Food

I can't stop thinking about it lately.

First, I read Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter by Phoebe Damrosch. She describes working in one of the best restaurants in the nation, and describes it as something pretty irresistible. The attention to detail and every wish of their clients is almost stunning. It really makes me want to go to a restaurant like it sometime in my life, even if it means blowing two weeks of pay on a few hours of eating.

Then I saw Julie & Julia while visiting Katie last weekend, which if you don't know, is all about the famous Julia Child and a blogger trying to cook all of her original recipes in one year. It's definitely not a traditional plot-type movie, but is quite well done and hard to look away from (especially when Merryl Streep is on screen). Once again, they tout an exquisite attention to detail and the joy that food can bring into a situation. I came home from the movie and have wanted to get dirty in the kitchen ever since. I want to be good at it, which is something I doubt will happen until I am old enough to have my own well-stocked kitchen and time to spend in it.

C and I have been planning a kitchen session soon, and it should be fun. But I couldn't wait that long. Decided to go after an easy recipe today and see how it turned out. Someone in my family had mentioned how bad banana bread is for you, so it was a natural choice. After tinkering with the recipe enough to cover the slight inadequacies of my kitchen's supply cabinet and to include some blueberries I was craving, it was done in no time.
It went pretty well. I didn't do a great job transferring it to the baking pan and let the blueberries be mostly on the bottom, and the bread part turned out a little dry and not quite banana-y enough for me, but it's still some good Chocolate Chip Blueberry Banana Bread. Heat it up and toss on some butter and it's heavenly.

(Almost) everyone is off camping and enjoying themselves. I am not. I am sad about this. I am also quickly coming to realize just how little time I have left in my summer. I will be moved into my new (shitty) dorm room by this time two weeks from now. I spent most of the day in a brooding emo angst session, partly without good reason and partly because of stuff with K I just can't quite bring myself to let go (and other stuff I don't want to think about but can't stop myself from). Do I need to learn to give less of myself?

I want everyone back from camping and I want to see people more. Particularly the other C, who I feel like I have been missing all summer after really looking forward to more time with her. She could explain away this angst, I have no doubt.

"I hate laziness. I hate excuse-making. I hate rationalization and self-bullshitting. I hate willful ignorance. I hate watching people piss away their potential. I hate it when people blame everyone but themselves. I hate mental weakness."

Anonymous quote wins.

Four Letter Words

My mind seems full of them.

Currently in upstate New York at the family Camp I go to most summers. A place full of an infinite number of good memories for me. And yet it seems to have lost some of its magic. There have been flashes of brilliance during the week, but also long slogs through monotonous annoyances. What's been going on this week barely resembles what I recall so fondly from my childhood.

Maybe it's just because I was more ignorant then, but I don't think I had fully realized how separate my immediate family is from a lot of the extended family we run into here often. In terms of mindset and life situation, mostly. My brother seems to fall closer to the cousins than to myself and my parents. Can't wait to be rid of him for a while again.

I've decided summer sucks in comparison to shorter school breaks like Christmas and spring break. Everyone gets to encapsulated in doing their own thing that it feels nowhere as cohesive and is simply not as fun. Although I do love the chance to get back into umpiring. Even that is kind of annoying when I realize that the work I am doing and my upward movement in the organization could all be forgotten once I stop coming home every summer. Which could be after this one.

It's weird. At the same time I realize that I am enjoying Camp less than in years past, the only thing I can think about is introducing another to the experience. It would be incredibly different to bring someone, but I have decided it would be much better? Maybe?

I have never been good at living in the moment. Which I think helps me considerably professionally, but isn't the most fun trait currently in other ways.

Summer Sucks

So far.

No job, just parents hassling me extensively every day about trying to get one and failing.

Less fun. Less adventure. Ugh.

Fake Summer Vacation

It's been a while since I've blogged. That is the duration of my happiness, basically. Now that I am in a foul mood I can return to the medium with a proper amount of angst.
Visiting Katie in Santa Barbara was fantastigreat. I spent around 5 days in the sun/fog enjoying both her and her friends. The meeting of the parents went pretty well (duh) and I felt like a part of her friend group surprisingly easily. I guess I have been well-trained for hanging out with a bunch of semi-obnoxious girls. Plus, I keep discovering that Katie and I have more in common than I thought. Basically our families are near identical matches for each other, just shifted a little older. It's nice.

It was a nice relief to have the (stretched out) visit go well, too. The first half hour after I arrived was definitely a little weird, if only to be seeing her outside of DC. It was sort of like we both had no idea what we were supposed to be doing and couldn't tell if the other person was the same off-campus. Luckily we got past that and had a blast for the next five days. Which I spent pretty much all of in her presence without tiring of her. Fantastic.

Also shitty due to the whole her-going-abroad-all-of-next-year thing. But I'm not thinking about that yet. Or so I keep telling myself.

Can't wait for her to come up here in a couple weeks and see how she fits in with you all. Will be interesting to watch, at least. (CS2 knows how true this is for me.)
Umpiring has been weird this year. There's an old umpire saying, which is that people expect you to, "be perfect on day one and keep getting better." I missed over half of the season, which is normally the time when everyone is working out kinks. Now I am still in that stage of slight discomfort with my mechanics and inability to focus while everyone else is geared up for the post-season. I have a couple more games this week, then a week off before the important games start. Hopefully I can get both the physical and mental stuff worked out before then and rock out when the time comes. This may be the first time I've ever had any doubts that would happen.

I'm really excited for everyone to be home. Good luck on your finals and (quick!) trips home.

What 2nd Semester Was

This post is a follow up to this one.

Okay, so my predictions weren't great, but they weren't terrible either. Not too shabby overall, I'd say.

While a full class schedule and an internship three days a week was definitely quite a bit to handle, I got through it with minimal damage to my GPA. Learned some new skills because of it too, chief among them being how to function on 5-6 hours of sleep a night. Important for someone in my (hopeful) line of work! The internship was a high point though, not a low one as I had predicted. Ended up being that work days weren't hard to wake up for and I really enjoyed myself. I was right that I would make plenty of connections, but way off on the cynicism.
While I thought I would be on the low end of the cynical spectrum in the office, it was probably the other way around. Most of the staff wasn't very transparently political and focused on the hard work of their substantive jobs. The amount they actually cared about sappy letters I occasionally passed on to them was quite a bit more than I would be able to show. I think it may have done the opposite of what I thought it would and made me want to be in politics more, but definitely on the campaign side where I am free to be a bit more emotionally detached.

The jaded-ness definitely occured, at least a little bit. By the second half of the internship I didn't get excited to speak with the Congressman on the phone or walk through the winding basement of the Capitol. By my last week I was a bit more into the coolness of it all, as I reminded myself to take it in before my ID got taken away and I no longer had access. Might be a while before I have it back.

I was very correct that I would have a fun spring break, without seeing too many people for much of it. The dual C.S.s made my week a blast. And yeah, I'm getting bored out of my mind waiting for people to return home and looking for a job. Hoping I find one soon. The prospect of a Santa Barbara trip sometime soon is also going to remove some boredom. Yay.

I'm kind of surprised that I errored a little bit on predicting my keeping in touch patterns. Had quite a bit less communication with Cupertino people than during first semester. I guess a lot less contact with GW people too. Just too busy to keep up the same level of chit chat as before. Still miss you guys though and am really looking forward to your shitty quarter system schools ending.

This semester made me realize a bit how much I enjoy delving into classes. First semester I had a lot of fun (looking back) actually doing the huge reading assignments for my poli sci class, going through dense articles for interesting tidbits. This semester pretty much everything I didn't have to do got blown off, and I miss the amount of secondary learning I got before. Still got through classes okay, which makes me wonder how people who are getting Cs in these classes manage to fail at life so hardcore. Not like I'm a hard sciences guy or something that requires actual thought.

Have I changed? Yes. Pretty much no doubt in my mind that I am a (slightly) different person than before. I am both more confident in my professional abilities and more mature. Working in an office (even if it wasn't the most serious one on the Hill) has helped me tone down some of the crap when I need to, while not excluding it from my personality as a whole. I was very glad to see that doing well at MV and GW has translated into being able to work well. This internship definitely hasn't harmed my ego.
And that brings me to the other obvious change, to me. I don't know what all I will have learned from Katie by the end of everything, but I know it'll be interesting and probably quite a lot. At least I'll have some stories, no matter what. Right now isn't the easiest time ever, but I was happier (and busier) for the last month of school than I had been in a long time, and I think that's worth some hardship. Especially when that pain can be anesthetized by a few hours in the car (e.g. sb trip mentioned above). I feel like this summer will be different personally than I would have predicted a couple months ago. Hope it's not a bad decision to pursue this and not other things.

But once again, something needs to pierce my ego. Maybe I'll fail to find a job this summer. Maybe I'll just read this in the morning and that will do the trick.

What 2nd Semester Will Have Been Being

This post was written in the early morning hours of January 4th of this year, looking ahead to what I think this semester will have brought me by its end (now). The title is in future perfect progressive, as it describes the ongoing action of 2nd semester before the specified future time of what is now now. Make sense? Good.

That was a pretty hectic semester. Taking 5 classes and doing an internship a full three days a week probably wasn't the best idea I ever had. The internship started out looking really promising but after a few weeks really devolved into boring monotony. Yeah, I met some really great people and made good connections, but I'm not sure just how much I really want to go into politics as a career now. I have always been cynical but the staff's total detachment from anything at all personal was really something I might want to stay away from.

Was killing myself to take full advantage of the opportunity worth it? I guess so. It's a great story to tell and if I can stand the people then the lifestyle the connections and skills I picked up are going to be pretty useful. Just knowing my way around the halls of Congress is pretty cool, although I have now been around it too much to be amazed by any of that. Maybe I am just as jaded.

It's been way, way, way too long since I have gotten to spend time with friends from home. My mid-march spring break wasn't great for getting to see other people, although the few that I did made that week great. Thanks guys (and girl)! I can't wait for everyone to be home in a couple weeks and for summer fun to begin.

Those of you who I have kept up with via the interwebs and cellular telephones are great and really are the ones who have let me keep going this semester. Big thanks to C, C, J, N, N, M, S (good luck these weeks!), and Z. Our assholic rants, deep thoughts, pep talks, chit chat, hilarity, bro talk, perspective, and amusement, respectively, have been my light. College friends are great, but are only so big in my life, while you all are much more of a rock. Please don't move away.

It's going to be really weird to have a job this summer, along with everyone else. I hope no one picks anything too early in the morning that would interfere with late night antics. Thanksgiving and Christmas were needed breaks from school and I expect you all to come through once again over the long summer. [This is an easy prediction to make. No way this fails.]

Classes went pretty well, but not quite as awesome as 1st semester. Spending so much time at the office didn't so much take away my time to do work as mentally exhaust me and make it so I couldn't do work as well. For how bad it could have been, this was really a pretty good result. Still means dropping the GPA from the resumé (rhymes!) but oh well, at least I have some real work experience to put on there now.

Another sacrifice of the internship was any umpiring I thought I could do while at school. Time to shake off the rust, get back out there, and have some fun. The ability to do games may be a breaking point in finding a job. If I can't be doing too much stuff, what is the point of doing any of it?

Have I changed? I don't really think so. I have a better grasp of my abilities and a bit more maturity when I choose to wield it, but I am the same person the vast majority of the time.

What I have left out may be most telling.

Look for a new post coming soon looking at how I did in my predictions and why. If you read this at all regularly then you probably know a lot of the answers yourself. Fill me in in the comments below.

Quirks

I've been failing at blogging regularly, Some combination of being so busy and enjoying life too much to stop and blog about it. Yes, I am only interesting when I'm sad. Woe is me. But now I feel sick and just want to curl up in my bed instead of studying, so time to blog! GW has swine flu, too, so this could really be a lot of fun.

This past week has been pretty damn crazy. Last day of classes was Tuesday, and I had a ton of stuff due that day, so I ended up staying up till past 4 on Monday night before getting up for my 8 am. Got everything done relatively well and turned in and all, so not too bad.

Then I had to get up extra early on Wednesday to go on a White House tour before heading in to work. Pretty cool place, but a pretty underwhelming tour. Just 6ish ceremonial rooms on the first floor of the east wing. Still glad I got the opportunity to do it through work, though.

Thursday was another fun day as I went into work specially to participate in the tradition of a private lunch for outgoing interns and the congressman they work for. Getting to eat in the Member's private dining room is a nice treat any day, especially when the conversation ends up lasting for over an hour and being very interesting. Add a photo op to the day and it was a nice penultimate day of being on the Hill.

My last day or work on Friday certainly came with mixed emotions. Definitely chose the right time to leave, so I have time to study for finals over the next few days, but I really enjoyed the experience and the people in the office. Always nice to get tons of recommendation offers on your way out the door, too. The internship has both reaffirmed my interest in politics and my desire to work on campaigns more than doing actual governing work.

Things continue to be great with Katie, too, minus some drama with a mutual friend. Oh well, nothing can be perfect. The deadline 6 days from now certainly isn't, but it's the right choice for both of us. Expect a mopey me the first couple weeks of summer (not that most of you will be home anyway).

Shout-out to C for being there and willing to talk about shit recently! Much appreciated. Giggle.