Friday, June 27, 2008

Dad's views of Lake Serene hike

A less snowy view of Lake Serene trail. Amazing difference in less than month!

I wish I had forgotten longer. . .

After a day yesterday of stomach revolt, today I played it close, trying to rest and sleep and eat nothing. I still don't know what set off a truly uncomfortable episode, and while the nausea seemed gone today I still didn't feel up to par stomach wise. Even just drinking full glasses of liquid was beyond me. But I did make it out of the house for a brief period and managed to eat a bowl of soup, which is 1 meal more than yesterday. The knots in my muscles are less than appreciated and lend weight to the theory that the whole thing can be laid at a virus's door. Thank the Lord that the body is capable of healing, even when its not as fast as one would like.

Which leads me tomorrow, which I was hoping to take to lay low in preparation for Sunday in New York, moving Samantha and her ridiculous multitude of books down to DC. Fortunately (/unfortunately) I just realized I am taking another practice MCAT tomorrow. Great news for later. Sucks right now. Pray for recuperative sleep and a stomach that doesn't feel completely unglued tomorrow.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Samantha and Malia's new apartment 2

Outside view!

Samantha and Malia's new apartment 1

A look at the living room/dining nook.

New apartment pictures, the quick and the dirty.

A new kitchen, with new appliances (including a cabinet mounted microwave and dishwasher, what luxury!). The apartment building is old, with wood floors, and lots of space. I will definitely need to bring some color and life to my room, which is much less light than my old studio, but the living room and dining nook are quite light filled. But I definitely see lots of up lamps moving in after I get a secured income (still working the post-mcat job aspect). Pray that I would find something that would keep me comfortably and still be enjoyable.

And now. . .

Samantha and I found an apartment this weekend. I really like the look of it all. The location is near my old apartment, but off of Wisconsin Ave. The view can't compare but hey, the back side of the Russian Embassy can't be all bad, can it? Suprisingly the rent was the most reasonable for the any area we actually wanted to live. I did find something cheaper, but Samantha refused to get out of the car to look at it. So we decided it might not work to live there.

Here on the pictures and a videos will follow.


Ok, this is not our view, but it is a pretty cool part of DC Chinatown.
And this also isn't our view, but I did enjoy reminding myself of some of the completely amazing things about living in DC.
This is our view, or part of it and while not as completely awesome as the first two, or even my old view, it is still a pretty acceptable. Samantha preferred the ground floor retaining wall view, but I vetoed that.
And if this view from the apartment isn't good enough for you, at least think, at least it isn't this view. My feet are functional and great. But the tan line hardly adds the necessary je n'ai sais quoi. After an arduous weekend of hunting apartments, we drove out to Chain Bridge and the Potomac Gorge (I will take pictures next time, I promise). Then we returned to the District and parked to join the Smithsonian Folklife festival, which unfortunately starts this week, not this weekend. What we completely missed was the HUGE, HUGE Capital Cookoff that was going on North of the Mall, with large sections of Pennsylvania avenue closed off. I was bummed to have settled for a brownie in the sculpture garden, but I did get to dip my feet in the fountain!

Return to MCAT's tomorrow!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Those moments

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
- Kurt Vonnegut

When stress shouldn't be a problem but apparently rules your life? Yuck. I lost my keys today. I found them again too, but for an hour fear ran my stomach. Its ridiculous. All the keys were replaceable. But I was still driving myself nuts. Thank the Lord that the car rental place had them from yesterday. I guess I was so focused on leaving and getting away from the sketchy 5 foot tall high pressure sales guy that I just booked it out of there. All worked out to everyone's satisfaction.

MCAT study continues. I went to Georgetown for class last night instead of Howard and found the smaller class size incredibly helpful. It really increased the interaction available. It will foul up my time schedule a bit in taking the test, but I think I will learn and remember more. The class is older as a whole, so I am thinking that will help as well. More my peer age group.

Samantha is coming down this weekend to look at apartments since she received a job offer this week. I think she is pleased about moving down here, but this job sound high stress. Another teaching job. Hopefully we will all survive. Moving in with her will definitely save us both moving for long term living and make commuting easier for me, but I will miss the family interaction and discount living I am getting at Hope's. Cross your fingers and pray (which ever you do) and hope that this living situation, everything life-related, is the right decision. I still have lots of nerves. Yuck, again.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

There's something about the Blommer

The science library at GU, that is. It just makes me want to write! Most obviously about myself and anything else I can think of. However today I actually have news and fun stories to tell!

Starting with yesterday. I went on an interview with my cousin Hope's company. It went really well. I enjoyed meeting the different company recruiters and dressing up to look the part. Office attire is so fun. The interview process lasted two and a half hours, though it was fairly free form, so its not like I was being grilled under lamps for that long. Although there was brief mention of finding salt and pepper.

By that time, I needed to catch a bus into town (it was in Mclean) and make the switch so Hope could have a car to come home in. I arrived barely ontime to my first MCAT prep course (ExamKrackers) and found out no the class or teacher. I hung out talking to another kid waiting, a 5th year senior from University of Missouri named Osa. After the interview, I was primed to make friends and connections with strangers.

The class, unfortunately, which was to have started at 2pm had been moved to 6pm. This was something I had been trying to avoid because it made commuting out to Dulles area of northern Virginia impossible. But I stuck around the District, shopped Marshall's and Target at Columbia Heights and ended up with a really cute pair of shoes, which placed different blisters on my feet than the ones I was wearing. It thundered and lightening royally and had started to spit rain about the time I moved from eating a sub for lunch to drinking Starbucks coffee (grande skinny vanilla, as always).

The torrents of sheeting rain had tapered to a soaking pour by the time I left to catch the Metro back to campus. But the walk to the Howard campus was several blocks. Even though I had time, I decided not to wait for the bus. I was going to enjoy the rain. Even though my glasses were impenetrable from rain drops and my nice ironed shirt (lets face it, it had already been had!) was completely soaked. I was very thankful I had worn a small cami underneath, since I would a been showing more than I am normally comfortable with! I had no hope of arriving anything less than looking like a drowned rat, when a Prius stopped at the curb and the man inside rolled down the window. I was a little sketched out until an umbrella was outstretched. I laughed and said, "you feel that bad for me? Thank you so much." I think I heard a "your welcome" from the car as it immediately pulled away from the curb, the window not even beginning to roll up yet. It was a wonderful thing to do and made my day. Probably even my week.

The class turns out to have been a sponsored one for Howard University students, so there were only three of us who did "belong." It also meant we were the three who had paid the most for the course! But though I think pretty much everything I learn in the class will be redundant, the repetition is exactly what I need to totally kick the MCAT out of the park, which I feel is a real possibility.

Class ran long. I ended leaving before it was done. I am guessing it continued for at least 20 more minutes. I had a bus to catch that left L'Enfant Plaza at 10:38, which I hadn't anticipated being problematic. Well, it was. Trains take longer at night. And guess what? The exit to the correct corner (D and 7th) was completely closed. When I left the Metro station the clock said 10:35pm. I started running up the escalator. And thought I had had gotten lost in a mall or something. Luckily I chucked my pride and asked for directions from a security guard right there because even after running down the block (in heels with blisters no less) I just barely made the bus. They were about to pull out. Since it was the last bus of the night, and it already arrived at 11:30 pm, I was completely sunk for public transportation if I missed it. Praise the Lord, I made it. It made for a long day, pretty rough. And I can't express my thanks to Hope enough for staying awake and about long enough to come get me at the bus stop, especially since she had to be up early this morning to leave for another round of work.

Thank you, Hope. For the many helps.

Lastly, a funny story from my best friend, who suffers through the trials and tribulations of being a middle school teacher in the Bronx for only 11 more days of school. Two years over with. Maybe they were well spent. I know you sure feel spent. So during the course of staff meeting with all the teachers, her principal notes that "she helps out with all the children on all 8 continents." For those of you not perfectly remembering your fifth grade geography and counting slowly in your mind (as I did) making certain that what just sounds wrong actually is wrong. There are 7 continents, and she is probably only involved with helping children on the 6 inhabited ones. Apparently now the teachers at the school talk about the outreach to penguin children.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

my new favorite game at yahoo

Its embarassing to admit how much I enjoy the mindlessness of this game! Tomorrow is my interview. Should be good fun! (Harhar!)

http://games.yahoo.com/free-games/hot-dog-bush

TMI to totally nothing . . .

Yes, just focusing on MCAT prep, living at my cousin Hope's, and not being required to constantly check assignments online has moved me from telling everyone, everything, all the time to nothing, rarely and never. Its not all entire intentional. I have been puttering around with few terribly exciting developments. I started taking practice MCATs. My first today went entirely well and I have 5 more practice ones to go, so its all only going up! I hoping that my amazing, fantastic unbelievable score will carry me easily through admissions, although I am not holding my breath for that. I start seriously ear marking my AAMC book which lists schools and with various pertinent information. I am excited beyond belief but prayerful. In an admissions environment which keeps saying that they are not relying as heavily on MCATs, I am hoping for a more in that direction, even! Oy.

That's pretty much my life right now, along with applying for jobs. I am interviewing on Monday, but the position is entirely non-medical, which is an obvious drawback. Pray and hope that something wonderful will come along here soon. I have a little bit of breathing room for studying thanks to my parents (wonderful parents!) gently encouraging me and backing me up for it.

Family life around the Benitez-Murphy-Everheart "clan" has had some ups and downs recently. My cousin's son graduated from high school today, the first of the younger generation. Payton and Hailey (another part of my "cousin's-children" generation, and my generous house sharers at the moment) have just about finished the regular soccer season. Though Hope has the joy tomorrow of sharing her wedding anniversary with Father's day and one last soccer tournament day. Hailey has been off and on sick, however, for the last two weeks and capped off today's long but successfully rainy day by a round of stomach upset. All five who live in this house pray that this bug remains quarantined and short.

Ok, now that is pretty much my life. Although I do have the joy of extending congratulations next Saturday to a long time friend getting married. And perhaps more importantly (just kidding) she is moving in the DC area. That makes two new DC additions. Hurrah for recruiting people to the crazy weather, pretty but weird DC.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

In the midst of storm there is a rainbow


This does no justice to the weather yesterday. I biked to Dulles airport from Hope's to catch a bus into the district. Shortly after everyone got on the bus, the rain started sheeting down. At one point all the cars on the toll way were pulled off because visibility was so bad. Several tornadoes touched down in the area and many areas were without power last night. I waited for almost an hour and a half for the bus as the line of customers lengthened. The orange metro line which runs west lost electrical power between two key commuter stations. Though they promised to shuttle passengers, one bus rider said the scene was chaos and that there were thousands milling around waiting for the shuttles. That made the bus line to the airport which also services the Herndon Monroe Park and Ride an easier, if not faster, way home for many who live out in the boonies near Dulles (sorry, guys, it really is far out here! Not saying its not pretty!) When we finally waded through traffic, the rain again started up. My brilliant plan to bike home again was foiled. Thankfully Hope came to pick me up. We stopped at Wegmann's for dinner where this rainbow shot was taken. Quite pretty, yes?

Monday, June 2, 2008

Last night with a view. . .

I have been achingly slowly (or so it seems) cleaning and packing my apartment to move. Tomorrow I will remove the last pieces and return the keys. Moving makes me extremely melancholy. This one perhaps more so since the life I have lived in this space has not been shared daily. It was just my apartment.

So I sit on the floor, watching Wedding Singer on DVD, wondering how I am going to get all the last odds and ends into my rental Ford Focus, considering whether the hassel of the small pieces left are really worth the price and trouble that they present (can I throw away the syrup just because I am annoyed by trying to fit everything in?). Two giant bulging IKEA bag represent the laundry I need to do. A two fragile lamps, potted herbs, a tv and salvaged tv stand, a suitcase full of mostly organized and clean clothes, a vacuum cleaner. An entire dish set and silverware. As I write I realize how much stuff there still is to go. Including my bike, which won't fit well with any of the other things. Time to go to sleep, I guess. How did I collect this much stuff in one year?