Excuse me Miss, but what exactly are you doing?

This was the greeting I got from a D.C. cop yesterday when I was driving downtown looking for parking after I had picked up my family. He knocked on my window so politely I thought he was going to help me find a parking spot. No, he was knocking on my window to ask me why I had been driving on the left side of the road. I looked at him confused and said "but I thought this was a one way road." I looked to my right and saw a long line of cars being entertained by my mishap and confirmed that there was a double yellow line. I definitely put the car in reverse and backed up half a block to the end of the line my head bowed in shame. Arguably putting myself more at risk than driving on the wrong side of the road.

GRRRRRR

This weekend a couple of things happened that made me feel like I could justifiably be in a bad mood, and I tried hard to be grumpy and here's why:

• Taxes - as if the sucker punch of finding out that I owe the IRS a significant amount of money wasn't enough, technology decided to go ahead and kick me while I was trying to recover and my e-file was rejected twice and I can't figure out why. I just want to give them my money, why won't they take my money. I'm beginning to question the quote Jeanette showed me by Emerson: "The state is a poor, good beast who means best, It is a poor cow that means well by you, do not begrudge it its hay."
  
• New Laptop - I purchased a new dell laptop one month ago, and apparently I should have heeded Grayden's doomsday prophecy because sure enough the operating system failed on Friday and I lost all my data. The good news is that I did only have the laptop for a month so I didn't lose that much and most everything is backed up. The bad news is I only had the laptop a month and it makes me fearful of what is yet to come and of course the warranty is only 21 days. Dell's customer and technical support has been less than accommodating as well.
• Dogs - two of them, I don't really need to say anymore on this.
• Losing to Peter at tennis - it was the only thing I could hold over his head in our rivalry, that I had beat him, now I have nothing and he is the most competitive person I know.
  

I really want to just mope around and be grumpy about all of this, but several things have kept me from jumping off that proverbial bridge.

• The Corry's (Mom, Dad and Steph) are coming to D.C. this week
• I got an A on my midterm and school is over in four weeks
• Serendipitously running into several friends randomly in downtown D.C. the mall and Kabob Palace this weekend
• Roommates who offer to take me for a ride in the bug with the top down and buy me ice cream (but wait I was off sugar this week, it really was the perfect storm of bad events)
• Spring blossoms and warm weather
• This song that Kristjan introduced me to
  
• Haircut and a new dress
• I have a week in Costa Rica to look forward to next month with Sarah and Courtney.
  

Lo siento that I don't have new pictures, but everything is on my other laptop, ugh, remembering the positives, remembering the positives.

The world as my class room...

Recently I've been trying to take advantage of my downtown office location and attend more of the ubiquitous free lunch and dinner seminars and events that are held at different organizations downtown. There are opportunities for education, entertainment and networking in pretty much any field you're interested in. Here are some of the perks: you get to rub shoulders with people who you can name drop later (that's a joke, no one outside of small policy circles would know who these speakers are), yummy free food, learning new, albeit generally useless, facts that may impress your friends later, avoid homework and put myself in uncomfortable social situations.

The uncomfortable social situation one has been a good way to push myself out of my mini-BYU world that I live in because some of these events I have attended alone. I soon realized that it's really hard for me to talk to guys that aren't Mormon. I need to work on building a small talk repertoire that works better for a general crowd. This is how the last couple of conversations with guys I've met at these events has gone: Names, jobs, where we're from, if they're from the west we talk about how we miss the west and differences between east and west, school and then there is two seconds of silence, I freak out and say I've got to go. And by go, I mean go get a mini-quiche and stand alone in the corner and try to avoid further eye contact. Yes I am 26 not 16, but I'm working on this.

Last week I attended a movie and reception for the movie Illicit: The Dark Side of Trade. It was a fascinating film at National Geographic about the illegal trade, which is estimated to total one trillion dollars a year. No small sum, but it talks about the effects on us as consumers of sometimes tainted products and on innovation and creativity if intellectual property cannot be protected. Here's the trailer:

Last night I attended The Human Footprint. This visually showed how much an American will consume in a lifetime. The presentation was creative, but the dramatic effect faded a little after the first twenty minutes, we ended up leaving early. It definitely helps to reinforce the fact that Americans consume a ridiculous amount of energy and goods, but at the same time it can be a little depressing because there's not a whole lot you can do to change the fact that we have to shower, eat and cloth ourselves. But I think we can all take steps to decrease our consumption without negatively affecting our standard of living. Here's the trailer and a few visuals for this film.


I have also been attending lunch events at different think tanks and non profit groups in the district. I will not bore you with anymore details, but I will put in a plug for those of you living in D.C., come learn with me!