When I ran Saturday there were people touring everywhere; it was funny to not be one of the people touring!


Sidenote: I think it’s really interesting that the Botanical Garden is right down the hill from the Capitol—I think Thomas Jefferson and our other “farmer” forefathers would be proud.


Saturday afternoon Valerye, Cat, Emily, Lauren, Nathan, Ben, Steven, and myself took the metro to what we thought was Baltimore… We didn’t think about the fact that just because the train took us to Maryland, it didn’t necessarily take us to Baltimore. We hadn’t done enough research to know that a shuttle came to the station so we split up into 2 cabs to head to Camden Yards! A $60 cab ride later, we were there. We made it to the Camden Yards (proudly designed by an MSU architecture grad and Kappa Delta sister of Lauren’s haha), though and got to watch my BoSox beat the Orioles!! It was my first Sox game and we got to see Papelbon warming up in the bullpen… it was great! We made it home late that night but travelled for a lot less than we did on the way out.

Top to Bottom: and I supporting the Sox; the girls at the game; 2 Bulldogs, Craig Tatum (Orioles Catcher) and Jonathan Papelbon (Red Sox Pitcher), talking after the game.


This morning we went to church at Capitol Hill Baptist Church that’s just a few blocks from TMH! One of the girls I’ll work with, Elyse is a member there and we met her there. They are renovating the church and it was packed. It was so encouraging to get to worship with some of my friends and other believers. They had a lunch for interns and an interns Bible Study will start Tuesday! I’m excited about hopefully getting involved with that.


Tonight we visited Grace DC, another church I had heard great things about. They had about 20 new members join and a baptism! That was also encouraging to see God working in the local church and bringing  people to make commitments to His church. We had dinner at Chop’t- this really great salad place, then headed home! 

Workin’ 9 to 5… kind of

Disclaimer: As part of my conversion to the PC world, I’ve decided that I would write this post on the Windows Live Writer program… with that said, please forgive any crazy formatting that may be part of this post!

My first days of work were really great! Since we were just getting started, we haven’t gotten any big assignments yet. One funny thing we did on the first day was a scavenger hunt around the Capitol and Senate buildings! I know all looked hilarious trying to navigate the different buildings and the train system that runs between the 3 office buildings and the capitol… at one point my group cut through the loading dock of the Hart Building—not part of the scavenger hunt!

On Friday we got off lunch early and several of us ate lunch at 7th Hill Pizza- delicious. A group of 8 of us walked over to Eastern Market  for lunch and we landed at 7H, I’m so glad we did! I would recommend trying the Love Bread (a flat bread with parmesan, and oregano along with a few other toppings that has a hint of lemon juice—excellent!)

We went and explored Alexandria later that day and ended up back in Georgetown for the night.  Needless to say, I feel like I know the metro system pretty well now! Even though we spent a long time “en route”, it was great to see my friends who are living and working in George Town! Looking forward to the rest of this weekend!

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

 After a day of travelling (flying Jackson to Baltimore, train from Baltimore to Union Station, cab from Union to Thompson-Markward) I am all settled into my "humble abode" at Thompson-Markward Hall (TMH)! I was very thankful to have Cat Randall on the trip with me- she's a great travelling buddy. Even though were looked ridiculous with our 2 huge bags (2 bags each), the trip was very easy... I wish that I had counted how many times people asked us where we were going and for how long- there were several. One sweet older man decided to take us under his wing and made sure he pointed us in the direction of the taxis before we parted ways at Union Station (I'm pretty sure he thought Cat and I had never left Mississippi before ha).


 Three friends from State were already moved into TMH so we got to eat dinner together and catch up on how their internships were going. I'm really excited about the group of friends already up here!


 Here are some pics of the room... big thanks go to Emily for having a duvet cover I was able to use and to Mom for keeping it! It definitely served to brighten up the room. I also have a nice garden view from my window!

One last side note-- the original plan for this weekend was to take a bus to New York for the MS Picnic in Central Park but I don't think that's the plan anymore. I'm not too bummed though because some people are taking the train to Baltimore on Saturday for (drum roll please...) the Red Sox/Orioles game!! Yes, the BoSox are playing a series 30 minutes away. I'm so glad I brought my Ortiz jersey-T. 

Leaving on a Jet Plane/Be the Change

I'm packing up to leave for DC tomorrow! Just wanted to share a song that I heard this morning and it always inspires me... So thanks to the Disney Channel for providing this great motivational music. I hope you enjoy it- go change the world.

Send It On