Mold be gone!

Yes! We are finally free of the rancid, no doubt illness-inducing, spore-ridden mold from the bathroom ceiling! When we moved in, the ceiling there was all peely and moldy (brown AND black). But now, a guy (no, I am not being sexist, Will ran into him yesterday) apparently came in and now the ceiling is white!

We just moved up in the world.

Edumacation

So, I sent out over 600 envelopes of resident statements in the last day. Good thing I got a college education.

Going back to school doesn't seem so bad afterall. In fact, I am really looking forward to it.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

We should have cleaned up a little before I took this picture! Sometimes it is cleaner.

Oh boy, I am a sap! I am so excited for Christmas, for getting gifts for people and spending time with friends and going back to Seattle! Will and I set up a fake tree and ornaments and such that were kindly left here by the former resident of this apartment. Now it really is Christmas! I hope that people out there aren't being too inundated with Christmas music. I am enjoying it at this point, at least!

Thanksgiving has come and gone!

The Buffet

Will's Plate

Leslie Preparing

Will and Greg

Dinner!

Thanksgiving at Will's aunt Leslie's was very nice. We had lots of delicious food. Now, of course everyone always over-eats at Thanksgiving, but I took it to a new extreme this time. I was in pain for at least 2 hours after dinner because I ate too much. I certainly learned my lesson! We celebrated with some of Will's extended step-family along with some of Leslie's friends. Everyone and everyone was great!

Last night, we went out to The Brickskeller, which has the world's largest selection of beer. I would like to note that beforehand, I played 3-way cribbage with Steve and Will and I skunked BOTH of them. HA! :)

Old Pictures to Catch Up a Little

Will, Will's Mom Karen, Becky, Christine, and Leslie

Will, Alex, Steve, Collin, and Dre

Kristen

Funny sign at the anti-war protest in September

Christine, Leslie, Kristen, and Will

The Washington Monument from Key Bridge, on my way to work

Will with jumbo pizza from Adams Morgan in DC

Pictures from Boston!

Kristen playing pool at elite Harvard club, 11/19/05

Will, Kristen, and David, 11/19/05

Oliver, David, and Will chugging their Sake Bombs

Kristen in the Boston Commons, 11/18/05

David, Oliver, and Will at John Harvard's, 11/18/05

David and Kristen with friends in Boston

Jake, Caitlin, Oliver, Will, David, Kristen at Japanese restaurant

David and Stephi in Boston

I am officially smart! (apparently)

I just found out that I got into at least one graduate school starting in January for Applied Mathematics. This is an amazing thing because I did not get into George Washington, which is a significantly worse school. I had myself convinced that I would not be getting into grad school in the spring.
So, I could be headed toward getting a PhD at University of Maryland in a few months. Now, according to a 2002 US News ranking (which doesn't necessarily mean much), this program is I think 11th in the country. You might note that this is a better ranking than is listed for both Harvard and University of Washington, among other schools.

I have one more school that I do not know about, and that is George Mason University, for a PhD in Computational Sciences and Informatics. I am in Boston right now. Will and I have been touring Boston, a beautiful and, compared to DC, homey-feeling city with TONS of college students. It has a very historical yet not enormous feeling here (like it feels like in DC with all the huge buildings). The point being, I can't check my mail until tomorrow when I fly back to DC. I will find out then, hopefully, more details out about the impending semester and whether or not I got into George Mason.

I have been able to see and stay with David from Whitman this weekend, which has been tons of fun. Will got to hang out with Oliver, his friend from St Andrews, who has a great sense of humor. It has been really a perfect trip and I am sad that I have to fly out tomorrow morning, and even sadder that I have to go to work shortly after that flight! But, Thanksgiving is soon! Will and I will be testing our pumpkin cooking skills in order to bring both pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread to festivities at Will's step-aunt's house. Wish us luck!

Anyway, I need to go to bed since I have to get up just as early as ever tomorrow and it is getting quite late! Thanks for reading and thanks for everyone's support in this whole education thing! I will put out some pictures later.

Settling In?

Maybe that is what is happening: settling in. I have been here for... nearly two months. Wow! I got a job on my fourth day of being here and started on the fifth. In a way, I settled very quickly. However, it takes a lot of time to get used to such a different place and different living situation. For example, it is difficult to get used to not having many familiar "safe" places around, or having friends to go visit whenever I want. I suppose that this is growing up.

Not much is planned for the weekend. It is so hard to get up all week long for work because I am so tired, but today, when I could have slept the ENTIRE day if I wanted, I got up at 8:30am. Now, that is really growing up. But I make no promises about changing my sleeping habits permanently. I can still sleep in like the best of them.

When we went to Holocaust Museum recently I saw a book in the gift shop that I really liked the look of. I ended up ordering it online and have started reading it lately (along with teaching myself C++!). It is called The Racist Mind and I find it very interesting, though also very frightening.

Will and I watched "American History X" last night because he said it was about the same issues. It was a very powerful and disturbing movie. I can't say that I would ever watch it again, but it is a good thing to learn about so that it won't happen.
I am not sure what is so intriguing about the topic of racism. Some would probably find it odd that I want to read about it. I think it is the fact that it is so illogical and unreasonable. And really, when it comes down to it, I think that most people who "hate" someone only hates them from afar. They have little to no interaction with that people, making it very easy to hate them and scapegoat them. I don't mean to stand on my pedestal here... it is just something that I struggle to understand because I just don't understand it.

Anyway, that is obviously a huge and loaded topic, and I am only scratching the surface (or maybe just poking at it even). On the lighter side, the sun is out and it is supposed to be in the 60's today. It is so much colder in Seattle! I might meet some senators tonight at a BBQ for Will's work, and other than that, I need to go to the grocery store and do some cleaning! How's that for an exciting weekend?!

First Blog Entry Ever!

Hello World!

After stalking various old friends via blog for awhile now, I realized, Wait, I could make a blog too, possibly even have my own blog-stalkers. Plus it seems easier for people to check a blog than to receive emails from me with updates.

I am living in Arlington, VA right next to downtown DC with my boyfriend. I am working for Redbrick Partners, LP as a general assistant-type and it is going well! One of my bosses is from Seattle and his daughter attends Holy Names currently (my high school alma mater) and his wife teaches there! He goes back to Seattle about once a month. The people at work are very nice and fun, though it is a very small office and so I don't exactly know a lot of people.

It has been cool to tour and run and generally live around places I have always heard about (i.e. famous monuments and such). I regularly run through Georgetown (also where I work, it is like the University Village times a million!), by the Lincoln Memorial, and other various major monuments. I go by the White House occasionally, and I live right next to the US Marine Corps Memorial (aka "Iwo Jima"). Everyone here is a transplant so it is hard to generalize about people. Yes, everyone dresses professionally, but there are also college students which helps to bring down the high powered feeling a little. People can be very friendly since they are from everywhere and anywhere! It is very international which is cool. I counted once on the way home from work. I walked by a bunch of people and like 3/4 of the conversations I heard were not in English. Of course, that was in Georgetown which is very touristy. But still.

News right now is that I ran my first race since high school this morning with Will. We did the Veterans' Day 10K and though my time was of course slower than in high school, I pleasantly surprised myself and hope to keep doing races on the weekends and running regularly. There has been some talk of a marathon in the near-ish future (read: next couple of years) and I am excited about that too! See results.

On another note, Will and I are flying to Boston in November! I will get to visit David from Whitman, Will will visit Oliver from St. Andrews (and Harvard) and we will both get to visit a cool city that we have never been to before. Very exciting. We also hope to go to New York in December before heading home for Christmas.

Note: I will be in Seattle from December 22nd to January 7th. I am very excited to be back in the land of the green, the laid-back, the friendly and the familiar, even if only for 2 weeks. I want to hike, run, eat, visit, go out for New Years', go up Mailbox and possibly Tiger, and run the Fat Ass (but the 25km version).

Please feel free to email me and tell me what you are up to! I miss my friends and family dearly and I tend to rely heavily on the computer and internet to help keep me connected.